"1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”"
John 8:1-11
The manuscript evidence for this passage is against its position here, or its attribution to John. Some think it is by Luke. It certainly interrupts the sequence of thought and discussion arising out of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, for 8:12 belongs to the 'tabernacles' theme, referring to the illumination of the temple during the feast days. Yet the arguments put forward about relegating the passage to an appendix do not quite convince one. And there is one consideration which, it seems, is important as an indication that there has been a divine overruling in the matter of its inclusion here, and it is this: in 8:7 Jesus says, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her' - And at the end of the chapter (59) we are told that the Jews took up stones to cast at Jesus. Is there not an association of ideas there? Jesus took the sinner's place, took the sinner's condemnation, and here, the stones that were the woman's due according to the law. Is John saying something to us here about substitutionary atonement for sin? Whatever the placing of the passage, however, the passage itself is authentic, and we shall treat it as such, in tomorrow's Note.