The short, seemingly unassuming phrases found in Scripture fascinate me. Rarely are they the main point in the context of what is being stated, but their inclusion is a nugget that always brings me to the question, “why is it there?”
Case in point: The Apostle John’s account of the woman taken in adultery (John 8:3-11). Following the Lord’s well-known statement, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7 NASB), the nugget is seen two verses later.
“Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court” (John 8:8-9 NASB, emphasis mine).
Why did John add that phrase, beginning with the older ones? What prompted its inclusion when it was already stated that the accusers began to go out one by one? Why articulate the order by which the accusers departed? The main point of the periscope is that the one who sinned (the woman) was left standing alone before the Sinless One (Jesus), who chose mercy over judgment.
No doubt, there are many personal insights for the inclusion. The scribes and Pharisees brought the woman to Jesus (8:3); thus, Jesus was addressing them before the crowd, which could be a reason. Or maybe John saw in the accusers the look of individual question following a probing statement from Jesus. One he experienced around the table of the Last Supper, as seen with the exact verbiage, “They began to be grieved and to say to Him one by one, “Surely not I?” (Mark 14:19 NASB, emphasis mine).
After serving the Lord for 41 years and being in the ministry for 39, I think the older started the departing procession because they had been an individual partaker of God’s mercy and grace more times than they wished to remember.
I know that is true for me.
Time reveals the real and not necessarily the ideal. I have found that the rigidity of the ideal melts away through the fires of experience, and in that melting, the Lord speaks to me the way He did Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
With that understanding, James’ words become more explicit to me and possibly as a foreshadowing to the elders in John 8. “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:12-13 NASB).
I am so thankful for mercy’s triumphs, and whether they realized its fullness or not, I think the elders in our account may have thought so too.
