Bible Difficulties (83 page)

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In light of these passages, we must conclude that neither John 5:28-29 nor any other such passage conflicts with the principle of salvation by grace through faith. It is simply a matter of distinguishing between a genuine faith and a counterfeit faith.

How can John 8:11 be reconciled with Romans 13:4 in regard to capital
punishment?

In Romans 13:4, the apostle Paul, speaking of the authority of human government, says,

"It is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil" (NASB). This verse makes it perfectly clear that the God-inspired author taught that capital punishment (for the "sword" is not used for imprisonment or for releasing killers on parole) is ordained of God and intended by Him for the protection of human society against those who would unjustly deprive others of their right to life.

Some students of Scripture, however, have found difficulty in reconciling Christ's treatment of the adulterous woman in John 8:3-11 with the imposition of the death penalty for capital crime. To be sure in this particular case the offense was marital infidelity rather than first-degree murder. But adultery was defined by the Mosaic Law as a heinous crime, punishable by death--normally by stoning (Deut. 22:22-24).

Nevertheless it has implications for other capital crimes, such as murder and treason. Did Jesus intend to abolish the death penalty altogether by taking this action of releasing the guilty woman in the way He did?

The evidence of the earlier manuscripts of the Gospel of John suggests that this particular passage was not included by John himself in the original text of his gospel. The earliest surviving witness to this episode seems to be the sixth-century Codex Bezae, although it was received into the Koine or Byzantine family of manuscripts, on which the Textus Receptus (and the KJV) are based. Nevertheless it appears to be an authentic account of an episode in Christ's ministry, and it is written in characteristically Johannine style. Therefore it should be reckoned with as an authoritative word of Christ, despite the uncertainty of its relationship to the Gospel in its earliest form.

In this incident Christ is portrayed as responding to a challenge by His adversaries, who wish to catch Him on the horns of a dilemma. If he condemns the adulteress according to the law of Moses, He will tarnish His image as a merciful and kindly messenger of God's love. On the other hand, if He refrains from condemning her to death, He will be open to the charge of annulling or revoking the law of God--contrary to His own affirmation in Matthew 5:17. This was an entrapment device somewhat similar to the question later put to Him concerning the obligation of the Jewish believer to pay tribute to Caesar (Matt.

22:17). Whichever way He answered, He could be chargeable with opposing either the holy law or the duly constituted government of Rome.

At the close of the hearing in this particular case, Jesus found Himself alone with the woman; and He said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go your way; from now on sin 378

no more" (John 8:11, NASB). What did He mean by this? Did He mean that the woman was not guilty of the offense as charged? Hardly, since the defendant herself made no effort to deny that she had committed adultery and had been caught "in the very act"

(v.4). In that sense, of course, the Lord Jesus did condemn her; His words "sin no more"

indicate that she was indeed guilty of the capital crime with which she was charged. But the Greek term
katakrino
("condemn") carries with it the connotation of imposing a sentence on the defendant with a view of its execution. Compare Mark 14:64:
katerkrinan
auton enochon einai thanatou
("They condemned Him as being worthy of death," i.e., speaking of the Sanhedrin's sentencing of Jesus to death on the cross).
Katakrino
in other contexts might mean only defining the nature or gravity of the offense charged, but in this forensic setting it involved the actual imposition of sentence and the authorizing of her penal death by stoning.

As we analyze the situation faced by Jesus in this particular confrontation with His enemies, we must take into account the special factors that tainted the whole process with illegality. First, the law of Moses require
both
offenders to be dealt with on an equal basis. Leviticus 20:10 states: "If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife,...the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death" (NASB).

Deuteronomy 22:24 indicates that both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman herself. Thus this entire process in John 8 was legally defective because the woman's accusers had not brought forward her male partner-in-sin. Without him there could be no valid action taken against her.

Second, such an action as this has to be taken before a duly constituted court of law, such as a panel of elders near the gate of the city, whose duty it was to hear cases. What this group of accusers had undertaken was not a lawful court action, therefore, but a lynching. Since Jesus of Nazareth was no official judge in criminal actions, even as He made clear in an attempted civil case (the settling of a probate dispute in Luke 12:14:

"Who has appointed Me a judge over you?"), this attempt to remand the case to Him was an obvious farce, devoid of legal justification, and intended only to embarrass the Teacher from Nazareth whom they hoped to discredit.

Third, by their own admission, not even the Sanhedrin had the right under the Roman government to execute the death penalty. While they had authority to impose a sentence, capital punishment could not be carried out except under the authorization of the Roman governor. Thus we read in John 18:31: "Pilate therefore said to them, `Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.' The Jews said to him, `We are not permitted to put any one to death'" (NASB). Therefore it follows that this proposal to Jesus to have the guilty woman stoned to death right there before Him was itself a flagrant violation of the law of Rome. Our Lord would have no part in this. As a law-abiding citizen, Jesus could have no part in such a lynching.

Nevertheless the question raised was whether the woman deserved to die. "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" (John 8:5, NASB). Jesus might have pointed out that they had violated the law of Moses by failing to bring along her male partner. But Jesus pursued another tack because He saw that the 379

accusers themselves needed to realize that they also were very guilty before God, and that they therefore were hardly in a position to carry out the penalty that they demanded of their prisoner. We are told that He stooped down to write on the sand or dust of the ground. What He wrote convicted them of their own sins--sins that they had hoped would remain hidden and unknown to all but themselves. Since He had ruled that the witness who was "without sin" had the responsibility of casting the first stone at the guilty woman, it was essential for at least one of them to have a completely clean conscience before God's law. But not one of them could honestly claim to be free from sin before the Lord, and all the accusers suddenly found themselves accused and guilty. Hence they took their leave, one by one, until not one of them was left.

As we study Jesus' response to this challenge, we must clearly observe that He neither covered over the guilt of the accused (as if adultery was not, after all, really heinous enough to require the death penalty--in that modern-minded, enlightened first century A.D.); nor did He suggest that death by stoning was no longer the proper way to deal with this offense. He plainly implied that the woman was guilty enough to die, and that the legal mode of execution was by stoning. The point He raised was that the accusers of the woman were themselves guilty under the law, and that they were hardly competent to carry out the sentence. Certainly they had all become guilty of an attempted lynching, completely contrary to the law of the Roman government to which they were all subject.

Hence the whole process was voided by their incompetence and illegality.

In this episode of the adulterous woman, Jesus was hardly affirming that capital punishment was no longer to be imposed, nor that He was revising the Law of Moses in favor of a new policy of compassion toward those who had incurred the penalty of death.

On the contrary, He upheld the continuing sanction of execution for capital crime; but He brought home to His countrymen--and, indeed, to all mankind--the solemn truth that before the Lord every man is guilty of death--eternal death--and that He had come for the express purpose of paying that penalty in the sinner's stead.

What did Jesus mean by saying that men are "gods" (John 10:34)?

John 10:34 reads: "Jesus answered them, Ìs it not written in your Law, "I said, you are gods"?'" This remark came right after the Jews had made preparations to stone the Lord because of His affirmation in v.30: "I and the Father are one." Jesus' audience rightly understood Him as asserting His deity, in terms suggestive of the Trinity. They therefore concluded that He had blasphemed God; for though He was only a man (as they supposed), He was making Himself out to be God (v.33). To counter their hostility and rejection, Jesus quoted from Psalm 82:6, which reads as follows: "I said, `You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High God.'"

In citing Psalm 82:6, Jesus was appealing to a verse from the infallible Scriptures (infallible because they cannot be broken) that attaches the name or title "god" to certain men, not to all men, of course, but only "those to whom the word of God came" (John 10:35). A divine dimension was added to those people who had been especially chosen by God to be bearers of His saving truth and administrators of His holy law. In Psalm 82

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God is addressing judges and administrators who have been chosen to serve as His representatives in teaching and enforcing His holy law. To be sure, some of these solemnly commissioned judges exercised their office unjustly and showed partiality to the rich, even though they were in the wrong (v.2). Essentially the psalm expresses a condemnation of these unjust jurists, saying, in effect, "Although you have the status of membership in the family of God, and although you have been called after His name, nevertheless because of your unfaithfulness to sacred duty you will die like other men and will fall to ruin like one of the princes of the unsaved world."

In using Psalm 82:6 as an
a fortiori
argument for affirming His own unique status as the Son of God, Jesus draws a significant distinction or contrast between Himself and redeemed mankind, saying, in John 10:35-36: "If He called them `gods,' to whom the word of God came--and the Scripture cannot be broken--do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, `You are blaspheming,' because I said I am the Son of God?" (NASB). That is to say, those Old Testament believers who had entered into covenant relationship with God on the basis of His gracious promises had attained the status of membership within the family of God. God the Father had adopted them into His holy family. It was not an essential and eternal status that they possessed by right or by way of reward for their virtue and obedience; it was simply a privilege conferred on them by God's sheer grace. Their sonship was derivative, not inherited. (For other passages in which Old Testament believers under the covenant are called
bene 'elohim
, cf. Gen. 6:2--which truly refers to believers from the line of Seth rather than to angels, as some have suggested-- Deut. 14:1; 32:5; Ps. 73:15 ["your children"]; Hos. 1:10 [Heb.

2:1]).

In John 10:36 Jesus draws a distinction between redeemed sinners under the old covenant and Himself as the Son who ever existed with the Father in glory--the Son who was "sanctified" (or solemnly set apart) for His task as Messiah and Redeemer of the people of God. It was after He had been so sanctified up in heaven that the Father
sent
Him down to earth, into the world lost in sin and in need of a Savior. Throughout the Gospel of John, special emphasis is laid on Jesus' status as the one sent down from God the Father (John 4:34; 5:23-24, 30; 6:38-40, 44, 57; 7:16, 18; John 8:16, 18; 9:4; 10:36; 11:42; 12:45, 49, 14:24; 15:21; 16:5; John 17:3, 18, 21, 23, 25; 20:21). In this sense He is absolutely unique, for though prophets like John the Baptist might be sent from God to men (John 1:6), they were sent from earth to earth; only Christ was sent from heaven (His proper home) to earth. In that sense He is the Son of God by virtue of His innate status as God; believers are sons of God only by the gracious calling of God and by His act of adoption. By no means, then, does our Lord imply here that we are sons of God just as He is--except for a lower level of holiness and virtue. No misunderstanding could be more wrongheaded than that. But what He does affirm here is that His hearers should not be shocked at His imputing deity to Himself, when even their own Holy Scriptures accord them the status of divinity by the adoption of grace.

One additional observation is in order concerning this occasional employment of Elohim in the Old Testament to refer to believers under the covenant. This seems to operate by the analogy of national designations like
bene Yisra'el
("the sons of Israel"), 381

bene Àmmon
("the sons of Ammon"),
bene Yehudah
("the sons of Judah"),
bene Babel
("the sons of Babylon"), etc. Any or all of these tribes or nations could also be referred to without the
bene
("sons of"), as
Yisra'el
,
Àmmon
, or
Yehudah
. By analogy, then, the combination
bene 'elohim
could be shortened to simple '
elohim
alone--i.e., a member of the sons (or people) of God. (Other passages of this class, referring to Israelite rulers and judges as God's representatives on earth, include Exod. 21:6; 22:7-8, 27; Pss. 8:5; 82:1; 138:1 [or else "angels"]. Ps. 82:1 b [NASB mg: "gods," but "rulers" in the text] belongs to this same category.)