SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/24/2016 9:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “His Wisdom”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 8:3-8
Message of the verses: “3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a
woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4 they
said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very
act. 5 “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You
say?" 6 They were
saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him.
But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. 7 But when they
persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is
without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8
Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.”
I have
heard before that it was possible that the Lord may have been writing the Ten
Commandments with His finger on the floor, and then Dr. Wiersbe mentioned that this
was possible because the Lord wrote the original Ten Commandments with His
finger, and I do believe that this was the preincarnate Christ who did this so
that does make sense to me.
In our SD
this morning we want to look, first of all at some of the OT commands that have
to do with adultery. Exodus 20:14 “"You
shall not commit adultery.” Deuteronomy
5:18 “’You shall not commit adultery.”
Leviticus 20:10 “’If there is a man who commits adultery with another
man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress
shall surely be put to death.”
Let’s look at what Jesus had to say about this from Matthew 5:27 and
19:18 “"You have heard that it was said, ’YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’;” “Then he *said to Him, "Which
ones?" And Jesus said, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER; YOU SHALL NOT
COMMIT ADULTERY; YOU SHALL NOT STEAL; YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS;” Now we
will see from Matthew 5:28 that Jesus makes this commandment even stronger as
He says “but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
John
MacArthur writes “From a purely legal standpoint, then, these men were correct
in saying that the woman deserved to die.
But the circumstances suggest that they had something else in mind. By its very nature, adultery is a sin that
involves two people—yet the Pharisees were accusing only the woman. The obvious question was” Where was the man? Those who had apprehended the woman had
certainly seen him too, since she had been seized ‘in the very act.’ Why had they not also arrested him and
brought him before Jesus, since the Law demanded that both guilty parties be executed
(Lev. 20:10)? And if justice was all
they sought, why bring the woman to Jesus at all? Why not try her in their own courts, where
such cases would normally be heard?
Jesus was not a judge (cf. Luke 12:13-14) or a member of the
Sanhedrin. Nor was there any legal
difficulty that would necessitate consulting a rabbi; it was an open-and-shut
case.” I have to say that this
paragraph has shed some light on this section of Scripture that I had not
thought before, as it now makes more sense to me.
Now we know
the reason what the Pharisees were doing as it is made clear in verse six “They were saying this, testing
Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him.” I don’t know how much these Pharisees had to
do with catching this woman in adultery, but after reading some of the
different things they were doing to Jesus, and the fact that they never brought
the man, which would have sealed the case of the death penalty for both of them
it would not surprise me that they had set this whole thing up. Now these Pharisees though that they had
Jesus in a tight space as we learned yesterday from Warren Wiersbe comments on
this section, but as stated yesterday they did not know who they were dealing
with and once again the very Words of Jesus would show His wisdom as we will
see later on.
John
MacArthur writes the following “The challenge brought by the scribes and
Pharisees also raised a deeper issue—namely, how divine justice and mercy are
to be harmonized. God is holy (Lev.
11:44-45; 19:2; 1 Sam. 2:2; Ps. 99:9; 1 Peter 1:15-16), and His ‘Law is holy,
and the commandment is holy and righteous and good’ (Rom. 7:12). The Law knows nothing of forgiveness (Rom.
3:20; 8:3; Gal. 2:16; 3:11; James 2:10).
It declares, ‘The soul who sins will die.’ (Ezek. 18:4) because ‘all who
have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law’ (Rom. 2:12), ‘for the Law
brings about wrath’ (4:15). How then
does God forgive sinners without violating His Holy Law?”
Now the
answer to that question can be illustrated in a story that I once heard and
have told on different occasions to make the point we need made here in order
to answer this question. The story goes
that there was a man who became a judge and this man had a son who committed a
crime and had to stand before his father, the judge. It was a very bad crime that would cause time
in prison and so the man’s heart was torn between justice and mercy as one
could imagine and so he had to wrestle with this great problem. He could not just let his son go for he had
committed the crime, and yet if he did let him go then that would go against
the very law he had sworn to uphold. The
man decided that justice had to prevail, but because of his love for his son he
wanted mercy for him and so the judge stood and took off his robe and stepped
down from the bench and decided to pay for the crime himself so his son could
go free, for he loved his son very much.
The story illustrates the gospel as God the Father loves His Son very
much, and yet He loves those that He created very much, and yet they are all
sinners and the “wage of sin is death,” and so He sent His Son to pay for our
sins as He suffered and died on the cross for us so we can stand before the
Father with the righteousness of His Son.
We will
look at this subject more in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: To understand the gospel is to better
understand the wisdom of God, and to better understand the wisdom of God is to
better understand God, to better know Him as the wisdom of the Gospel involves
God’s love, grace, mercy, and also His wrath.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: To better understand who God
is, to better understand how to love Him more.
Memory verses for the week:
2 Cor. 12:7-8 “7. Because of the surpassing greatness of the
revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given
me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from
exalting myself. 8. Concerning this I
implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Jesus” (Matthew 4:7).
Today’s Bible question:
“Name the place where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/24/2016 10:48 AM
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