John 8:6 Commentary and Bible Study

‘This, they said, tempting him.’ Or as the modern translations put it, testing him, which is quite right. Tempting or testing him. Actually the Greek term for testing comes in this instance from the verb to pierce which gives us a flavour of the incisive nature of the test. ‘This, they said, tempting him, or testing him, that they might have to accuse him.’ So there is the inescapable plot, the trap which is going to make him subject to prosecution either way he answers. But they cannot trap him; he is divine wisdom.Well, what does Christ do in response? What is he going to say? At first, he seems to encourage their scheme, and their plot. ‘But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground.’ What was he doing, writing on the ground? Of course they thought he was playing for time. ‘Ah, we’ve got Him; he doesn’t know how to answer us; he doesn’t know what to say,’ but of course he wasn’t playing for time. Some people actually think they know what he wrote. But I do not suppose he wrote anything because this was not sand, this was the Temple paving. This was swept clean as a whistle. This is a posture. Your question has missed out great features of the law. He is the lawgiver and the Messiah and the expert, and they are the students. He was taking the posture of a judge. In fact this was a question about the law, for the portion of the law that was broken was the seventh commandment, one of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were written on tables of stone by the finger of God, and so Christ stoops down and he writes on the ground. They didn’t understand what he was doing. He is assuming the posture not only of a judge, but of the one who is the very Author of the Law.