Okay, so we're going to look
at these first 11 verses of John chapter 8 this morning, and I've
called this message, Blessed Choice and Calling. And remember
we read Psalm 65. Psalm 65 and the fourth verse
says this, that God chooses and causes to
approach unto Him. And that is illustrated in this
account in chapter 8 of John of this woman found in adultery. Now just to remind you, as we're
going through these chapters of John, John chapter 6, we spent
some time there, 71 verses, a long chapter, and in that chapter
we read the hard sayings of Christ. Many of the people heard what
He said, And they said, this is an hard saying. Who can bear
it? Who can hear it? And they went
away from him. And many went away. And he was
left with just the twelve. And one of them was Judas Iscariot.
And he said to them, will you also go away? And Peter said,
to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. There's nowhere else that we can go, despite these hard
sayings. Now what are the hard sayings?
These are the sayings of sovereign grace. These are the sayings
like verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." That the people whom God saves are the
people that the Father, as it says in other parts of the scripture,
2 Timothy 1 verse 9 for example, that the Father gave to the Son.
These are the people the Father gave to the Son. These are the
beloved of God. We're bound to give thanks to
God for you, brethren, beloved of God, for God has from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. through sanctification, setting
apart of the Spirit and belief of the truth. All that the Father
gives me shall come to me, and him that comes I will in no wise
cast out. This is the will, verse 39, of
him that sent me. Of all those people which he,
the Father, has given me, the Son, I should lose none. I should
lose none of them, but I should raise them up again at the last
day. You see, the gospel that Jesus
preached in John chapter 6 is completely contrary to what's
preached mostly as the gospel mostly the gospel is preached
that Jesus came and lived and died to give everybody that ever
lives a chance to believe and therefore what determines whether
you are saved or you're eternally damned is whether you choose
to accept him that is not what this book says all that the father
gives me shall come to me this is the will of him that sent
me that of all which he has given me I should lose nothing but
raise him up at the last day." And in case we were in any doubt,
look at verse 44 of chapter 6. No man can come to me. Oh, I'll
get round to coming to Christ when I feel like it. No man can
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him,
and I will raise him up at the last day. And so it went on. It caused them great offense.
They found these to be very hard sayings. And then we go into
John chapter 7, and it's the Feast of the Tabernacles. And
he's preaching to them there. And in verses 33 and 34, they're
coming to take him. The chief priests have sent officers
to arrest Jesus because they've had enough of this. They want
to silence him. And when they come to him, he
says, I'm going to go away and you will seek me, verse 34, and
you won't find me. And where I am, there you cannot
come. You see, people think they can
just breeze into heaven when it comes to eternity. You know,
the day comes when either you meet with an accident, or your
time is up in some way, or some sort of illness, as it took Christine's
sister just less than six months ago. The time comes when you
know that which is a reality for everybody, that it's appointed
to man to die once. And you say, well, I'll breeze
into heaven at that point. And he says to these people,
where I'm going, heaven, there you cannot come. You cannot come. Because you're barred by your
sin, you cannot come. And then He stood up and he said,
if any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. So he preached
all of this about sovereign grace and particular redemption, you
know, that he lived for and died for a specific people who were
given to him by the Father from before the beginning of time,
a multitude that no man can number. And then he stands up at the
Feast of the Tabernacles and he says, if any man thirst, let
him come to me and drink. If any man thirst, isn't this
a contradiction? Don't we see here a contradiction
in the preaching? One minute he's saying, you cannot
come. One minute he's saying, only
those whom the Father gave to the Son before the beginning
of time can come. Only those in sovereign grace
will he call. There's nobody else. It's absolutely,
strictly, particular redemption. And then here in chapter 7, he
says, if any man come, if any man thirst, let him come to me
and drink. Well, of course, it isn't a contradiction. And this is how we explain it.
Psalm 110 verse 3 says this, He makes His people willing.
Those who were unwilling, those who were dead in trespasses and
sins, those who hated the things of God, God makes them willing
in the day of His power. Jesus said, My sheep hear My
voice and they follow Me. He said to the Pharisees, He
said, You don't believe Me because you are not of My sheep. You're
not of those people who've been given ears to hear. People don't
like this message, but it's the message of this book. You see,
the Holy Spirit makes the dead sinner alive and gives a soul
thirst for peace with God. And that soul thirst can only
be quenched by the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives that soul thirst. We sang about it in the hymn,
I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but all their waters failed. Thirsty, I tried the broken cisterns.
What's going to satisfy? this soul of mine? What's going
to give me peace for eternity? What's going to make me know
that it is well with my soul when I face eternity? What's
going to do that? I tried the broken cisterns,
Lord, but ah, their waters failed. And even as I stooped to drink,
they mocked me as I wailed." Only Christ can satisfy. Only
Christ can give that thirst-quenching spiritual water. And in what
is that thirst-quenching spiritual water? Is it in believing in
a nice man who taught us all sorts of good things? No, this
is what quenches my soul first. He died in my place. He blotted
out my sins. He didn't just bear everybody's
sins, He bore my sins in His own body on the tree. And in
bearing those sins, He paid for them. Just like having your account
settled at the bank strictly, pound for pound, dollar for dollar,
He balanced the books of divine justice. And He paid for our
sins, the sins of His people. Now, doesn't that exclude me?
What if I'm not amongst the elect? What if I'm not amongst them?
How do I know whether I can come? What does Jesus say? If any man
thirst. If any man thirst, let him come
to me and drink and take of the waters of life freely. Take of
the waters of life freely. It's repeated just before the
end of Scripture in Revelation 22. Whosoever thirsts, let him
come and take of the water of life freely. But we don't read
there might have been but we don't read of anybody coming
not one he gave that great invitation if any man thirsts but we don't
read of any coming not at all but this account of this woman
shows us how he does save his people and in John chapter 8
Jesus confounds the Pharisees in their evil designs he silences
the law which was screaming out for the just condemnation of
this woman For she was sinful, no question. She was brought
in before him by the Pharisees. She was brought in in fear and
shame as to what they were going to do to her. And even if they
didn't do anything to her and let her go, there was the shame
of having been caught in that situation. She was brought in
fear and shame. She went away having experienced
grace and mercy and love. And in the process, the law,
was silenced. Who condemns you? None. Neither
do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. The law was
silenced and divine justice was satisfied. The debts were paid
perfectly. Now modern versions of the scripture
exclude these 11 verses or if they include them they say these
are not really in the original, we don't know where they came
from, they were added later. Well as far as I'm concerned
this is part of the received text. The received text is that
the accurate version of Scripture that God preserved is the one
that he preserved. It is the received text and these
verses are in the received text. Oldest isn't necessarily best. Oldest isn't necessarily most
accurate. Just because somebody made a
mistake and missed a chunk of this out when he was copying
it and it was thrown to one side and then an archaeologist found
it some years later doesn't mean that that's the authentic version
of Scripture. Everybody that's ever consistently taught us this
gospel down the ages, men like John Gill, William Huntington,
all of these great men, John Bunyan, no doubt this is part
of Scripture. This is part of the authentic
Scripture. So let's remind ourselves where
we are. We're still at the Feast of Tabernacles in John chapter
7 and so it goes on into John chapter 8. At the end of chapter
7 there was that last day, the eighth day, the great day of
the feast. when they did that religious
ceremony of getting buckets of water and pouring them on the
altar and that's why Jesus said, if any man thirst, looking at
them doing this religious rain dance to try and make it rain
through the winter so that their crops would grow the next spring.
He saw them doing this and he said, if any man thirst, let
him come to me and drink. It was the eighth day of the
feast and the Pharisees intensified their hatred of him. Their disputes
about him intensified. Even Nicodemus. You remember
Nicodemus in chapter 3? The one who came to Jesus by
night. The one of the ruler of the Pharisees. Look in verse 50. They're saying,
are you all so deceived? You're believing this man. Have
nothing to do with him. And in verse 50, Nicodemus says
to them, he that came to Jesus by night, he says, does our law
judge any man before it hear him? You're condemning him before
you've heard what he says. You don't know what he's doing.
And they answered and said unto him, Are you also of Galilee? Are you also mad with all the
rest of them? Search and look in the Scriptures,
for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went to
his own house." They went to their own houses, but you know
what the Feast of Tabernacles was? It was the Feast of Booths,
of Tents. And they put tents up that they
lived in in Jerusalem for these days of the Feast. And it was
commemorating the Israelites wandering in the wilderness,
that they didn't have any home to live in. Their home was a
tent in the wilderness, so this feast of the tabernacles was
celebrating that. But you can imagine, it's the
last day of the feast, there's all sorts of revelry going on,
no doubt they've been through all the religious activities,
and there are these booths, no doubt there was opportunity for
drunkenness, for revelry, for immorality. Perhaps it was in
that situation that the Pharisees set up this woman to be caught
in the act of adultery. And did you notice that we don't,
in their hypocrisy, we don't hear anything at all about the
man that was caught in adultery with her. Just this woman, it's
just her that they want to bring. The Pharisees staged this so
that they would have a situation with which to entrap Jesus. They wanted to show the people
that he wasn't reliable, he couldn't be trusted, his words were worthless
because they could tie him in little knots They could, you
know, like they're trying to do with the election at the moment.
One party is always trying to make out, they're picking out
the tiniest little word that one says so that they can turn
that round to show that everything about their position and their
policy is utterly illogical and flawed. That's what they do.
That's what politicians do. Well, that's what these Pharisees
were trying to do. They were trying to utterly discredit and
trick Jesus into making a mistake that they could use to show him
up as a fraud, as not authentic, You know God uses the evil intentions
of man. God uses them. All things work
together for good to those that love God who are the called according
to his purpose. God uses the evil intentions
of man. Peter preached on the day of
Pentecost to all those people in Jerusalem and in Acts 2 verse
23 we read of him saying that they By wicked hands had taken
Jesus and slain him. They were guilty. They were culpable. By wicked hands they'd taken
Jesus and slain him. But it was all according to the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. In every way. I don't
understand it. The flesh cannot understand it.
But God is sovereign over everything. And he uses this evil intention
of these Pharisees to display grace. Jesus in verse 1 went
to the Mount of Olives. They all went to their own houses
and He went to the Mount of Olives. And we often read of Him going
to Gethsemane or to the Mount of Olives. He goes there to pray
alone. And here again is something that
I can't understand. The man who was God, Jesus Christ,
the man who was God, God in human flesh, the God-man, prays to
His Father and yet there is only one God. I cannot understand
it. Those that believe the false
sects say, there you are, it's illogical. But here it is. The
God-man prays to his Father. Incomprehensible, I know. But
the man prayed, and then he preached. And it seems that that was his
life. No doubt he took time to eat and to sleep, but he prayed
and he preached. What a pattern there is there
for preachers. He prayed and he preached. He,
who surely didn't need to spend time in prayer, he prayed. The
man prayed. the man Christ Jesus prayed and
he preached and then verse 2 we see early in the morning so it's
the next morning the day after the last day of the feast of
tabernacles early in the morning he came again into the temple
and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them
this wasn't a stand-up public preaching I told you that what
we saw last week was the last public preaching of his ministry
the last stand up and proclaim This was sitting down with groups
of people around him, teaching them in the temple. So there
he is, he goes to the temple to teach. Now what is he teaching?
What is he teaching? You know, Jesus came to teach
us all sorts of things. Well, you know what I'm going
to say. Those of you that hear me often, you know what I'm going
to say. He taught the gospel of His grace. That's what He
taught. He taught Christ. He taught Himself. He taught the Messiah. He showed
how the Scriptures all pointed to Him because we know what did
He say. He already said in John 5.39,
you search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal
life and you're right. If you want eternal life, this
book is where you'll find it. These are they, He said, that
tell you how to live right. No, He didn't. He said, these
are they which speak of Me. The Scriptures speak of Christ.
on that road to Emmaus. Beginning at Moses and the prophets,
he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself. This is what this book is about
and this is what he taught. This was his preaching of the
kingdom. He wasn't preaching moral reformation. He wasn't
preaching social justice. He wasn't preaching, you know,
justice for this group of oppressed people and justice for that group.
Not at all. He was preaching salvation. through
Him the substitute. He was preaching the atonement
that He would accomplish through His death. He was showing it.
How? Through all the Old Testament worship. The lambs, the Passover
lamb, the sacrifice, how Messiah must come and stand in the place
of His people and be their federal head and they must be in Him
and He must do everything that the law required in their place
and then He must pay the penalty for their sins in their place
that they might not have to pay that penalty. No, this is what
he preached. He taught them the gospel and
then we have the interruption, the trap. So they bring the woman
in, verse 3, the woman taken in adultery and they set her
in the midst. So you can just imagine the setting
similar to this. He's sitting down, larger number
of people and in they come, burst in, interrupt his flow and they
throw this woman onto the floor in the midst, in front of them.
This woman was taken in adultery, caught in the very act and What
do you say about this? You see, the law of Moses, verse
5, the law of Moses commanded that when you find someone caught
in the act of adultery in Israel, they should be stoned to death.
But what do you say? This they said, verse 6, tempting
him that they might have something with which to accuse him. And
Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground. It was a trap.
You see, what they were trying to get him to do was to say one
of two things. If he said, let her go, they
could have said, there you are. See, he flouts the law of God. The law of God is clear. You
can see it if you turn to Leviticus chapter 20. And you know, our
God is a consuming fire and it is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God. And our God is the God who doesn't
ever change. He's unchanging. And he says
this, and this law stands, and the man that commiteth, verse
10 of chapter 20 of Leviticus, the man that commiteth adultery
with another man's wife, even he that commiteth adultery with
his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely
be put to death. And so it goes on. It's repeated
several times. The law is absolutely clear.
So if Jesus had said, oh, just let her go, oh, he cannot be
the Messiah because he's flouting the clear law of God. The law
of God says this. How can he possibly be the Messiah
if he comes and contradicts God's law? But then on the other hand,
if he'd said, yes, you're right, take her out and stone her because
that's what the law says. Oh, what about the scriptures
that talk about Messiah as the Savior, as the forgiver of sins,
as the merciful one, as the compassionate one, as the God of salvation?
What about all those scriptures? Surely that would have been inconsistent
with the character of Messiah as portrayed in the Old Testament.
And so they would have had him. You can just imagine, like any
of you that play chess, you know you get this good feeling when
you think, right, I've got the opposition on the run, we're
just closing in for the kill, you know, we're just lining up
for the final checkmate. And that's what they must have
thought. We're just lining up for the final checkmate. We've
got him now. How's he going to wriggle out of this? If he says
that, we've got him. If he says that, checkmate. Can't
get out of this one. He knew their hearts. He knew
exactly what was in their hearts. He, the man, was sovereign over
all things. He was omniscient. He knew all
these things. And he also knew this woman.
He knew this woman. In what way? Look in Romans 8.
And you might want to keep a finger in Romans 8. But in Romans 8,
verse 29, This is just after the verse
that I quoted before about all things working together for good.
He says, for whom he did foreknow. This doesn't mean looked forward
through his crystal ball and saw that this woman would be
one who would choose him. No. Whom he foreknew and also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. Whom
he foreknew. He foreknew her. He knew her
in sovereign grace. Beloved. We are bound to give
thanks to God for you. Chosen of God, elect of God from
before the foundation of the world for God has from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth. That's foreknowledge. It's sovereign
grace. Whom He did foreknow, He foreknew
this woman. She was one of the sheep whom
the Father had given to the Son from before the beginning of
time. That's what 2 Timothy 1 verse 9 says, before the beginning
of time, chosen in Christ before the beginning of time. Ephesians
1 verse 4, just as he chose us in him before the world was made,
before the foundation of the world. All of these things point
clearly to the fact that here was one of his sheep. This woman,
this adulterous sinful woman, this guilty woman was one of
his sheep. Here was one of whom he must
lose none. We read it in chapter 6 and verse
39 this is the father's will which has sent me of all which
he has given me I should lose nothing here's this woman she's
one of them he must not lose her he must save her he must
take her to glory she's one of the people to whom he has been
given power by his father John 17 to to give eternal life to
as many as the father has given to him this is one of the ones
who is blessed blessed that blessed choosing Psalm 65 look at it
again Blessed is the man. You see, iniquities prevail against
me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. Iniquities prevail against us.
Iniquities accuse us justly. But blessed is the man whom thou
choosest, and cause us to approach unto thee, that he may dwell
in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. Blessed is that
what it is to be blessed by God. I tell you, I know we refer to
it a lot but you know when you see somebody come to Christ in
the closing weeks of their life and you think how tragic to have
a life cut short but yet what glorious comfort there is in
this how blessed is the man that you choose that God chooses and
causes to come to him to be safe for eternity safe for eternity
She was undoubtedly guilty. The law was clear. She was an
adulteress. She was caught in the very act. The law was clear.
She was deserving of death because the law pronounces this, the
soul that sins, it shall die. And it doesn't sweep sin under
the carpet. It doesn't say like we might
say, oh okay, but don't do it again. It doesn't say like we
might say, well never mind, we'll forgive you this time. Absolutely
not. God is a God who is just and
holy. And she was deserving of death.
Also, the man was deserving of death. In this situation with
Roman authorities in the country, the Pharisees couldn't do what
they really wanted to do, which was to just drag her straight
out and stone her. Though in actual fact, they didn't
want to do that. They wanted to use her as a trap to entrap
Christ. But they couldn't do what they
wanted to do, really. You see, God hates all sin, and
all sin must be punished. And these Pharisees, in their
self-righteousness, had brought her for judgment. But do you
know something? God hates all sin, but God particularly
hates the sin of self-righteousness and the sin of pride. Do you
know there are degrees of punishment? There are no degrees of reward
in heaven, but we read clearly in the Scripture there are degrees
of punishment. And He hates, above all, pride. He hates, above
all, self-righteousness. He says In Mark 2 verse 17, Jesus
says, I didn't come to call the righteous, meaning the self-righteous,
those who think they're righteous, those who think they're good
enough for God. I came to call sinners to repentance. Beware,
my friends, of any form of religion, beware of it, that promotes legalistic
self-righteousness, that promotes this idea that I'm living pretty
well and I'm keeping the law of God and I'm doing well and
I'm getting more and more sanctified as I go along. There is no more
damning condition we read of in the Scriptures than this pride
of legalistic self-righteousness. Jesus says this, and why does
he say it? In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew
7, 21-23, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, didn't
we do many wondrous things in your name? And didn't we preach
in your name? And didn't we do all sorts of
service for you? So surely we are qualified to
be in heaven with you. and he will say, depart from
me, you who work iniquity, I never knew you. Those are cold, stark
words. Depart from me, I never knew
you. Why? Because they were guilty
of this sin of self-righteousness. They hadn't emptied themselves.
They didn't sing, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy
cross I cling. They said, oh look, we're coming
into his presence with all these good works that we've done. Won't
He give us an extra special reward for all of these things? Self-righteousness.
Legalistic self-righteousness. It's absolutely soul-damning,
is this legalistic self-righteousness. It's not just me that's saying
it. You read what He says to those that had it in abundance,
the Pharisees and the Scribes. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees.
You do all these things, but really, it's absolute self-righteousness,
and He condemns it. But this one, this woman, How
will He save her? She's guilty. This guilty woman,
how is He going to save her? She's one of His lost sheep.
But she must justly be condemned. You see, He must remain just.
That is, holy and righteous and strictly legally just as God. And so if she's going to be saved,
He must silence the law. For the law is screaming out
against her that she's guilty. That she's caught in the act
of adultery, she must be stoned. She must be condemned. He must
silence the law if He is to save her. He must satisfy justice
which calls for her condemnation if He is to save her. But He
must declare her as a sinner justified in His sight if He
is to save her. And this is what Romans 3.26
says, that He might be just, that God might be pure and just,
but yet the justifier of him whose faith is in Christ Jesus.
As Isaiah It's echoing what Isaiah says, Isaiah 45, 22. A just God,
but a Savior. A just God would just condemn
everybody for their sin, but he's a just God and a Savior
because in the Savior he's justified his people. So he stoops down
and he writes on the ground. He doesn't answer them a word.
Here they come with their trick. And as they put the question
to him, he stoops down and he writes on the ground, in the
dust of the ground. What did he write? Well, we're
not told, but we can speculate. What did he write? Perhaps he
wrote the commandments of God. Perhaps he wrote some of the
Ten Commandments, because that would show up their guilt. And
he said, whichever of you is without sin, as judged by these
laws, okay, you want to stone her, right, here's some laws.
Fine, you go and stone her, but whichever of you is without sin,
as these laws judge you, Now, you go and stone, you throw the
first stone, and they all went out, one after another. Perhaps,
perhaps he who knows all things wrote the name of the adulterous
man. Here was the woman, but perhaps he wrote the name of
the adulterous man. And perhaps that adulterous man
was one of their number. Perhaps that was the case. And
all that would have convicted them, wouldn't it? He's seen
right through what we're trying to do. that would have convicted
them that they went out with not a word to say perhaps he
wrote the essence of the gospel the core of the gospel that okay
this woman needs to be condemned but I will bear her punishment
in her place so if you want to stone anybody stone me stone
me because I'm standing in the place of this woman now if you
want to stone anybody you go ahead but you stone me because
I'm standing maybe it was that that he wrote on the ground so
that she could go free. He would bear the punishment.
The law would be satisfied. The soul that sins, it has died.
He's paid its penalty. She could go free. Because you
see, they knew all about substitution. Substitution was at the core
of their religion, the Jews' religion. The Passover lambs,
the sacrifices, the cattle, all of these things. They knew all
about that. And so he says, let him that
is without sin cast the first stone. And they all left, for
all had sinned. all of them and come short of
the glory of God and not one of them could say I am without
sin therefore I am qualified you see he put the law of God
to them and you know what the law of God does it silences every
mouth you know you're in the dock guilty in court and you
might find it that the guilty pleads his innocence and pleads
excuses and like that story of the ruler who was given authority
to go and let one of the slaves free on one of the galley ships.
And he goes down into the galley ships where they're all rowing
away and says, right, now find somebody and you can exercise
your mercy and let one of these free. And so he talked to them
to try and find a suitable character. And every single one of them
said it was a terrible disgrace and a violation of justice that
he was there and he wasn't guilty and really this was a terrible
thing that had happened to him. And finally he found one of them
that said, I'm getting exactly what I deserve. I'm here because
I'm guilty. I did what they said. I'm getting
exactly what I deserve. And that prince let that man
go because he said, it's not right that all of these good
people in this boat should have to put up with you, such a bad
person. So I'm going to let you, the
really bad person, go. Isn't that grace? Isn't that
grace? Such a picture of sovereign grace. You see, every mouth is stopped
by the law of God. We've got no excuse that we can
make. All the world guilty before God, Romans 3.19. And so he says
this, they've all gone. And he gets up, and they've all
gone. I don't know whether the original
group was still there, but the accusers were all gone. And he
says, where are those who accused you? Verse 10. Where have they
all gone? He'd written on the ground. He
who is without sin, let it... and they'd all gone, one by one.
Where are they all? Has no man condemned you? And
she said, verse 11, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither
do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Any condemnation? No. There's no condemnation. We're not going to sing it, but
you know the words of the hymn. No condemnation now I dread. Jesus and all in Him is mine.
No condemnation. Look at Romans 8. Again, I told
you to keep a finger in Romans 8. and the first verse which
says that exactly that there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit no condemnation in Christ Jesus there is no it
is appointed to man to die once and then the judgment and in
the judgment condemnation for we must all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ we must all stand there But there is
therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, I couldn't ever justify
myself by keeping God's law perfectly, because my flesh is too weak.
I sin every day in thought, word and deed. But God did it. God,
sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, though without
sin, and for sin, bearing sin, condemned sin in the flesh. He
bore the penalty of his people. Him who knew no sin was made
sin, that his people might be made the righteousness of God
in him. So he's borne the law's condemnation
for his people, specifically for his people, particularly
for his people. He's borne the law's condemnation. So has anybody condemned you?
No. No. And look at verse 33 of chapter
8 of Romans. Because Christ has done this
for his people, for his elect, who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who, in that day of judgment,
shall lay anything? We must all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who shall bring a case against
God's elect that will stick in the court of divine justice?
God has justified in Christ. Christ has borne His people's
sins. He has paid their penalty in their place. And so therefore,
there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So Jesus says to the woman, neither do I condemn you. Neither do
I condemn you, because He saved her. By what He was going to
do on the cross, by what He's done as the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin
no more. Notice he didn't say sin no more
and go. If he'd said sin no more and
go it would have meant that she had to do something. Sin no more
and then go in the strength. He didn't. He said go and sin
no more. What did he mean? Live perfectly?
Surely she couldn't do like any one of us cannot do. For if we
say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. But no. Go and live a life which
is a fruit bearing life. Bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
walking in the goodness of the salvation that is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Neither do I condemn you. Go
and sin no more.