Written in Stone

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. (John 8;4)

It is interesting that, while John did not feel it important to reveal precisely what Jesus wrote upon the earth with His finger, He did feel it significant that the Son of God elected to reinforce what He was about to say with what He wrote.

Perhaps it was because this was not the first time that God wrote on the earth with his finger. It was in fact the third time – the first being when God wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone for Moses to take down from Mount Sanai. The second time, was to replace the tablets that Moses broke when he saw for himself the golden calf the children of Israel had made and were worshipping.

In light of these facts, doesn’t it seem particularly appropriate that Jesus, being the Son of God, would once more write the Ten Commandment on the earth? As Paul had declared, “…the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Jesus with letters brought everyone present under the crushing weight of the law, which is why the accusers lost their advantage and humbly left – beginning with the oldest and wisest until none were left.

Some believers like to believe and teach that Jesus might have been writing the specific sins of the accusers on the ground, as a miraculous sign. But, that would be totally out of character for Jesus. It is true that Jesus did, on a few occasions, confront a person with their sin, but never to condemn them but rather to confirm his power and authority.

I personally like the image of Jesus writing the Ten Commandments because it portrays Jesus, the Son of God, doing precisely what His Father did before Him. And, it permits both the law and Spirit to do precisely what they were created to do becoming the perfect visual aid to what Jesus then said, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone.”

In the past, I have thought most about how perfectly Jesus addressed the situation, but I realize that simply isn’t enough. The sad truth is that we are all at times tempted to make ourselves feel slightly more righteous by focusing on someone else’s faults. The only remedy is to be constantly mindful of our own sorry state, which is the job of the law. The more we settle in to our own hopeless state as a sinner, and rely wholly on Jesus rather than ourselves for our salvation, we will shed any temptation to focus on any faults of others.

Lord keep us ever mindful of our status as sinners saved solely by our faith in Jesus your son.

“If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone.”