The Scarlet Letter and a Lesson in Forgiveness

John Chapter Eight begins with a notation “The Earliest Manuscripts do not include John 7:53-8:11,” I wondered why as I continued reading one of my favorite stories of Christ’s forgiveness. After much searching I discovered that according to Bruce Metzger;
It was absent from important early and diverse New Testament manuscripts. He writes, ‘At the same time the account has all the earmarks of historical veracity. It is obviously a piece of oral tradition which circulated in certain parts of the Western church and which was subsequently incorporated into various manuscripts at various places… Although the Committee was unanimous that [this passage] was originally no part of the Fourth Gospel, in deference to the evident antiquity of the passage a majority decided to print it, enclosed within double square brackets, at its traditional place following Jn. 7.52.’

To me this has always been one of the most profound accounts of Christ’s forgiveness. “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). It is a small account, only nine versus in John Chapter Eight even talk about this adulterous woman. The account does not even appear in all Bibles, but yet the meaning goes so much further than one woman and one affair. The message of John Chapter Eight Versus 3-11 is forgiveness, love, compassion, and setting a clear law of who is responsible for judgment.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of the adulterous woman, Hester Prynne who comes to town as an unwed mother and is forced to wear the scarlet letter ‘A’ upon her dress as a sign of her sin. It is later found out that the town’s very own Reverend Dimmesdale had his own letter ‘A’ scarred into his chest. What we take away from the story is that everyone in the town should have been wearing a scarlet letter of some kind. Everyone sins. It is an inescapable fact of life. We are born, we breath, we sin, we die. It just happens. So for one person to judge another’s life as sinful is simply ridiculous. As the old saying goes, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” When writing The Scarlet Letter there is no doubt that Nathaniel Hawthorne, a writer who often scored his works with many religious references, was familiar with John Chapter Eight, and Hester Prynne was his unnamed adulterous woman and the whole town were the Pharisees, so full of sin themselves, yet never wanting to look at their own hearts only the obvious sin of Hester.

John Chapter Eight begins with Jesus teaching the people at the temple at the Mount of Olives and then the scribes and Pharisees interrupt by bringing a woman unto Jesus that they had found committing adultery. “The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery’” (8:3-4). There are a few things about this scripture that make the Pharisees look bad. First, they are interrupting a lesson that Jesus is teaching the people with their little scheme to trap Jesus into doing something that can be used against Him. Secondly, they only bring the woman. If she was caught in the act of adultery then the man should have been there as well. It is implied that it was a set-up, and that possibly one of the scribes or Pharisees was the irresponsible male that tricked the woman in order to further their plot against Jesus. It is important to note that in Chapter Seven there is a great division among the people. Many believe that Jesus is the Christ while others believe that He is deceiving them and that He is to be arrested. “‘Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?’ This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground” (8:5-6). This was a test, for if Jesus would have stoned the woman surely He would have been arrested for Jews were not allowed to give out such a penalty. However, if He let her go then they would claim Him a breaker of the laws of Moses and He would be condemned either way. Instead He went on writing in the dirt. Soon he stood and said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (8:7). He once again continued to write in the dirt while the other men took their time walking away as they realized that they were not without sin themselves. “But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him” (8:9). It was easy for the men to find someone sinning, but it was impossible for them to find someone not. Finally, once all had left, “Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘ Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more’” (8:10-11). Jesus was left standing there alone, the only one who could say He was without sin, and yet He did not throw the stone. Why then would we, mere sinners ourselves, constantly choose to throw stones at one another? Jesus was without sin, but was full of love, compassion, and forgiveness for the sinner. These versus remind us that while God hates the sins we commit He loves us more than anything. He is willing to forgive us for all we do over and over again. His love knows no boundaries and it never ceases.

The book of John is considered by many to be a love story. John is the fourth Gospel to be found in the New Testament. It tells the story of Jesus. His life, His journey, His death, and His resurrection. It is in John that we learn of the many miracles that Jesus performed. We hear of how He turned water into wine. We learn that He fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. We discover the many that He healed and that He even brought Lazarus back from the dead. We then are faced with the greatest act of love that has ever been committed for us, we read of how Jesus suffered, how He was hung upon a cross to die for our sins. He hung upon that cross and chose to die for the sins of the world, He chose to die for the sins of that adulterous woman that we met back in John Chapter Eight. Jesus took that sin upon His back as He hung on that cross. Everything before that point, everything after that point means nothing compared to what Christ did upon that cross.

The story of the adulterous woman in John Chapter Eight shows only a fraction of the love and forgiveness that Christ offers us all by sacrificing Himself upon the cross. Just as Jesus did not condemn the woman in Chapter Eight, He does not now condemn us, but rather offers us salvation and forgiveness through Him and the sacrifice He made for us at Calvary. The story of the adulterous woman is one of the many stories of Christ’s love and forgiveness that is found in the book of John. It is also one of the many stories of someone betraying Christ that is found in the book of John. Just as the Pharisees were trying to set up Jesus, so too does Judas and Peter. Judas, in John Chapter 18, turns Jesus over to the soldiers. Then later in Chapter 18, Peter denies Jesus the first of three times. Jesus is faced with betrayal and is made to suffer so that we can have forgiveness. In John Chapter 15 Jesus says “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (15:18). I think this is another important aspect of John Chapter Eight. Forgetting for a moment the adulterous woman, because after all she was just a ploy in the Pharisees plot to set up Jesus. In John Chapter Seven is where the controversy surrounding Jesus really begins. There are many are beginning to doubt that Jesus in fact the “Christ.” The people were forgetting that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and focusing on the fact that He lived in Galilee. In Micah 5:2 the scripture had said that the leader or Christ would be born in Bethlehem, and Jesus was, but thanks to the Pharisees many people were wrongly assuming that since He lived in Galilee that He was also born in Galilee. So, the division among the people grew, and many people were seeking the arrest of Jesus. The plot with the adulterous woman was just the first of many plots to catch Jesus doing something that would allow them to arrest Him.

John Chapter Eight begins a great story of Christ’s love. He loved the world so much that He was willing to die for it. The story in Chapter Eight is a great illustration of the compassion of Christ. As well as the fact that while the Pharisees tried their hardest to out smart Jesus, they were not able to, because He still managed to take the high road, and left it upon them. When Jesus turns to the woman and says, “..Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more,” to me it is one of the most powerful examples of His forgiveness.

Works Cited
1 Cramer , Robert N. Bible Texts. 1996. 26 Apr. 2005
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2 Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.