Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

 

Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

 

(John 8:10-11) When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

Many people who heard Jesus' words followed Him. As more and more people followed Jesus, the Jewish religious leaders, the chief priests and the Pharisees, sent people into a riot to arrest Jesus, but in the end they could not catch Jesus. And the crowds who were present, the chief priests and Pharisees, and their servants all went home. And finally, Jesus also went to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is the place where Jesus went to pray on the Mount of Olives with his disciples before he was arrested. Jesus stayed on the Mount of Olives and went back to the temple the next day to teach. However, while Jesus was teaching the people in the temple, the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught on the spot while committing fornication and came before Jesus. And they demanded Jesus' judgment of this woman.“Moses said to cast stones in the law, but what would Jesus say?”

The purpose of the scribes and Pharisees who came to this question was not to really seek an answer to the question of fornication of a woman, but to provoke Jesus' answer. If Jesus had compassion on the captured woman and told them to let her go, they would accuse him of not obeying the law, saying that he is the Son of God. On the other hand, if Jesus told them to stone the woman according to her law, then because Jesus was Israel under the rule of the Roman Empire at the time, it would be against the Roman law which forbade any nation from condemning themselves to death. This was also an answer that provided an excuse for Jesus to be attacked.

The Pharisees and the scribes came to Jesus by preparing a trap to make Jesus in trouble no matter what answer he gave. But in this difficult situation, Jesus falls down and writes something on the ground. As they continued to urge Jesus to answer, Jesus got up and said to them, " He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.." The Jewish leaders saw this woman caught in fornication as a good bait for Jesus, and as an impure woman who had sinned.

However, when Jesus said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” He made the people who were there to look at themselves. After a while, the people present, from adults to young people, left one by one. When they saw her sin, they thought she should be stoned to death as the law says, but when they heard Jesus' words and saw their sins, no one dared to justify them for their sins. People were forced to leave the place.

Many people who were there left, and Jesus and the two were left alone. To the woman, Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Jesus forgave her sin to her immoral woman, whom the people of her world accused her of committing her sins against.

She is an immoral woman and she is the one caught at the crime scene. However, in the words of her Jesus in 『He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.』, all her people left her place. They had not yet been caught at the crime scene, but they too were sinners not much different from the fornicators. Likewise, all humans in this world are judging the sins of others, but all are sinners before God.

Humans are like prodigals who forsook the perfect love of God and left the side of their father. Just as the prodigal son forsakes his father who gives everything to him when he asks for property, humans who receive God's perfect love have forsaken God. This is the appearance of the prodigal son and shows the fallen nature of man. Before realizing this depravity, man cannot see the love of God. This depravity is based on the sinful nature of greed to become like God. So, to become like the prodigal son who died and returned to his father is repentance. It is difficult to think that if a person who has left his father unconditionally returns, his father will accept everything. God tells us to repent and return as the dead.

The cross of Jesus is the way back to God. Unless you go through the cross of Jesus, you cannot find the way to God.If you just look at the cross of Jesus and think, “He atoned for my sins and saved me,” you will not reach perfect faith. You don't just look at the cross, you have to go into it. It is to take up your cross.

Even those who do not carry their cross can say “Lord, Lord” with their mouths and cast out demons and prophesy with their power. But unless Jesus is Lord, he cannot be saved. For Jesus to become Lord, he must take up his cross through the repentance of his denial. The Gospel of Matthew warns the unrepentant that on that day Jesus will say, “I did not know you.” So, the Bible speaks of repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ as the conditions for salvation. Many churches today obscure the nature of repentance. They only want to be forgiven of their sins. They think it's repentance. Sin cannot be forgiven unless the cause of it is removed. The cause of sin is the idol of greed of the old man. This is not something to be forgiven for, but something to die for. The one who repents daily confirms that he is dead.

The church in Laodicea became a lukewarm church that people liked. A lukewarm church is a church where there is no burden. It will become a church that has no words to pierce the conscience, confesses sins appropriately and makes you think that your sins are forgiven. If you love the Lord, the world will hate you. Because those who speak the truth but do not accept the truth will hate you. The truth is Jesus Christ who died on the cross. If the church is not separated from the world and resembles the world, it becomes the church of Laodicea. If there is no word of repentance and only a philosophical story about how to live in the world, the church becomes a place no different from the world. You can only repent when you first wake up from the world. If you compromise with the world, you cannot repent. If we do not repent, we become those who do not have the love of God in them.