In his sermon, Scott Brown explores the passage from John 8:1-20, emphasizing Jesus' declaration as 'the light of the world.' The sermon recounts the story of the woman caught in adultery, highlighting Jesus' response which exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes. Jesus states, 'He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first,' illustrating his respect for the law and his compassion for sinners. Brown emphasizes that while the Pharisees resist Jesus' claims due to their hardened hearts, Jesus' message is about forgiveness, truth, and the illumination of the human soul. The sermon also addresses the textual integrity of this passage, asserting its authenticity and importance. Ultimately, Brown calls for reflection on whether we truly know God through Jesus and how his light should guide our lives. He highlights that Christianity is centered on a relationship with Christ rather than mere lifestyle or philosophy. The sermon concludes with a prayer for the congregation to seek and be transformed by the light of Jesus.

Good morning. Our sermon text this morning is John chapter 8 verses 1 through 20. But Jesus went to the Mount of olives. Now early in the morning he came again into the temple and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. Then 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? This they said, testing him, that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger, as though he did not hear.

So when they continued asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And again he stooped down and rode on the ground. Then those who heard it being convicted by their conscience went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. And when Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to the woman, Woman, where are those accusers of yours?

Has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.

The Pharisees therefore said to him, you bear witness of yourself, your witness is not true. Jesus answered and said to them, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true, For I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from and where I am going. You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. And yet, if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.

I am one who bears witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of myself. Then they said to him, Where is your father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. These words Jesus spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no one laid hands on him for his hour had not yet come.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this section of scripture, Lord. In some sense, we are all this woman. We have sinned. However, you make a way, Lord, through your blood, through your reconciliation to God, through the atonement of sin for us to be forgiven.

Lord, this is a beautiful picture of your willingness to forgive sins. Lord, not condemning this woman. We thank you for this. Lord, we pray that this word preached today by Scott, our brother Scott, will be sink deep into our soul and that much fruit would come from it. Lord, if there's anyone here that doesn't understand the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, I pray your Holy Spirit would woo them today and that they would talk to someone here and understand this beautiful gift of salvation.

Thank you, Lord. We ask your blessing upon this service today in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Amen. Well, there's much to love and adore in this entire chapter, and particularly this verse that Jesus proclaims, He's the light of the world.

You know, they're mountain peaks when you're preaching through the book. You always want to get to fast, and this is one of them, and we've already passed by several of them already, but you know whenever a passage of Scripture is brought by me to this church, the big struggle is How do you apply this to this particular congregation? What are the needs of this congregation? What do people need to hear today from this passage of Scripture? And I always end up in the same place, and it's that I don't know.

I don't know, but I do know who knows. The light of the world knows he's the light and he's the one that can shine in the midst of all the darkness of our souls, the things we're struggling with. And so I trust in the Holy Spirit of God and the light of Jesus Christ because I struggle over and over again to know how to apply these things. But this thing I do know is that Jesus Christ is light and I'm so thankful for that. He's going to shine in the areas that I'm not aware of or need to be aware of at all.

Now this story picks up after the feast of tabernacles has ended, and the Lord Jesus Christ said, If anybody is thirsty, let them come to me and drink. And the people were marveling, and they said, Nobody ever spoke like this man. And now everyone has gone to their own homes right after the Feast of Tabernacles. And the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't go to his home. He goes to the place he regularly goes to pray.

He goes to the Mount of Olives and he stays there. And then now it's early in the morning after he has spent perhaps the whole night on the Mount of Olives and he's teaching in the temple. That's where we picked this up and immediately after he begins teaching there's an attempt to stop him, to shut him up because he is really teaching the same thing he's been teaching over and over again, that he's the only way to eternal life. And people don't want to hear that, and we're aware of that. You know, today, the companies of this world, the governments of this world, the educational institutions of this world, they want to make it illegal to say that Jesus is the only way, but that's our only message.

So Jesus is doing this again, and our text for this morning really contains this, on the one hand, very heart-rending story of this woman caught in adultery, but also very encouraging. But what happens here is that Jesus shines his light on the behavior of the accusers of this woman, the scribes and the Pharisees. Often people either they don't preach verses one through 11 at all or they preach one through 11 and then in a separate hearing they speak of Jesus as the light of the world. I think they're connected. I think they're intimately connected because what's happening here is that this incident takes place and John interprets it and he interprets it through the words of Jesus, I am the light of the world.

Because Jesus is shining his light on the innermost parts of the human soul, particularly these who have brought this woman before Jesus. And Jesus says to her, go and sin no more. And all throughout this, he's explaining the law that Moses gave. And the story, you know, contains these beautiful and hopeful statements in the Bible. And he calls this woman out of her self-destruction, out of her sin, and he calls her to go sin no more and he says that he's the light of the world you know making a promise to to her and all the rest and but the whole rest of the chapter is dedicated to the Pharisees resisting his light and finding fault with Jesus.

Jesus answers his every question. And in verse 19 in the text we're going to focus on today is also one really the mountain peaks of this passage where Jesus puts his finger he shines his light on the truth of everything that's happening in this chapter when he said You know neither me nor my father. You don't know me. And and then later on, he says, You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. And if you know the truth, you'll be free indeed.

And so the most important question in this whole chapter is, Do you know him? Do you have an experiential knowledge of God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, whenever you're in the passage of Scripture, it's very helpful not to just pick out your favorite verses. Verse 12 is my favorite verse in this chapter. It might be in a close competition with you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

But try to pull back and understand what John is trying to communicate in this chapter. And now, there's this looming matter that I know many of you are thinking about, and it's the issue of textual integrity. Does this belong in the Bible? It is called a variant. It's something that doesn't occur in some of the earliest manuscripts, and many believe that it should not be included in the Bible.

Some say it's that strongly. Others say, well, it's authentic, but John probably didn't write it. So there are various views. But like every other variant that is in the Bible, None of it contradicts anything else in the Bible. It's consistent and many say, well, maybe John didn't write it, but it's authentic.

Absolutely. And if you want...there are two sources I'd like to direct you to. First of all, we had Robert Bosley preach a sermon on the textual variants in the New Testament. I recommend that you listen to that. That'll give you a sense of it.

Also there's an extensive treatment of this matter in J.C. Ryle's commentary on this book. And I don't want to spend the whole rest of the time dealing with this textual variant problem, but J.C. Riles is going to tell you who lines up on what side of the aisle on this And he gives his opinion, which is very much like Calvin's opinion, that this does belong in Scripture and we should preach it. And I do believe that's true, so I'm going to preach it here this morning.

But I'd like to give us an idea of what's happening in this chapter. We've done this before where we had to step way back and see the contours of the passage and try to understand why Jesus is saying these things that grip our hearts so wonderfully, you know. And so in verses 1 through 59 there's this familiar pattern that we see in the gospel of John. We've seen it before in the feeding of the 5, 000 and in other places and we see it again here where Jesus does something, and the whole rest of the chapter is about the conflict and the trouble that came as a result of what He did. And of course the incident here is the woman caught in adultery and the whole chapter really is an illustration of what people do and have done with Jesus and all the all the all the gyrations in their hearts they go through to try to justify not believing in him how to justify not following him and this is what our hearts do you remember what it was like for you before you became a christian you kept you just kept multiplying reasons why you didn't want to turn to Him.

And this chapter is a display of one argument after another over whether He's the light of the world, whether he's been sent by God, whether he's one with God, and whether he is pleasing his Father in heaven. This entire chapter is a declaration of a conflict over that matter. And the scribes and the Pharisees just keep churning out reason after reason to reject him just like unbelieving hearts do. And they're like, you know, the waves of the ocean, they just keep coming on. You know, Claudia and I were sitting at the Pacific Ocean last week and we were just watching the waves, which I love to do.

But watching the waves is such a contemplation for me. It reminds me of so many things, but it reminded me of this, one wave after another of objection coming from the hearts of men here. But now, all of these reasons boil down to really simple matters. And first of all, they resist his truth claims and they dismiss his nature as God, and they reject that he's been sent by God, and they despise his claim to be one with God and they slander him for his claim that he's the only way to salvation and this whole chapter is about that now These beautiful statements that appear throughout it are so beautiful and so helpful, and you can't get them out of your mind. But I don't want us to forget what's happening here in this whole chapter.

And so the whole chapter shows the many ways that religious people try to discredit the truth claims of Jesus Christ. And they start by using a woman caught in adultery. And in the midst of this are these two great I AM statements, I am the light of the world and before Abraham was I am these are mountain peaks But they exist in the midst of a conflict of souls and Jesus is dealing with souls in conflict in this chapter and now I want to I want you to follow me through this chapter please oh please I hope your Bibles are open to John 8 because I'm gonna take you to various verses and I want to show you how this works through the chapter before we really begin to deal with the text that's in front of us. I want you to follow me through. I'm going to be stopping at various verses, so keep your finger ready to find the verses and see how there's this desire to discredit the truth claims of Jesus Christ.

This is the entire problem of mankind. And this is the entire conflict that we find in the gospels, and it's why at the very end of this chapter they pick up stones to throw at him but they fail so the first thing that we find is they challenge him they test him with a woman caught in adultery they're trying to discredit him That's verses 1 through 11. In verse 13, they can they accuse Jesus of lying. They say, your witness is not true. In verse 19, They challenge him about where his father is.

They say, where is your father? This is a scornful approach to Jesus Christ, but then he depicts his departure, and then in verse 22, they suggest that he's going to commit suicide they're trying to discredit him and so the Jews said will he kill himself because he says where I go you cannot come they're trying to discredit him they're trying to slander him it was against It was against the law of God to commit suicide. And to accuse Jesus of suicide is a slanderous accusation. They're trying to discredit Him. And verse 25, they question Jesus' identity and they say, who are you?

And He tells them, He says, I, Well, I am here to represent my Father and I don't do anything unless it pleases my Father. And then in verse 33, they accuse Him of His inability to make them free. He's just said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. And they say, we're Abraham's descendants and we've never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you'll be made free?

And then in verse 27 they accuse Jesus of having a different father and a different history than they have. And Jesus says, you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. In verse 41, they accused him of being born of fornication. I'm sure this was a scandal that his mother Mary lived with, but they are accusing him of being born of fornication. In verse 41, They said, we're not born of fornication.

How about you? And then in verse 40, they accused Jesus of having a demon. They say you are a Samaritan and have a demon. And then in verse 57, they accuse him of lying about his eternal nature and his claim that he saw Abraham and Abraham saw him and the Jews say you're not yet 50 years old and have you seen Abraham? And Jesus answers and says before Abraham was I am And Jesus answered every one of their objections and in verse 59 they took up stones to throw at him.

So in this chapter, this chapter is like many sections in the Gospel of John, there's an incident and there are truth claims and those truth claims are rejected. But every one of those rejections is a reflection of our hearts in some way. And it exposes the fact that there are just there are many reasons that people dismiss Jesus. There are reasons that people hold back from following Jesus and it reveals that sin in our hearts to find an alternative way compared to Jesus' way. We want a different way.

And this is very practical for us today because every day we're surrounded by various truth claims that are contradictory. And many of these truth claims that contradict the truth of God in His Word, many of them come from our fallen minds, from our damaged emotions, they come from our seared consciences, they come from our experiences and our preferences, and you know in many areas of our lives we reject the truth claims of Jesus. The Christian has a struggle with that daily to reject his own truth claims and to embrace the claims of Jesus upon him and the commands of God upon him. You know, how do you, What truth claims do you use to do anything in this life? To conduct your relationships, to have a marriage or, I mean, you know, Dr.

Phil and Oprah will tell you what to do with your relationships. They'll tell you what to do with your sexuality, you know, every single song or movie will tell you what kind of person you should be like. These are truth claims. And you know, the New York Times will tell you what to think about everything. And you know, Bill Nye, the science guy, will tell you where you came from, but what truth claims do we really embrace?

And here there's this conflict over the claims of Jesus Christ and, you know, the writer of Hebrews says that God has spoken to us by His Son. And so this whole chapter is about the truth claims of Jesus Christ and the ways people desire to reject them. And they just come like the waves of the sea, over and over and over again. Now the heart of the conflict that we're going to pursue here really begins in verse 1 in this context. But I really do believe that the heart of this first section, and really probably the heart of the entire chapter, is Jesus' statement, I am the light of the world.

This woman caught in adultery is a brilliant illustration of how Jesus shines the light into the wicked hearts of men who want to escape Him. And I think that's the big picture. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, sees right through the accusers, and he sees right through that woman, and he cuts through their hypocrisy and their sin, and he puts his finger in the wound and he shows them the way of life and but there's there's good news in this chapter you know in verse 30 We read that many believed in him. That's wonderful news. That you can walk in this world lighting your own way, banging your head with all of its darkness and Jesus shines his light into your life and he rescues you from where you were.

So there really is so much good news here in this passage. Well in verse 1 we read that Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, most likely to pray. Early in the morning, he goes into the temple, and this happens in the treasury. We learn this in verse 20, these words, Jesus spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple. So that's the location of this.

In the treasury, there are 13 receptacles for the giving of offerings. This is the place where the woman put in her last penny, the story of the widow's mite. This is the location in the temple and he's teaching. We don't have a record here that he's doing any miracles, he's just teaching and it's his teaching that incites all the fury of these scribes and Pharisees. It's the things that he says that are offensive And in the midst of the teaching, which was offensive, they bring a woman to test him.

They're setting a trap. And in verses 3 through 6 is really the core of it. The scribes and the 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. And then they quote Moses in Deuteronomy and Leviticus 20 and they say in verse 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?

This they said, testing him, that they might have something of which to accuse him. And that really forms the beginning and the continuity of the entire chapter. This was a test. It was not real. They had no concern for this woman keeping the law.

They didn't care anything about this woman. It was a test And I think we need to recognize that right at the beginning. They hate Jesus. They really don't love the law. In the previous chapter, Jesus said to them, you don't keep the law.

This is an example of that right here, by the way. They're not... They're claiming to keep the law, but they're not keeping the law at all. And they're quoting Moses, they're quoting Deuteronomy 22 verse 22, where the death penalty is prescribed for adulterers, but there were conditions. And in Deuteronomy 22, the man and the woman had to be present.

Deuteronomy 22, 22, if a man is found lying with a woman and married to a husband, then both of them shall die, the man that lay with the woman and the woman, so you shall put away the evil from Israel." Now in this text, the man is mentioned first so where is the man where is he there is no man and there's no such thing as one guilty person in adultery and so they're bringing a sham because they are not they don't love the law of God And this is not a legitimate trial of a woman. It's a lynching that often happens. And secondly, in the Law of Moses, which also is the law of Jesus Christ, if you don't have witnesses or accusers, you don't have a case. And so these Pharisees, they believe they're very crafty and they have brought a dilemma to Jesus. And the dilemma that they've brought is would he support them in stoning or would they let her go free so that they could say that he doesn't care about the law.

And the problem, you know, according to Roman law, the Jews didn't have authority to execute, so they...the Jews couldn't execute this woman. And so if Jesus called for stoning this woman, then he would be breaking Roman law. And then they could say, he breaks Roman law, which by the way, that's how they finally got him. It was the Romans that executed him because they couldn't. And so they tried to create conditions and slanderous things so that the government would crucify him and that's exactly what happened.

So it didn't work this time, But the Jews could not kill Jesus. So now this wasn't the first time that they tried to trap Jesus into breaking Roman law. You know, remember the time when they asked him if they should pay taxes to Caesar because they wanted to accuse him of tax evasion and encouraging his followers to evade their taxes and they tried that and that That didn't work and Jesus just said, give to Caesar that which is Caesar's. But if Jesus says, stone her so he breaks Roman law, if he says, let her go, he breaks Jewish law. So either way, they think they've got him.

They think they have got him in a catch-22. This is it. This happens all the time. It's hilarious. They never get him that way.

You can't get him. He's just a little bit too smart. And so they're in this awkward, you know, situation where they think no matter what He says, He's condemned. We've got Him now, not so fast. And Jesus responds, verse 6, He stoops down and writes on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear.

Well now, what did he write on the ground? I'm going to make this really simple. Nobody knows, and that's all I'm going to say about it. There are commentators that give all kinds of reasons, who knows? We don't know, we're not told.

And then Jesus responds after he gets up by quoting the law in verses 7 and 8. So when they continued asking him, Jesus raised himself up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. Wow. Is Jesus just giving her a pass on her sin? Does this mean that the law doesn't matter to Jesus.

No, he's actually appealing to the law of Moses because in the law in Deuteronomy 17 verse 7, Accusers were required to throw the first stones. That's why he said this. He didn't say this to say, I'm giving adultery a pass. And And Moses says this, the hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward all the hands of the people." So he's quoting the law. He's saying, you're the accusers, go for it.

Now one of the problems with the law is that the law called false accusers to receive the same punishment that the falsely accused deserved. They knew that. I think they have an idea that Jesus knows the law. In Deuteronomy 19 verses 15 through 19, the law calls for false accusers to receive the same punishment, and it reads like this, if the witness is a false witness who testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother, so you shall put away the evil from among you." So if you falsely accuse someone, you get the same punishment. They knew that.

You know, if this were practiced today, How many politicians would be in prison? All the slanderous things that people say about each other without impunity, but in the law if you falsely accuse somebody you would receive that punishment. It's interesting. Now, Jesus is not saying we need to forgive adulterers because we're sinners too. That's not what He's saying.

Jesus is not saying you need to be sinless in order to judge someone. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying if you were sinless, then you could stone her. This is not Jesus' message at all. Sinlessness is not required to judge a matter.

Like every parent knows this. As a parent, you don't need to be sinless to judge the sins of your children. And Federal judges don't need to be sinless to judge federal crimes either. That's not what Jesus is saying. And Jesus is not setting aside the law of God.

He's explaining the law of God. Jesus kept every law of Moses and now if you would like to know with clarity how Jesus handled the law and how we should handle it then ask one of the five interns that I have this year because they memorize the section in the Baptist Confession on the proper use of the law. They can recite it for you that they're gonna be gone in about a week, so you might have to get them soon. Well then, Jesus stoops on the ground again, verse 8. And the Pharisees' consciences are aroused.

You know, Jesus is the light of the world he just shine his light in the darkness and Those who heard it being convicted this is verse 9 being convicted by their conscience went out one by one beginning with the oldest even to the last. Well they didn't have adequate evidence. They did not fulfill the law's demands, and they knew it. They were false accusers. They knew that they were not there to carry out the law.

They knew that they were there to test him. And Jesus exposes their motive because He's the light of the world. And that's why the very next verse, Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. And then Jesus speaks to the woman In verses 9 and 10, the end of verse 9, and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised himself up, he saw no one but the woman.

He said to her, woman, Where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?' She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." Now Jesus didn't need to condemn that woman, she was already condemned under the law and the law had revealed the thoughts and the intentions of her heart. We don't know exactly what happened here But Jesus, what we do know is that Jesus invites her to come out of her sin, from out from under condemnation and under the light of the one who's the light of the world.

And he's that's why he says go and sin no more. He's calling her out and this is Jesus Christ's compassion for sinners. He calls us out. He doesn't kill us. You know, Jesus said something similar to Nicodemus when he said, ìFor God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

And you know, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance." So we need to be clear that Jesus isn't going soft on adultery. No one ever had a higher view of marriage than Jesus. Jesus condemns adultery, but this is not a lawful proceeding that's taken place. Now interpreting this I think is important.

Some say that this is an example of the harshness and the inappropriateness of the Old Testament laws and how the Old Testament is about laws and the New Testament is about love. And some commentators treat the story of this woman as an example of the Old Testament, New Testament discontinuity. And their interpretation is that the law keepers in this story, the Pharisees, were mean, but Jesus was nice and he lets her off the hook. And that Jesus is compassionate, but the law wasn't compassionate. And they say that Jesus sets aside the law because He loves her.

And they also teach that if you have sinned, you have no right to judge because of what Jesus said, He who is without sin, let him cast first stone. This is a classic view of New Covenant theologians. I was reading John Piper, he takes this view, he says that this story is an illustration of how Jesus exalts himself over the law of Moses and alters it, I'm quoting him, and changes and appointed punishment in the law. And Piper contends that Jesus, quote, reestablishes righteousness and improves on the law. God, I don't believe that those views are correct.

I believe that Jesus is quoting the law, Jesus is upholding the law and fulfilling the law and following the law. And that there's conclusive evidence in this text that that's exactly what Jesus is doing. He's using the law to convict the Pharisees. And he's doing what Paul told Timothy. The Law is good if one uses it lawfully.

R.C. Sproul made this statement. Notice that Jesus did not hedge between Jewish law and the Roman law. He sided with Moses. I believe that's true.

And then Jesus explains what just happened in verse 12. Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. And Jesus proclaims himself as the light, the only light, the exposing light, the saving light of our darkened souls. You know this scene I think is a beautiful illustration of Psalm 85 verse 10.

Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. John has spoken about light already in chapter 3 verses 19 through 21 he said and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." Now, this is one of the I AM statements. This is the second I AM statement in the gospel of John.

He's already said, I am the bread of life. Now he says, I am the light of the world. And this, He uses this phrase to declare who he is. He is God. He uses the great I AM.

It's called the tetragrammaton, that he is God. He is the exalted, omnipotent, omniscient God. This is the problem because he's claiming to be this. We could talk for a long time about light and the benefits of light, the life-giving virtues of light. The Bible speaks about light.

You know, light and its physical nature is so life-giving in so many ways. You know, if you go to Alaska in the summer, you'll see giant vegetables because there's so much light, 18, 20 hours a day of light and they grow like nothing grows because of light. And that's what's true physically of plants is true spiritually of us. The more light, the more growth, the more blessing, the more health, We need light and to escape the unfruitful works of darkness that the Apostle Paul talked about in Ephesians 5. You know, we're those people that Isaiah spoke of, You know, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. There's much we could say about the light, but the light that Jesus gives, it's the light of truth. The truth claims that unpack and unravel and interpret everything that we're going through all of your fears his light shines upon them all of your despondency, all of everything is, everything needs light, the light of Jesus Christ. We always need His truth claims. Lest we get lost in our emotions or our culture or what people are saying or what our impressions are or what our emotions are screaming at us we need the light of Jesus to set us straight.

You know David said the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is my light. Jesus is just fulfilling that. You know, in John, in first John one, you know, we read that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

So they try to catch him by using this woman caught in adultery, and then they want to continue to catch him. They're not done. So they have churned out another reason to reject his truth claims. And in verse 13 they call him a liar. The Pharisees accuse him of being a liar.

They failed with the woman, now they come with another objection. This is what the human heart does. It multiplies objections. And the Pharisees said to him, You bear witness of yourself, your witness is not true. Isn't this interesting?

Now the Pharisees are quoting the law of witnesses in the Old Testament. They're quoting Deuteronomy 19, 15. Why they would do that, I don't know after their experience, but Jesus has just exposed them as lawbreakers on the basis of the law of witnesses and now they're using the law of witnesses against him. One threat, one fly after another they try to catch him on And the issue has already been declared in John 7, 17. They don't wanna do His will.

Jesus already said, if anyone is willing to do His will, He will know the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak of myself. It's their lack of willingness that has creates their objections and the reason they delay in following Him. And then Jesus answers them in verses 14 to 18 and he Jesus answers them and he says, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from and where I'm going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one.

Yet if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bears witness of myself and the Father who sent me, bears witness of me." It's interesting that he says, I judge no one. And What he means is I judge no one according to the flesh. He says you judge according to the flesh verse 15.

And then he says that he judges no one that way. Because he's the light of the world. He sees into your innermost being and he doesn't judge by appearances. And his judgment comes from his father because remember he has claimed to have been sent by his father to earth, which is an astonishing claim that they must continue to refute. And then in verse 19, they challenge him about where his father is.

Then they said to him, where is your father? And Jesus answers the question, but he cuts straight to the real issue. He doesn't even really answer their question. He actually answers their condition. Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father.

If you had known me, you would have known my father. And this is what infuriated them Because he said that in order to know the Father, you must know Him and in order to know Him, you will know the Father. And they don't, they don't want to follow Him. And In reality, they don't even want to follow their father in heaven and so Jesus is summarizing the thing that infuriated them the most, his exclusive claim to be the Messiah, to be the only one through whom you might know God. He's claiming that salvation is only in Him, and there is no other salvation except by Him.

And He says, if you had known Me, you would have known My Father. Now He's talking to people of tremendously high moral standards. But he's saying you don't know your father and you don't know because you don't know me. The most important thing is do you know God? And Jesus says that, he says you neither know me nor my father.

And he uses this word to know. And it has to do with, well, it has to do with something real. It's something that you experience, it's something that you, it's life-changing knowledge. It isn't intellectual knowledge primarily, it includes intellectual knowledge, but it's experiential knowledge because this is eternal life that you might know God and his Son Jesus Christ. And I think this might be really the high watermark of this text in verses 1 through 20.

This really is all about the question, do you know the Father through the Son Jesus Christ? Do you know Him? Does He know you? Are you a part of Him? Do you love Him?

Do you want His ways? That's the whole matter that's before us in this section. And then verse 20 concludes the section for this morning. These words Jesus spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no one laid hands on him, for his hour had not yet come." He claimed to be God. He claimed to be the only way of salvation.

He claimed to be the only light in this world, and they want to stone him, but they cannot do it because his time has not yet come. This is the third time this phrase has appeared in the Gospel of John. And there's more to come on that. Okay, I just want to leave you with some a few applications. First of all, I want us to grasp Jesus Christ's love for the law of God and how he fulfilled it, how he honored it, how he kept it, and how he actually became a living picture of the law of God.

That's what it means to fulfill the law. Jesus said, I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. What does that mean? It means that He came to do it. He came to be a living picture of it, of every part of the law of God.

The Bible says that every law of God is a law of love. Jesus is not minimizing the law. He's not minimizing or abrogating Moses. It's interesting, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy over and over again. When the devil tempted Jesus Christ for 40 days in Matthew 4, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8.3, man shall not live by bread alone.

When Jesus rejected the temptation to jump off the temple to to make a big show, he quotes Deuteronomy 6.16 which says, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" When Jesus rejected the temptation to worship Satan, he quotes Deuteronomy 6.13, "'You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him.'" You know, when Jesus teaches about family life and how children should teach to treat their elderly parents, He quotes Deuteronomy 5.16. When Jesus is teaching about oaths in Matthew 5.33, He quotes Deuteronomy 23.22, and he is teaching about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 19 He quotes Deuteronomy 5 16 through 20 When he's teaching about the greatest commandment mammon what Jen genuine love for God is in Mark 12 he quotes Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 6. When he's teaching about the resurrection in Matthew 22 he quotes Deuteronomy 25, 5 through 12. Jesus loved the book of Deuteronomy. He quoted it all the time.

So I don't want us to misunderstand how Jesus Christ treats the law. Another thing, we always have to ask, you know, who am I in this story? Well, we could probably relate to everybody but Jesus in this story. You know, I think many of us have thought, I'm that woman. We've probably thought, I'm like those Pharisees.

I'm so proud. And I do everything for my own purposes, Like the Pharisees were doing. They were just using this woman. So there are various contours of our sin that are exposed here. In this passage of scripture, you have the indignant Pharisees, the self-righteous ones.

But here's the issue. They resist the truth claims of Jesus. They dismiss Jesus Christ's nature as God and being sent from God and that he is the light of the world and they just continue to find contradictions. Now there may be there may be some here today that are still delaying their following Jesus because of some reason like these have men have reasons. Maybe you have 10 reasons just like these men have one reason gets answered and you need another.

You need another answer that one's answered. You need another. Is that you? Is that possible? Don't delay.

You will never come up with enough reasons to turn away from Jesus and He'll answer your every question. But recognize this in the sinful heart. Once He answers one question, If you're not willing to come to him, you'll come up with another one And then when that's answered you'll come up with another one and it'll be a never-ending trajectory toward hell So just recognize that this is what's happening in the human heart and this is what happens in our hearts as well. Now also I want us to see how much hope there is in this passage. You know, he's calling her to repent and many believe and actually the Pharisees actually have their consciences burned to such a degree that they walk out.

There's hope in the face of the light of Jesus. And he says to her, go and sin no more. And he's just demonstrating his goodness that he wants to carry you and take you through this life. He wants to embrace sinners who repent. And he wants to care for them.

Well, John chapter 8 takes us again to the very essence of Christianity and that's this, that Christianity isn't a lifestyle, it's not a philosophy, it's a person. It's Jesus Christ, the light of the world. It's following a person. It's following the only one who can give you salvation and who can shine light into your dark heart. This is Christianity.

You know, all the self-help books, all the lifestyle, they can give you a lifestyle, but they can't give you a life. But Jesus gives a life through His light. And that's the promise that is here. And that's why He said, I'm the light of the world. Whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life." And I hope you can see how much hope there is in Jesus, how much mercy, how much freedom there is in Jesus Christ, how much truth there is in Jesus Christ.

And this of course has everything to do with our life together in this church. What kind of people will we be? The people who long for the light of the face of Jesus Christ. And I pray that characterizes us more than anything. All day long today, all week, this coming weekend when we come back together next Sunday to go to the next length of John chapter 8.

It's thrilling to know How much hope there is in Jesus and in his light Would you pray with me? Lord we need your light. I need your light in so many areas of my dark soul We thank you Father that you sent your Son as the light of the world. We love His light, it's such a good light, such a life-giving light, and we pray that you would make us attracted to that light above all other lights in this world. Amen.