Deacon Tom Lindell

My Brothers and Sisters,

The Eucharistic Lectionary for today tells the story in John’s Gospel about the women caught in adultery as revealed by the Scribes and the Pharisees. (Of course, no one held the man involved accountable.) They challenged Jesus as to why they should not stone her as proscribed by the law of Moses.

Cryptically, Jesus bends down and writes on the ground with his finger. Upon rising, he said to them, Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. Upon hearing this, they slowly went away one-by-one.

Jesus then asks the woman, Has no one condemned you? She responded, No one sir. Jesus responds, Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.

The authors of John created this story out of “whole cloth” and it has no parallel in any of the other Gospels. However, verse 8:7 paraphrases Deuteronomy 17:7, “The first stones are to be thrown by the witnesses.”

While the story is not inconsistent with what scholars thought their understanding of who Jesus was, they found no evidence that it came from any previous oral tradition. John’s Gospel contains many instances where there are no parallels (however, occasionally, he borrowed from Mark and Thomas), and for that matter, few citations attributed to Jesus in this Gospel have been deemed “authentic” words of Jesus. This is the reason that this Gospel stands alone among the other three Gospels.

Did the authors have an overt agenda in writing this Gospel, because virtually all writing is written with a perspective in mind?

For example, the “I AM” sayings in John’s Gospel where Jesus emphatically refers to himself in the first person, implying the famous self-revelation of God (Yahweh) to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I am who I am”. As such, I AM may be understood to predicate the existence of God.

Were the authors of John elevating Jesus to Godlikeness (apotheosis)? As the early church developed, it relied significantly on the theology of John’s Gospel and Paul’s emphasis on resurrection.

Historically, the early church councils sought to codify the relationship of Jesus to God. At Nicaea in 325, Jesus and God were deemed to be of the “same substance.”

It was not until the Council of Calcedon in 451 that Jesus was both human and divine; Jesus and God were declared to be one. For over 1500 years Christianity has evolved into this predominant theological viewpoint.

—Deacon Tom