This chapter begins with Jesus teaching to some early one morning in the temple. During this time, the scribes and the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman who was caught in adultery. They brought her to Jesus to test Him, they asked if she should be stone according to the Mosaic law. They knew that had He answered yes, they would have accused Him of being a hypocrite because He taught of mercy. However, had He said no they would have accused Him of breaking the Mosaic law (that they took and twisted in this scheme). Jesus, being all knowing, continued to write in the dirt and ignore them, which made them ask again.

            Now there is speculation and theories as to what He was writing on the ground. One theory is that in Jeremiah 17:13 the prophet declared to let those who have revolted and been in sin have their names written on the ground. Some beleive that Jesus was writing down sins and even some names of the scribes and Pharisees who were guilty of these sins as He vocally declared, “he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”

            No matter what He wrote exactly, it was heard what He said and they were all convicted of it, and left Him alone. Jesus told the girl to go and to sin no more.

            Jesus then declared that HE is the light of the world and those who follow Him shall not walk in the darkness but have the light of life. The Pharisees didn’t like Him saying this and accused Him of bearing witness of Himself. Jesus said that they didn’t know who He was or where HE came from or where He was going and that they adjudged according to the flesh but He judges no one. We shouldn’t be judging by the flesh, we should be discerning what is going on in the spirit. We don’t battle flesh we battles principalities, when we judge a situation it should never be a person and their flesh it should be what is happening in the spirit. Jesus is the truth and His judgement is the truth, we need to ask Him to help us see things in the spirit to discern what is going on and don’t fall into temptation on judging the flesh.

            The Pharisees asked who His Father was to which Jesus said that they don’t know Him nor do they know His Father for if they knew His father they would know Jesus. There is only one way to the Father and that’s through Jesus. During this time as He spoke in the temple no one laid hands on Him to arrest Him for their disbelief, because it wasn’t yet His time to be take to the cross yet. Jesus continued to speak and told the disbelievers that they would die in their sin because they didn’t beleive, Jesus is from above and they are of this world and will die in their
sins because they don’t beleive. There is only one way to be free of sin and that is through
Jesus.

            Jesus does nothing Himself, everything He does and says is of the Father, He doesn’t do anything on His own, He is only about His Fathers business. We should desire to do nothing apart from God. Imagine having full peace from surrendering to Him to know that everything you are doing of every day is because He appointed you to do it; having full assurance knowing that even a trip to the grocery store was the day He appointed you to go for a specific reason that only He knows. We should all want full surrender like that.

            Jesus told those who believed that if they abide in His word then they are His disciples. To be His disciple we must stay in and abide in His word. Staying in His word is how we get to know Him more. He often speaks to us through His word, we can unknowingly limit what He wants to share with us when we limit what we know of His word. Its important to meditate on His word day and night. His word is truth and His word will set us free.