Question

In a recent online conversation with some brothers in Christ, a debate arose over the legitimacy of the famous "adulterous woman" passage in John 7:53-8:11. In this posting, we will examine why there is any reason to debate the Scriptural legitimacy of this passage to begin with, and we will then study whether or not this passage is really part of the Gospel of John, as written by him in its original version.

Answer

During the online conversation mentioned above, I was sharing that, according to Scripture, the key to the Church's restoration lies in the unleashing of judgments (Isaiah 1:26-27). As usual, this created a "stir", and someone in the conversation brought up the "adulterous woman" passage as an example of how we must be "merciful" and not "judgmental". I then said that this passage was not really a part of Scripture. This created an even bigger stir. Some became a tad "emotional" about the matter, and a barrage of counterstatements ensued. Unfortunately, the problem with online conversations is that they generally limit you to "one-liners", especially when the number of people participating is greater than two. As we have said before, God's Word is inherently complex, and it requires a humble heart that is willing to sit down and silently listen to the Spirit before reaching a conclusion. As most of the conversation members ganged up against my solitary view, the conversation degraded, and it seemed as if no one understood why we were even "wasting our time" discussing such a "minor and irrelevant side issue". It seems as if no one understood the spiritual relevance of the issue being discussed, for it revealed important spiritual roots in the Church that must be plucked out before God's Glory can be manifested.

During this online conversation, I shared that John 7:53-8:11 does not appear in the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John, and that this was the beginning of my gripe with that passage. Fellow believer, if you go to any "study Bible", you are almost certain to find a comment at the beginning of this passage warning that it does not appear in many manuscripts. In the Bible software I use, for example, there is a comment at the beginning of this passage saying that John 7:53-8:11 does not appear in "most of the manuscripts" and that other manuscripts include it in a different part of the Gospel of John. The Bible I personally use at this time (which is not a "study Bible") says the following at the beginning of this passage: "[THE EARLIEST MANUSCRIPTS DO NOT INCLUDE JOHN 7:53-8:11]"; it also has a footnote that says, "Some manuscripts do not include 7:53-8:11; others add the passage here or after 7:36 or after 21:25 or after Luke 21:38 with variations in the text".

Most study Bibles also comment on the fact that the narrative that is interrupted in John 7:52 continues in John 8:12. Fellow believer, I strongly encourage you to read through the latter part of John chapter 7 and the beginning of chapter 8. If you read carefully, you will notice that the text will not flow naturally unless you remove the adulterous woman passage, and you will also notice that there is a strange "reappearance" of Jesus' chapter-7 audience between verses 11 and 12 of John 8. There is no continuity between these two contiguous verses, even though verse 12 begins with the words "Then spake Jesus again unto them", which implies that there should be no shift to a different "location" or "scenery" from verse 11 to verse 12. However, the "location" and "scenery" of verse 12 is completely different from that of verse 11. All of this indicates that there is something "fishy" going on.

To be honest with you, I was completely oblivious to all of this in my early years as a believer. Just like most believers, I accepted this passage without question, especially since it is one of the most "popular" passages of Scripture after John 3:16. However, as I grew in the Lord, I became increasingly uncomfortable with this passage. It all came to a head one day when I sat down and said to God,

"Lord, please, I beg of you, please help me to understand this passage; I just can't take feeling uncomfortable about it any longer; if there is something missing in my understanding which is causing this discomfort, please reveal it to me; I want to understand the true meaning behind this passage"

After I said this to the Lord, He made me aware of the facts mentioned above. What drew my attention even more was the fact that the manuscripts which left out this passage were the earliest ones, meaning that the manuscripts which had the greatest chance of resembling the original text did not include it. If this passage had been in the original text written by brother John, wouldn't it have been likelier for the passage to have disappeared (instead of appearing) in later manuscripts? Why would the earlier transcribers of the Gospel of John choose to leave out this passage, considering that it is a surefire "crowd favorite". This passage is so popular that I have yet to find a fellow Christian who has at one point shared my "discomfort" with this passage (that in and of itself is a very sad comment to make, especially considering all the so-called "Bible experts" out there).

After it became evident that this passage was a "late amendment" to the Gospel of John, the Lord began to reveal the details of why I felt so much "discomfort" about it. As we have shared before, the prophetic Holy Spirit guides us to the spot where we must dig for the truth. Once we get there, the apostolic wisdom of the Son allows us to do the actual digging. The Holy Spirit gives us clues that allow us to look in the right direction, but, once we are looking there, we must operate in the Son's wisdom in order to find the foundational details that sustain the initial inkling given to us by the Holy Spirit. In a sense, the Holy Spirit's prophetic guidance allows us to focus on the "right suspects", and the Son's apostolic wisdom allows us to gather the facts to convict them. We cannot render final verdicts based on inklings, even though the inklings are crucial in reaching those verdicts.

In the rest of this posting, we will share the problems with the spiritual principles behind John 7:53-8:11 and why it is contrary to Scripture. It will then become evident why it is so spiritually crucial that this passage be dethroned from the hearts of believers in the Church in order for the latter-rain revival to come.

The requirements to judge

As I would read and reread John 7:53-8:11, my main concern was with verse 7:

"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7?)

This verse declares a very "interesting" principle: that you cannot judge others unless you have no sin. To sin is to break the law, and to judge is to apply the law on someone. Therefore, what this verse is saying is that you cannot be a judge over a law that you yourself have broken. There is no other passage in Scripture that says a similar thing. On the contrary, most passages of Scripture insinuate that righteous judging requires 3 things:

1. An ordainment as "judge" from a sovereign power

2. A jurisdiction that covers the matter under judgment

3. A heart that longs to do what's right

Consider, for example, the following passage:

"¹³And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. ¹⁴And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?" (Luke 12:13-14)

Notice how Jesus (the Son of God) asked "Who made me a judge?", as if to say, "All judges must receive their authority to judge from someone else". Consider also the following passage:

"¹Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. ²Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. ³For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: ⁴For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. ⁵Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. ⁶For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing." (Romans 13:1-6)

Notice that those who apply justice are "ordained" (v1), and their ordainment entitles them to wield the sword and use it as "avengers" when the law has been broken (v4). At no point is there a mention of the "sinlessness" of those acting as judges and/or executioners. What gives a judge the authority to judge is his or her ordainment. As long as he or she is applying the law in a fair manner, no one can question his or her judgments based on his or her personal life. Imagine how silly it would be for a legal verdict to be overturned because it was discovered that the judge broke the law as a teenager, the very law which he or she upheld in a decision.

The act of judging is an impersonal one. It should not matter who the judge is. His or her personal life, tastes, habits, etc. should be completely irrelevant to his or her rulings. Because the law is an independent standard, the ideal thing is for the justice system to be such that a judge can be replaced by any of the other ordained judges without the verdicts changing in any way. That is what FIFA ambitions for (soccer) football, for example. The referee's calls in a game should be irrespective of the FIFA-ordained referee. If the referee becomes one of the "central figures" of the game, he is not doing a good job.

If what John 8:7 says were true, we would then have to decree that the Mosaic Law is an unjust law, because it was God Himself who ordained the Israelites as judges and executioners over matters such as adultery:

"If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel" (Deuteronomy 22:22)

[Notice how the chapter and verse numbers are both "22". As we have said in recent postings, the number "22" speaks of spiritual civil war. The spiritual roots that support the belief in John 7:53-8:11 are a key reason why God was forced to decree a spiritual civil war in America. The lack of a "terminator spirit" in the American Church made it impossible for God to separate the unrighteous tares from His Holy wheat, forcing God to take drastic measures. The blunt strikes of His correcting rod were not enough, so He is now sharpening the lightning of His sword, and His hand is grabbing hold of judgment against a land that denied His visitation (Ezekiel 21, Deuteronomy 32:39-43).]

If you must be sinless to be a legitimate judge, God sure made a mistake (i.e.- God Himself sinned) when He authorized the Israelites as judges over each other. The words in John 8:7 are, in fact, questioning the entire legitimacy of the Law, and they question countless other passages, such as Romans 13, where spiritual ordainment is the prerequisite, not the judge's "sin history".

If Jesus really said John 8:7 (and I know He is reading these words as I am typing them), then He is a self-contradicting false prophet, because, just a few verses earlier, He said the following:

"²³If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day? ²⁴Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." (John 7:23-24)

Notice that, in verse 23, Yeshua is upholding the spiritual validity of the Law, and, in verse 24, He is encouraging us to "judge righteous judgment". If the prerequisite for judging others were "sinlessness", why would Jesus even hint that we "judge"? If only the sinless can judge, why does He not declare the Law of Moses null and void in verse 23, since the Law allows men (with sin) to act as judges? Mind you, I am not an Adventist, so I'm not advocating the Law of Moses in its literal sense. Just like any law system, the Mosaic Law had a "territorial scope" and a "validity period". The laws in France cannot be applied in the UK, for example, because those laws do not have jurisdiction in the UK. In the same way, many laws are in the books for a specified period of time. Once the period runs out, the law is no longer applicable. The literal application of the Mosaic Law over the Jewish people ended when Jesus rent the veil, when He said, "It is finished!" (John 19:29, Matthew 27:50-51, Hebrews 9:3-8). The Law, however, did not "expire" in a spiritual sense (Matthew 5:17-20). The literal laws were shadows of things in the spirit realm (Hebrews 8:5), and those things in the spirit realm are still standing. The law about not eating pork, for example, still applies; only now, it applies at a spiritual level. As we have said before, people under the influence of the Girgashite spirit are "spiritual pigs". Therefore, to "eat pork" nowadays is to assimilate Girgashite thinking into your mind. Such "pork eating" is still a sin against God.

As you may know, Paul had the "audacity" of declaring judgments against a fornicator in Corinth:

"³For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, ⁴In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁵To deliver such an one unto satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." (1 Corinthians 5:3-5)

Why could Paul even dare to judge a person, to the point of delivering him over to satan? Doesn't Paul himself declare that he was "the chief of sinners"?

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief" (1 Timothy 1:15)

Consider, now, what Paul said to the Corinthians when they "dared" to make spiritual judgments against a person who was committing sin amongst them (which most believe was the fornicator of 1 Corinthians 5):

"⁸For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. ⁹Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. ¹⁰For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. ¹¹For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter." (2 Corinthians 7:8-11)

As you may know, the Corinthians were no "holy bunch". They were a congregation with, say, "some issues", issues which are brought to bear in Paul's two letters to them. Why, then, didn't Paul quote John 8:7, reprimanding them for judging a fellow Corinthian? Instead, Paul congratulates them for the "indignation", the "vehement desire", the "zeal", the "revenge" they displayed (v11)! It must be noted, however, that once the judgment had yielded the desired fruit (repentance), Paul encouraged the Corinthians to embrace the judged person (2 Corinthians 2:5-11).

Once a judge has been appointed as such, and once it has been established that he or she has jurisdiction over a matter, the judge's work is judged on how faithful he or she is to the law being applied. This requires that the judge have a heart bent towards doing what is right, an "inclination to the right", so to speak, that supersedes any personal interests or desires.

"A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left" (Ecclesiastes 10:2)

As we have said before, wisdom, which is mentioned in the verse above, is the gift required for the making of judgments; this is why Solomon asks the following of God:

"Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?" (2 Chronicles 1:10)

This is also the reason why Scripture says the following:

"And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not" (Ezra 7:25)

Notice again that the prerequisite for being a judge is to be ordained as such. No reference is made to the number of sins committed by these judges. As long as they were men who upheld the law in wisdom and who loved righteousness, there was no reason to condemn their right to judge.

We as judges

As believers in Christ, our ordainment to act as judges comes from the God of Israel, the God who has the undeniable right to declare us "judges", regardless of what man may dare say about that:

"¹⁵But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. ¹⁶For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:15-16)

We are "gods", and, as such, we are the ones appointed by God to make spiritual judgments on this Earth:

"³⁴Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? ³⁵If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:34-35)

Here, the Lord is quoting verse 6 of Psalm 82; that psalm has the following indictment in the verses prior:

"¹God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. ²How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah. ³Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. ⁴Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked. ⁵They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course." (Psalm 82:1-5)

As "gods", we have the God-endowed authority to judge. God's anger against us is kindled when we declare unjust judgments (v2), not when we declare judgments per se.

[As we have said before, "gates" in Scripture speak of judgments. The Church, gripped by the matriarchal Canaanite spirit, hates those who make judgments. In her arrogance, she has stripped believers of the right to make judgments, and God is holding her accountable for that.]

As we walk in God's green-horse will for us, we are endowed with God's authority to make apostolic judgments and pronounce kingly decrees. We become apostolic-evangelistic angels who decree and execute judgments that no man can revoke. Despite all of the pastoral-prophetic intercessors "standing in the gap" ("standing in the way", actually), our judgments shall not be stopped, and the enemy shall be rendered idle, just as he has idled and crippled the people of God. After he and his "ministers" lie crippled on the ground, they shall be mercilessly annihilated by God's true green-horse ministers, and satan's cursed throne inside the Church shall be no more.

Who let the dogs in?

Based on all of the above, it becomes more than evident that John 7:53-8:11 is a passage that denies God's Scripture. The question, then, becomes, "How in the world did John 7:53-8:11 get into the Bible?". I believe that this story was an oral tradition, an "urban legend" that began to circulate widely in the early years of the Church as the early apostles (who could deny the story) were dying off. At one point, the Church leaders decided that this story was too "good" to be left out of the Bible. As they struggled to find a place where to insert it into the Holy Scriptures, they decided on the Gospel of John, because that is the most "unusual" of all the Gospels. There are many stories in John that do not appear in the other 3 Gospels. Therefore, the Church leaders decided that the book of John was the best place for this passage, since it would not seem too "odd" if this story only appeared in this book.

Since the book of John is eminently a prophet's word written with the Eagle Face, it is like Jesus' seamless tunic (John 19:23-24), since that tunic is a figure of the indivisibility of God's unifying prophetic anointing. Therefore, the Church leaders (from the 2^nd century, I believe) had a hard time finding a "nice slot" where they could insert the "adulteress urban legend". They finally settled on John 7:52 as the place where they would insert this story. It made Jesus sound "kind and gentle", making him popular with the pagans who were looking for a "nice god" to follow.

As we have studied before, Acts 20:17-36 is a prophetic word about how the Primitive Church of apostolic, "Ephesian" judgments would eventually be overtaken by Amorite-Canaanite wolves who would cunningly dole out "doctrinal candy" in order to distract God's people away from beholding His judgment-laden Face (Acts 20:38, Revelation 1:16-17, Malachi 4:2-4). By doing so, these wolves were able to possess and devour God's flock (1 Peter 5:2-5). Once these wild Canaanite dogs were let in, God's righteous judgments were banned from the Church, and they were replaced with man-made decrees designed to reinforce these wolves' control over God's people. God's righteousness is the furthest from these cursed wolves' whorish minds. These wolves have been "leading" the Church, even until now, but, your days are numbered, oh cursed whores! My eyes shall see your downfall, and my spirit will rejoice, and I shall leap like the deer in triumphant celebration. The feet of the righteous shall trample you, cursed pastors and ministers, for God's remnant has no reverence for the glory of carnal man. This remnant is here to slay the sacred cows which man holds dear, and one of those sacred cows is the passage inserted between John 7:52 and John 8:12.

There are very few passages in Scripture whose presence is debatable, and, I know of no controversial passage that has more verses than John 7:53-8:11. Most of the Old and New Testament manuscripts are astonishingly consistent with each other. God has allowed for the existence of enough manuscripts so as to give us the opportunity to make a wise and informed decision on what to believe was contained in the original texts. Yet, in the midst of all this written documentation, man's knack for "touching the weak but holy untouchables" has given satan room to insert a few extra verses and words here and there, enough to solidify his cursed grip on God's people.

Notice that the enemy was able to insert the tares because "men slept" (v25). It is interesting how prophetic intercessors are so much on the lookout for God's judgments, but they are not mindful of satan's unrighteousness creeping in. It is sad how the prophets ("gone Canaanite") are more interested in stopping God's purifying visitations than in stopping satan's corrupting infiltrations. These intercessors, therefore, are not the true watchmen referred to in Scripture:

It is more important to be a watchman who works to detect and destroy unrighteousness than a watchman who works to prevent the consequences of unrighteousness.

As the early Church began to seek the Canaanite pleasure and the Girgashite conformity of "spiritual sleep", she allowed tares to infiltrate her, and that infiltration even affected the Scriptures. This is how passages such as John 7:53-8:11 were able to sneak into the Bible. However, the days of "tare removal" have come, for God's reapers are here (Matthew 13:30,39). His "green-horse reaper angels" are pronouncing apostolic judgments and evangelistic kingly decrees, and tares such as John 7:53-8:11 shall be removed from the Church and burned.

John 8:7 is not the only questionable element in the adulteress urban legend. Even though John 8:7's illegitimacy is enough to invalidate the story, there are other issues such as the artificial break in the narrative between John 7:52 and John 8:12. There is also the ease with which the stone-hurlers gave up on their "intent to lynch":

The men who supposedly brought this woman before Jesus were "scribes and Pharisees" (John 8:3?). They were law experts. Jesus did not quote any Scripture at them. He did not quote any passage from the Torah that would resonate with their "law-oriented" minds. According to this passage, Jesus imposed a law, a requirement on them that was not in Scripture; that law said,

"The only people authorized to perform adulteress-stonings are sinless people"

Why would Torah-abiding men who (mentally) knew the Law forwards and backwards, and who questioned Jesus' authority to begin with, be so meek as to humbly accept the imposition of this new law upon them from a man they questioned? They were not "mercy-oriented" people, so a law that promoted mercy would not have resonated with them. The only thing that could have dissuaded that law-oriented crowd was a legal, logical argument that would have publicly "disarmed" them, just as the "Render-unto-Caesar-what-is-Caesar's" argument did (Matthew 22:17-22). Therefore, the way in which the crowd "magically" dispersed betrays an ending worthy of the book of mor(m)on, a book loaded with magical stories such as the one where Israelites simply get into a 10th century boat and sail all the way from Israel, crossing the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, to arrive in the American continent, all of it happening in one magical chapter that is devoid of details about the ship, the geographical places they traversed, or incidents that happened while these magical "Israelites" were on this magical mystery tour.

As we have seen before, Jesus was no "power-ranger magician". Behind every healing and miracle He performed, there was always a "word process" that dealt with the roots of unrighteousness and iniquity first. He always dealt with the spiritual roots in people's hearts that were preventing the manifestation of true peace. The magical disbanding of the lynching crowd in John 7:53-8:11 does not bear the marks of this word process, and it even has Jesus stating a law that contradicts Scripture, a law that in no way could have tugged at the "tender" hearts of the legalistic lynching crowd. This story was obviously made up by someone who did not understand the unrelenting and unyielding nature of the Law.

"Say it ain't so, Joe"

It was interesting to me how such an overwhelming and emotional barrage of opposing replies was caused (during the online conversation mentioned at the beginning) by the mere insinuation that John 7:53-8:11 was a "human add-on". Why was there such an emotional response? Because most believers have a vested interest in the message behind this passage. The pastoral spirit, which rules over most believers today, has a hidden agenda behind this passage's message of "mercy" and "no judgment". Once this message is plucked out from within the Church, the pastoral matriarchy will quickly crumble and be no more. This is why the pastoral spirit gangs up its recruits against God's truth-bearing remnant, just as it ganged up Joseph's brothers against Joseph.

Joseph, however, has come to pay the price that will undo the damage done by his mother, Rachel the pastor (Genesis 29:9). Joseph is not about to bow before any "sacred cow" revered by his matriarchal brothers. Despite his brothers' reproach, God shall vindicate Joseph in their sight, and, instead of Joseph bowing before their cows, they themselves shall bow before him, and confess that God is indeed with him.

One time, many years ago, I was arguing with a mor(m)on, showing him how his mor(m)on books contradict the Bible when they declare that the "Levitical priesthood" is the current valid priesthood. I forced him to read many passages, including Hebrews 7:11-15, which clearly indicate that the Levitical priesthood was replaced by a different and superior type of priesthood. Even so, this mor(m)on was unwilling to admit that his mor(m)on books were contradicting Scripture. He always came up with one "weaselly" excuse after the other, raising wild conjectures with no factual evidence to back them up. After a while, I simply got tired, and left the mor(m)on to his "spiritual moronism". It is impossible to discuss facts with someone whose ostrich head is stuck in the pleasant and conformist sands of reality-denying "LA-LA land".

Unfortunately, mormons are not the only ones imbued in "spiritual moronism" that validates the "Levitical priesthood". "Christian" believers have also had the nasty habit of fashioning gods to their liking, and there is always a Levitical "Aaronic priest" out there who is willing to help them in fashioning those idols (Exodus 32:1-6).

"¹²Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? ¹³But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. ¹⁴Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." (Matthew 15:12-14)

[Notice Jesus' response to the disciples' comments in verse 12. If Jesus was as "kind and gentle" as the Church portrays Him, why didn't He instruct His disciples to draft a formal apology to the offended Pharisees? Why did it seem as if He did not care about offending people who got in the way of God? Was Yeshua as "lovey-dovey" as the Church tries to portray Him? The Church expects Jesus to "rapture" her into glory. Yet, she doesn't even recognize the sound of His voice!!! The Church cannot know the voice of a man whose judging heart she abhors. The Church cannot know a man whose image she constantly adulterates to fit her liking despite the overwhelming Scriptural evidence that contradicts her adulterated image. No wonder she wants the adulterous-woman story to remain in Scripture!!!]