The story of the encounter between Jesus, the Pharisees and the woman taken in the act of adultery in the eighth chapter of John contains powerful lessons for us today. Imagine being in the place of this woman, probably half naked, baring your body and soul to the world, taken in a place of shame, misery and rejection by the masses. Condemned by society, outcast by community and judged by the tribunal. There you are standing before the Holy One, in front of the world, alone, naked, and ashamed. Fingers pointing, chins waging, head shaking. Sneered upon, pitied and despised.

In a powerful demonstration of unconditional love, the Christ shows the accusing religious mob and the world what He is about. None of the accusers could do their work. They retreated one by one until it was just the woman standing there before Him.

“Woman, where are those who accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”

Powerful words that touches the soul of the one who was tormented, disenfranchised and powerless only moments earlier. No longer is she accused. This is the experience of repentance. Repentance is not solely a human response to God’s grace. It is a change in position from one under judgment, to one redeemed. It is a change to realize the full force of redemptive love - for He has forgiven you and you no longer stand accused.

This incident has a parallel with the incident of the sinful woman at Simon, the tax collector’s dinner party in the seventh chapter of Luke. At that party, “a woman of the city who was a sinner” comes into the dinner party, wept at Jesus’ feet and washed them with her tears. Then she wiped them clean with her hair and anointed His feet by breaking open the alabaster jar of perfume. In that incident the parallel words that Jesus spoke to the woman were,

“Your sins are forgiven.”

Right there in the open, when she was being judged by the guests at the dinner party as a “Sinner,” Jesus declared her righteous.

That is redemption declared.

“Woman, where are those who accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”

“Your sins are forgiven.”

Forgiveness of sins is achieved not only because she repented. Her sins were forgiven because of what He was going to do to redeem her. Redemption for the forgiveness of her sins.

That is what the Christ acheived for us all on the cross. And not just for our acts of rebellion, conscious and unconscious - but the sin that is part of our nature, He has taken all of it and nailed it there on the cross. When He shed the blood and when He cried out in his anguished pain and suffering, He did it so that we might be free of the bondage and judgment of sin.

When the woman who was taken in adultery realized the import of those words, she was able to internalize the saving grace of the Savior. To His query whether there was anyone who still stood to accuse her, she replied assuredly,

“No one, Lord.”

“Neither do I condemn you.”

Not only is there redemption. God’s love reaches out to the sinner, to cancel her debt and reconcile her with Him so that they now have communion with each other.

In Simon’s dinner party, the prostitute heard the life giving words,

“Your faith has saved you.”

You are now reconciled. Not only are the debts cancelled, and the sins forgiven, but now there is communion with God.

God says to you, “You can come home now, and I will dine with you and you with me.”

“Neither do I condemn you.”

“Your faith has saved you.”

Finally, Jesus speaks the words of freedom.

“Go and sin no more.”

It is tempting to think that these words are judmental words - “Go and if you want to continue to enjoy my blessing, then don’t you ever sin again.” Sometimes, we understand these words as conditional. The idea seems to be that if you have received grace freely, you must now live out the grace that you have received.

Instead, these words are more than words of responsibility. They are words of grace and mercy. There are commissioning words. Words that tell us to follow Him who has gone before us, to be disciples and to learn of Him. For how else can we go and sin no more? Only through Him we can do all things. For He gives grace to empower through His Spirit.

We see the emphasis in the scene at Simon’s house when the Lord’s words to the “sinful woman” were, “Go in peace.”

For the words were spoken to declare that you are now restored. Words of restoration. That is balm to the desperate soul. Fully restored to walk now with God. New life in Christ and empowered in the Spirit. Restoration.

“Go and sin no more.”

“Go in peace.”

Peace with God. That is the ultimate desire of the human heart. And it is only possible through what Christ has done for us, and continues to do for us. They are empowering words, and they are humbling words. Christ has come not to judge and to condemn, but to free, to refresh and to empower.

I guess I must have said it wrong. In the past couple of weeks, I made a couple of posts (here and here) calling for Christian support for the legalization of gay marriage. My argument was simple, but I probably got carried away with the melodrama of introducing a controversial and contentious issue. My suggestion that one ought to lay down one’s life in protection of one’s fellow citizen’s rights might be a little over the top. Especially with the illustration of Nazi Germany; the comparison I tried to draw was in terms of the protection of rights, not in terms of the severity of the horribleness of the alternative. It was probably misconstrued by some of my readers as is illustrated here.

So I’ve had a few days to reflect on what I put out there and in between the busy-ness of the past few days, I have let my mind brew over some of what I was trying to say in the background. Further I have had the benefit of reading the input of others either via comments, email, or through blog posts of their own. All have helped me clarify what I am actually trying to say. In fact, I found an excellent similar argument over here.

I am not sure if what I have to say now presents a more coherent argument or add value to the on-going discussion, but since I had such a long nap this afternoon, I am still wide awake, so I thought I’d go back and tackle some posts.

What I should have said is that same-sex marriage is a matter of individual rights and that if we were to have no problem with freedom of religion, we should have no problem with freedom of marriage. In fact I am saying that since we champion freedom of religion in this country, we ought also champion freedom of marriage, for both kinds of freedoms are basic human rights covered by the Fourteenth Amendment.

There are at least two possible objections to this assertion. One is that Freedom of Marriage is dissimilar enough to Freedom of Religion, and the second is that Freedom of Marriage is not covered by the Fourteenth Amendment. My primary argument that Freedom of Marriage is covered by the Fourteenth Amendment is based on my analysis of the Loving vs Virginia case that I introduced in my first post. I believe the arguments there are sound and I don’t think that there is a good refutation to that argument as it stands.

The second objection is that the Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Marriage are two different types altogether. While the freedom of religion allows the practice of one kind of abomination (the worship of other gods), the freedom of marriage might allow the practice of other forms of abominations (gay and other forms of sexual perversions). However, we might grant Freedom of Religion because when someone converts to the Christian faith, he or she no longer violates the very abominiation that the freedom allows. The same thing cannot be said for Freedom of Marriage. When a person who in a same-sex marriage converts to the Christian faith, that person will be in the unfortunate position of being part of a union that is considered to be immoral, contrary to God’s standards, and opposed to his very faith. That person would be put into the unenviable position of having to choose between staying in a religiously unsanctionable relationship or to take part in another religiously unsanctionable process (divorce). What a catch-22!

The objection as it stands is strong. There seems to be a real difference between the two freedoms. Two answers can be provided to this objection. One, discrimination between types by appealing to different consequences brought about by a third event (faith conversion) is not valid. All it shows is that one is a simplier form of freedom while the other is a more complex one. The fact still remains that both are forms of individual rights and freedoms. If our laws allow one type of right, we ought also allow the other. If one is enshrined in the constitution, so is the other.

The second answer, in reply to the problem of the conversion of a person in a same-sex marriage, we will have to draw upon the notion of grace and mercy. To understand that point, we need to also understand the nature of sin. Put simply, we need to understand that sexual sin is not the unpardonable sin. Sin in the sexual realm has the same effect and the same offense as sin in any other realm. If no one ever sinned sexually, Christ would still have to die a horrible death. We overemphasize sex in our modern culture that we freak out over sexual sins. A couple of generations ago, it was all kinds of sex that would upset the normal Christian. Now, it seems only certain forms of sexual sin catches the ire of Christians. What I am suggesting is that we Christians need to exercise more grace and mercy in our dealings with fellow human beings. We need to realize that we too come under the condemnation of “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And then we need to realize that if the Lord says to us, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more,” He also says it to the vilest gay sinner.

Oh, I can hear you jumping up and down at the “…go and sin no more.” If a gay couple is married, how can we say honestly that they can go and sin no more? We need to chill. If it is easy for a gay couple to sin by having gay sex, it is just as easy for us all to sin just by being who we are! Yet our Lord says, “Neither do I condemn you.”

What I think we all need to do is to realize that we are after all sinners. And, as Philip Yancey (or was it Tim Stafford?), once said, the only difference between us and them, is that we know it, but they are oblivious to it. Our job is to be their friends, nonjudgmental, loyal and loving, so that we can let the Spirit open their eyes so that they see, and believe that they too can enjoy the grace and mercy that we say we enjoy.

A couple weeks ago, I participated briefly in a conversation with some others over at another blog about the “superiority” of Western culture. Comments and assertions were put forward to illustrate the superiority of Western culture over all others. I offered my doubt about the thesis as well as the relevance of its intended implication, if indeed it is true. I am not going to link to that site as it might offend the blog owner. I am blogging about this because somehow the conversation there bothered me.

I am not sure what the poster was comparing it to, and what she meant by Western culture. If I have to guess, I think she meant, Western culture as represented by America. One commenter supported her thesis with a further assertion that Western culture’s superiority (or rather American culture’s superiority) comes from its Judeo-Christian roots. So, it could be that the poster and her cohorts were glad that they live in a superior culture while the rest of the world are rotting in theirs. Possibly, they are glad that Christianity has a lot to do with the enlightenment of the West, and so the world should be thankful to the historic faith, and in fact, if they had any intellect at all, they should all convert. I don’t know. I shouldn’t go any further with this guessing game, as I am beginning to sound cynical, and sarcastic.



I will not comment on the logic of comparing one culture with another and declaring one as superior than another. It is probably impossible to be objective in such comparisons. It might be easy to talk about one culture being more desirable or pleasurable, than another, but the catchall term of superior might be difficult to gain consensus cross-culturally. I don’t know. I am not an anthropologist or even a cross-cultural anything. I just have a sneaky suspicion that this ain’t so. In any case, I would like to comment on the underlining assumption expressed in the aforementioned conversation that there is a correlation between the historic Christian faith and America’s alleged superior culture.

The general idea seems to be that this country was founded upon Christian principles, and this is the reason why it has been so blessed. Another related idea seems to be that if only the rest of the country had stuck to those principles, we won’t have so much problems today. In fact, what went wrong was that all those humanists and atheists have usurped our culture and if not for them, we would surely continue to see God’s favor upon this country. If we do not turn away from all this ungodliness, we will soon suffer the consequences. 9/11 is just a foretaste, a kind of warning, about the impending judgment. This country must repent and must follow the lead of a broadly speaking Judeo-Christian political leader who will lead us from our moral quagmire and into the sunset of moral happiness.

You can see how the logic deteriorates. Or maybe you can’t…

Still, it is quite tempting to equate Western culture with Christian culture. Everyone seems to do so. Growing up I tried unsuccessfully to convince Mom that when I converted to faith in Christ I wasn’t just following a Western trend. I have also often heard it said that America is founded on Biblical principles, that the foundations of the country are built on Christian roots. Sure Christian principles have influenced a great deal of Western thinking, philosophy and culture, and American culture itself is built on much Christian influence. And we all know that some of the earliest pilgrims came over here because of religious persecution in Europe, and they brought their faith with them.

However, is it really true that Western culture is necessarily Christian? More importantly, is American culture built on Christian foundations? Did the Founding fathers really intended to build a Christian nation? Even if they did, was it necessarily true that America’s greatness can be traced to its Christian roots? That somehow this country has been enjoying the blessing of God because of her faithfulness? Is America the resurrected biblical nation of Israel?

The real question we need to ask ourselves is: What ought I to do in this culture - what is our priority as a follower of God - to “re-establish” a Christian nation, to bring Christian values back to our government and society, or is it more important to bring the nations back to Christ and to bring people back to Christ?

My new found friend - and my favorite Fidler - is writing a book, “Adventures in Holy Matrimony,” and needs some help.

She has a new survey that she has put up for the book which is about mental illness and how it touches marriages.

So, if you can help, please go over to the survey page and fill it out. Here’s the link:

http://www.opinionpower.com/Surveys/191019005.html