John 7:53–8:29
[The earliest manuscripts do not include 7:53–8:11.] 1
53[[They went each to his own house, 8 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 8:2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 8:3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 8:4they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 8:5Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 8:6This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 8:7And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 8:8And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 8:9But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 8:10Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 8:11She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]
12 8:12Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 13 8:13So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” 14 8:14Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 8:15You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. 16 8:16Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father 2 who sent me. 17 8:17In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. 18 8:18I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.” 19 8:19They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 8:20These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
21 8:21So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 8:22So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” 23 8:23He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 8:24I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” 25 8:25So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26 8:26I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” 27 8:27They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. 28 8:28So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. 29 8:29And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
Section Overview: The Light of the World
The double brackets around the text of John 7:53–8:11 indicate that the editors of the text are not convinced this passage is original to John’s Gospel. It is not in the best manuscripts, interrupts the flow of John’s narrative, and contains fourteen words John uses nowhere else in his Gospel. I am convinced that John did not intend what is numbered as 7:53–8:11 to be part of his Gospel,1 and I understand my task to be that of interpreting what John intended to communicate, and will proceed accordingly.
If we pass over 7:53–8:11, we find that the setting and situation of the rest of chapter 8 matches the setting and situation of chapter 7. As we move to 8:12, Jesus continues to speak at the temple (7:28; 8:20) on the last and greatest day of the feast (7:37).
Not only is the setting of chapter 8 the same as that of chapter 7; the points under discussion are the same as well. Jesus claimed to be the fulfillment of the water-pouring ceremony of the Feast of Tabernacles in 7:37–39. That water-pouring ceremony likely commemorated the water from the rock in the wilderness (Ex. 17:1–7; Num. 20:2–13). In addition to the water-pouring ceremony, there was also a ceremonial lighting of candles, likely commemorating the Lord’s leading Israel’s way through the wilderness by the pillar of cloud and flame. In John 8:12, Jesus will assert that he is the “light of the world.” Other points of contact between chapters 7 and 8 include the following:
- testimony (7:18, 28; 8:13);
- where Jesus comes from and where he goes (7:25–30, 31–36; 8:14, 21–22 [esp. 7:34–35 and 8:21–22]);
- righteous judgment (7:24; 8:15);
- the Jews don’t know God (7:28; 8:19, 55);
- the seeking of glory (7:18; 8:50, 54).
Section Outline
TABLE 1.4: Difference between Jesus and His Opponents in John 8:23
| Jesus | The Crowd |
|---|---|
| from above | from below |
| not of this world | of this world |
The only way for sinners to avoid dying in their sin is for them to be born “from above” (3:3 ESV mg.), to receive Jesus and believe in him (1:12–13). Jesus presses this truth when he asserts, “Unless you believe that I Am, you will die in your sins” (8:24 AT).
Jesus identifies himself the same way that God identified himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14. The only way to escape death in sin, Jesus claims, is to believe that he is God, the God who appeared to Moses, the God who made the world, the God whose mighty deeds were celebrated at the Feasts of Passover and Tabernacles.
It is no surprise that the crowd responds by asking, “Who are you?” (John 8:25). Jesus replies, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” referring to how he had made “himself equal with God” by “calling God his own Father” (5:18) and then went on to explain that the Father shows him all he does (5:19–30). The crowd seems surprised that Jesus would identify himself as “I Am” (8:24), and Jesus tells them this is what he has been saying all along.
Jesus again warns them that he will judge them, that the Father who sent him is true, and that the judgment he renders will be the Father’s judgment (v. 26), but the crowd fails to apprehend that Jesus has been speaking about the Father (v. 27). Perhaps it was too much for them to conceive that he could possibly be identifying himself as the God of the Bible.
Jesus responds to the crowd’s failure to understand the same way he responded to Nicodemus’s failure to understand: by speaking of the lifting up of the Son of Man (v. 28). The verb used to describe this lifting up is the verb used in the Greek translation of Isaiah 52:13 (“he shall be high and lifted up”), and the reference to the Son of Man recalls Daniel 7:13–14. By the phrase “lifted up the Son of Man,” therefore, Jesus brings together the expectation that the Messiah would suffer with the expectation that he would reign.
Jesus asserts that the cross will show the crowd that he is “I Am,” that he does nothing on his own authority but speaks what the Father taught him. The cross will make the opponents of Jesus know that Jesus does the Father’s will. Jesus then tells the crowd that the Father is with him and has not left him because, Jesus says, “I always do the things that are pleasing to him” (John 8:29). The Father is with Jesus because Jesus always does what pleases the Father. This means that Jesus never sins, but it means more than that, too. It means not merely that Jesus never fails or transgresses but also that he always does what is right. Jesus is never moving in a negative direction away from the Father, but he is not sitting in neutral, either. Jesus is always moving in a positive direction. Always he does what pleases the Father, because always he does the Father’s will.
Response
The Light of the World will never lead us wrong. If we follow Jesus, we are following the one who is “I Am.” He is equal with the Father (5:18). He is one with the Father (10:30). He does what pleases the Father. He teaches what the Father taught him. He judges according to the Father’s will. This is the one who offers himself as the Light of the World, promising to lead those who follow him, to provide them the light of life. We who have been made alive by the word of Jesus, liberated by the exodus he accomplished, sustained on the manna of his flesh, quenched by the living water of the Spirit he gives, must follow him as he fulfills the pillar of fire that leads his people to the land.
1 James M. Hamilton Jr., “John 7:53–8:11 Should Be in a Footnote, Not in the Text,” For His Renown, March 30, 2014, http://jimhamilton.info/2014/03/30/john-753-811-should-be-in-a-footnote-not-in-the-text/.