God is a masterclass tactician.
The Feast of Tabernacles is celebrated for seven days. Every morning of the Feast, a priest goes to the Pool of Siloam and fills a golden vessel with water. A joyful crowd carries the water back through the Temple’s Water Gate while music plays and trumpets are blasted. The priest then takes the water to the altar and pours it out as a libation to God.
Isaiah says:
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“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3, NKJV).
Did Jesus Ever Declare that He is God?
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He did in so many words on several occasions. During one particular Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus gate-crashed the proceedings. On the last day of the Feast, He stood and cried out:
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38, NKJV).
Those familiar with the Scriptures immediately recognised that Jesus was declaring His divinity. This is because, according to Jeremiah, God is the “Fountain of Living Waters” (Jeremiah 17:13).
In effect, Jesus was saying, “Come to Me and get what only God can give.”
Therefore, many in the crowd said, “This must truly be the Prophet.” Others said, “He is the Christ,” another word for the Messiah. But some contested this, insisting the Messiah cannot come from Nazareth but from Bethlehem.
The religious establishment were enraged about Jesus’ increasing prominence, so they sent soldiers to arrest Him. But instead of doing this, the soldiers returned with a glowing report of Jesus’ extraordinary ministry.
The chief priests and the Pharisees asked them:
“Why have you not brought Him?” The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” (John 7:45-46, NKJV).
The ogas were incensed. “Nonsense! Did we approve of Him? Did we give Him a license?”
So they planned a different strategy against Jesus.
The scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?’
In this episode, John presents in its entirety the critical components of the gospel of the salvation of Jesus Christ.
Is John 8 In the Original Bible?
There has been considerable debate about whether this incident is actually in the original codices of John’s Gospel. It is not found in the Codex Vaticanus or in the Codex Sinaiticus. These were the earliest fourth-century scripts of the New Testament, over one thousand years before the King James Bible was printed.
But without a doubt, this episode belongs in the Gospel, not least because it is one of the most powerful expositions of Jesus’ astounding and amazing salvation in the Bible. The finger of God is all over it.
The Foolish Trap Against Jesus
The perennial opponents of Jesus, the scribes and the Pharisees, thought they had Him over a barrel. They thought they could corner Him, so they brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. Her guilt was not in doubt. She was caught in the very act. They then asked Jesus if she should be stoned according to the Law of Moses.
They knew Jesus was a friend of sinners. He even went to lunch in the house of Zaccheus, a despised tax collector. One of His disciples was Matthew, another former tax collector. Jesus always surrounded Himself with those considered by the religious establishment to be sinners.
So they expected Jesus to say the woman caught in adultery should not be stoned. If He did, He would be publicly indicted for contravening the sacred Law of Moses.
But if Jesus told them to stone her, they would expose Him for contradicting the message of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness that He had been preaching. They would also accuse Him before the Roman authorities because, under Roman rule, Jews had no right to execute anyone.
That was why they ultimately brought Jesus Himself to a reluctant Pilate.
“Pilate said to them, ‘You take Him and judge Him according to your law.’ Therefore the Jews said to him, ‘It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death'” (John 18:31, NKJV).
Never mind the fact that they violated this Roman rule when it suited them during their insurrections. For example, they stoned Stephen to death. But they could not commit the same illegality against Jesus because Jesus was not an ordinary Joe, and they feared the public reaction. There would have been a big kerfuffle because some would have risen to defend Him.
So, if Jesus agreed that the adulterous woman should be stoned to death, or if He disagreed, either way He would be cornered. Heads, He loses, and tails, He loses. If it were heads, Jesus would be prosecuted as an insurrectionist against Roman rule. If it were tails, He would be declared a lawless sinner for contravening Moses.
Setting Up the Setter-Upper
But we should know what these accusers did not know. They came to set up Jesus, but Jesus was the One behind their setup. This is because Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of all things. Without a shadow of a doubt, Jesus set up the whole scene because He wanted to use it to present His gospel of the grace of God.
But God also says, concerning people like this woman’s accusers:
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me” (Hosea 4:6, NKJV).
Jesus is God Almighty. He knows all things. He is the God who
“works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11, NKJV).
He says in Isaiah:
“Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish” (Isaiah 46:10, NLT).
Moreover, Jesus is the God who
“frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot carry out their plans. He catches the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the cunning comes quickly upon them” (Job 5:12-13, NKJV).
Haman’s Comeuppance
Haman installed gallows to hang Mordecai, but he ended up being hanged on the very gallows he had prepared. In the same way, these scribes and Pharisees would be caught in their own trap.
They were messengers of Satan. They were accusers of the brethren, which is the devil’s motif. Unless they repented, they stood under judgment and would end up in
“the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41, NKJV).
The devil is not an original thinker. He does the same things repeatedly. He is counterfeit and an imitator. He is not a lion, but merely one who “walks about like a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8, NKJV).
He believed he had trapped God by causing man in Adam to sin. He knew God is holy and that God cannot and will not fellowship with sinners. So, once he tempted Adam to sin, he was convinced God was trapped. He presumed that for eternity God would be helpless, watching His beloved children wallowing and dying in sin. In his mind, God would remain heartbroken forever.
God Is Masterclass
But God is a masterclass tactician. The psalmist acknowledges God’s superior craftiness:
“With the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd” (Psalm 18:26, NKJV).
With the devil, God led captivity captive. He ensured that the devil’s plans backfired upon him.
The devil never imagined that God Himself would become a man and redeem us from our sins by placing the penalty for our sins upon Himself.
Paul refers to this divine turnaround as “the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7-8, NKJV).
Ignorance of the Love of God
The accusers of this woman had no knowledge. They were ignorant on many levels. They did not understand the love of God.
We must not be ignorant like them. We must know one thing for sure:
“Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8, NKJV).
Scripture also declares:
“Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it” (Song of Solomon 8:7, NKJV).
Furthermore, we are assured that “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning” (Lam. 3:22-23, NLT).
Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love
As Scripture says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31, KJV).
Only a fool.
CONTINUED
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