In Her Place (Costly Grace)

John 8:1-11

Have you ever wished you could be in someone else’s shoes at least for a moment? If you like sports and see a great player making a great play, you might think, “man, I’d love to be that guy right now.” We usually have those fleeting (hopefully) ‘trading places’ fantasy moments about someone who is having a highlight moment. We rarely think “man, I’d love to be that guy right now” about the place-kicker who just shanked a chip shot to lose the game. That’s when we think “man I’m glad I’m not that guy right now.” In our text, a woman caught in adultery in a time and place when it was a capital offense is brought into a courtyard, publicly humiliated and threatened with execution. How would you like to be in her shoes at that moment? I suspect not so much, but that is exactly what Jesus chose to do - to put Himself in her place and ours. John Stott once wrote, “The essence of sin is we humans substituting ourselves for God, and the essence of salvation is God substituting Himself for us. We put ourselves were only God deserves to be, and God puts Himself where we deserve to be.” This account shows our need for grace, the cost of grace and the power of grace.

First, let’s look at our need for grace. The woman’s need for grace is obvious. She was caught in an act of lawlessness and facing immediate execution at the hands of legalistic accusers, who were using her to trap Jesus. It was a clever move. They probably felt like a chess player with an opponent in checkmate. My opponent can zig or they can zag, but they can’t win. In this case, if Jesus let the woman go, they could accuse Him of not upholding God’s Law and thus condoning sin. If, on the other hand, Jesus upheld the Law and condemned the woman, His message and ministry of compassion was publicly discredited and open to ridicule. “Oh yea, blessed are the merciful, huh?” Of course, playing ‘outwit the Son of God’ is a can’t win proposition, and Jesus cleverly turned their move back on them. In the process He also exposed their need for grace. No one, and that certainly includes me, knows what Jesus was writing, but I wonder if it was commandments from God’s Law, which acts as a mirror showing us our sin and need for grace. In any event, He gave a condition that forced anyone who threw a stone to declare themselves sinless in front of the crowd and their hyper-judgmental peers. The oldest (wisest), who were the first to know that they had been outwitted, dropped their stones and headed home. Jesus, the only one actually meeting the sinless qualification needed to condemn, chose not to. As He had stated before, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him”-John 3:17. The question is how was Jesus free to let her go free without dishonoring God’s Law and God?

The answer is that He knew He would soon endure her condemnation in her place. As hard as it is to say, this woman deserved execution. So did her accusers, and so do we. We are all guilty of sin, and we all face condemnation in the ‘courtyard’ of heaven, where nothing is hidden. Thankfully, Jesus took her place (and ours) on the cross. That is what true grace, grace that does not condemn sinners or condone sin, costs. God is only free to let us go free, because He paid the full price for our sin. “God presented (Jesus) as an atoning sacrifice...to demonstrate His justice because...He left sins committed...unpunished”- Romans 3:25. John Piper said it well. “If God was unjust there would be no demand for His Son to die. If God were unloving there would be no willingness for His Son to die. But, God is both just and loving. Therefore, His love is willing to meet the demands of His justice.” Anything less than price-paying grace is cheap grace, and if we think about it, true grace always costs the one giving it. Not only does the grace-giver absorb the original losses of the sin against them. They also absorb the pain of forfeiting the consolation of just retribution. When we (or a loved one) are mistreated and choose not to mistreat in return, it can feel like it is killing us not to kill them. This is a taste of the death grace requires, but it is still not the whole meal. Grace not only withholds condemnation from someone who deserves it. It blesses them instead. So, grace costs the giver the pain of the original injustice, plus the pain of not condemning the offender and the pain of blessing them instead. Grace costs a lot, but it is worth its high price, since the death grace requires brings a resurrection of life.

Only grace, true costly grace given free of charge to the undeserving, has the power to break the cycle of sin and condemnation. We can think of God’s Law as legs supporting condemnation. When God’s Law is broken condemnation is sure to fall upon those under it. The point is God’s Law has the power to condemn, but it does not have the power to redeem. This is why “God sent forth His Son...born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law”- Galatians 4:4-5. Since the condemnation due to us fell upon Christ, we are free to leave with our lives and to leave our lives of sin. We are liberated by the reality that there is no longer any condemnation hanging over our heads. Instead of growing worry and resentment, we are filled with gratitude for grace and satisfied in the secure love of God. This increasingly empowers us to answer God's call to "sin no more." Grace also disarms our spiritual accusers. Just like the guilty accusers could not condemn the woman caught in adultery. Our accusers can not condemn us in God’s court. “Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died”- Romans 8:33-34. Grace disarms our accusers, allows us to escape death and frees us to leave our lives of sin behind. It is amazing indeed, and God calls all the beneficiaries of His saving grace to freely give costly-grace to everyone else. This means dropping our stones of condemnation and blessing those who curse us. It may feel like it is killing us to do so, but it will free everyone involved from the guilty cycle of sin and death and the bitter poison of bitterness.