By Pater Inutilis

Our Lord’s verbal confrontation with the Jews of Jerusalem, begun in Ch. 7, continues, and, we might say, becomes more acrimonious. While our Savior has come not to judge but indeed to save (3:17; 12:47), there are those who are “already judged” (3:18) because refusing to believe and not coming to the light (3:18-20) that is Christ (8:12; 12:46). His interlocutors are of their number. This verbal opposition would turn more physical and violent by chapter’s end—“They took up stones therefore to cast at him” (vs. 59)—but in vain, “because his hour was not yet come” (vs. 20). St. John takes this phraseology from Jesus, as we saw back in chapter two (2:4)—it does refer to His passion and death, as explained back then. So, for now, He will elude them: “Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (vs. 59).

This passage of the gospel begins though with the narrative of Our Lord and the woman caught in adultery. St. John sees this as very to the point, when there is a question of Jesus as Savior or Judge. The Jews, as we have just seen in chapter 7, want to kill Jesus (7:20 & 25). This is now very much out in the open, and Christ will openly accuse and rebuke them for it: “You seek to kill me” (vs. 37 & 40); such murderous thoughts make them worthy sons of the devil who “was a murderer from the beginning” (vs. 44). Before killing Him, they want to gain popular approval, or at least acquiescence, before the deed. They jump, therefore, on the opportunity just provided by catching a woman “even now taken in adultery’’ (vs. 4). How will Jesus “Master” (vs. 4) judge such a sinner? He has been drawing to Himself and winning the hearts of “publicans and sinners” (Matt. 9:10; 11:19; etc.) unto having the hated Samaritans (cf. vs. 48) call Him “the Savior of the world” (4:42). He is a lamb, “the Lamb of God... who taketh away the sin of the world” (1:29). But the Law of Moses is very clear: such a sinner must be stoned (vs. 5). Will Jesus be untrue to Himself and forget His meekness, and show Himself as judge after all and not savior, and so disillusion His followers, or will He go against the law and offend all God-fearing Jews? Our Lord surprises them: He ignores them. He just writes in the sand. They insist. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’’ (vs. 7). This does not mean that those only who are in the state of grace can judge. Even a Pontius Pilate was given power from above over Him (19:11). And He just writes again. These “whitened sepulchers” may have recognized their own wickedness, or Jesus may have been writing their sins (thus St. Jerome), but they do not insist, and leave. No one, for now, is condemning her; neither Jesus. His second coming will be as Judge (5:22-30; Mt. 25:41-46). His first is as Savior.

Our Savior is our Redeemer: He will set us free (vs. 32, 36). Free from sin, which is a slavery (vs. 34)—for one is not consulting one’s own good, but the will of another, an adversary: “You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you will do” (vs. 44). Free to walk not in darkness, but in the light (vs. 12); free from eternal death (vs. 51f). Jesus Himself is sinless—which the Jews cannot deny: “Which of you shall convince me of sin?” (vs. 46). He requires of His disciples this spirit of renouncing sin: “Go, and now sin no more” (vs. 11). His opponents, though, walk in darkness (cf. vs. 12), they are blind (ch. 9); and so, they are of those who are “already judged.” “You are not of God” (vs. 47); “You shall die in your sin(s)” (vs. 21 & 24). Terrible words from One Whose “testimony is true” (vs. 14) and Who is judge (vs. 26).

It is not easy for our meek Savior, Who is “from above” (vs. 23), to preach “heavenly things” (3:12) to those blinded by self-interest and already determined to kill Him. And yet He wants them to accept Him, and as the Son of God. St. John Chrysostom points out all Our Lord’s endeavors not to offend the Jews’ susceptibilities while trying to get them to realize that, though there be only one God, He is not One in Person. Jesus is repeatedly extolling the greatness of His Father and His owing everything to Him. Jesus is but the “one sent” by the Father (vs. 16, 18, 26, 29, 42) Who can speak only what He has from His Father (vs. 26, 28, 38, 40); He honors His Father (vs. 49) and always does what is pleasing to Him (vs. 29). He condescends to their understanding that the testimony and judgment of one are insufficient, but “the testimony of two men is true” (vs. 17). [Of course, were He alone in giving testimony, it is true (vs. 14), or alone in judging, it would be true (vs. 16).] But He is not alone—there are He and the Father (vs. 18). The Father’s testimony is by way of miracles and prophecies having been fulfilled, as we saw in 5:36-39. Yes, our Lord is repeating Himself, but still “they understood not that He called1 God his Father” (vs. 27). Odd, because they had understood that at Jesus’ previous visit to Jerusalem:2 they are now more obtuse. This is a normal fruit of ill will. And yet it is time that they know with Whom they are dealing, and so, when asked directly “Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you” (vs. 25). Indeed, He is “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (Apoc. 1:8; 21:6; 22:13).3 He does not answer as clearly on other occasions because of the same ill will—an ill will which justifies Christ’s calling them “liars” (vs. 55), and so, on this head too, sons of the devil (vs. 44); but “His hour” is nearing. He will make Himself more clear. The discussion moves on to His preeminence over Abraham and it is such that “before Abraham was made, I am” (vs. 58).4 The “He Who is,” Yahweh, was the divine name par excellence (Ex. 3:14), too holy to be pronounced. Now they understand. Now they react: “They took up stones therefore to cast at him” (vs. 59). But though His hour be nearing, it is not yet the hour of the power of darkness (Lk. 22:53).

From Jesus Christ, let us learn not only the spirit of meekness, of a charity that tries all to touch even the hardest of hearts, that loves its enemies, but also the fundamental principle of a Christian life: “I do always the things that please him,” my Father (vs. 29).

Pater Inutilis is a priest of the Society of Saint Pius X.

Endnotes:

1 He calls God His Father by claiming that He and the Father are two giving testament, equally.

2 5:18

3 This is a divine title – Is. 41:4; 44:6; 48:12 -which Christ’s hearers miss.

4 This is already insinuated in vs. 27: “quia ego sum.”