Balancing Truth and Love

Balancing truth and love must be one of the most difficult things. In fact, sometimes I think we conceive of them as near opposites. We regard those who speak with a word of truth as unloving. We consider those who appear to overlook offenses as failing to uphold a righteous standard.  Somewhere, though (I hesitate to say in middle because we must take care to not think of them as opposite concepts) truth and love can both prevail. 

During my drive this morning, I was thinking about the story in John 8:1-11 describing the woman caught in adultery. Jesus was at the temple getting ready to teach when the Pharisees showed up dragging a woman behind them.  They thrust her to the ground in front of Jesus and basically say, "This woman was just caught having sex with someone other than her husband.  Jesus, we know the law and the law says that we are supposed to stone her.  She's a cheater, and she deserves to die. What say you?"

I imagine this woman to be a heap of tears.  She knew she was caught. She probably knew the penalty even before they all showed up to condemn her.  Now, she was resigning herself to the fact that she would probably be killed, rightly according to the law. 

Jesus didn't respond by saying, "you are absolutely right.  Let's kill her."  Rather, something happened...a word from his mouth, perhaps something he wrote on the ground...to convince them all that they too were sinners under the law.  Something Jesus shared demonstrated that they were also deserving of condemnation. 

One by one, they dropped their stones and walked away.  She was left alone with Jesus. He said to her, "woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "no one Lord." He absolved her, saying "then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." 

This is such a great story.  The people who downplay the message of truth in favor of being loving (i.e., tolerant) love to point to this story.  They remind us that all of us have sinned and that Jesus' message was that we shouldn't judge anyone else.  Sin is passe. 

The truth folks cling to those last 5 words--"go and sin no more."  (They also like to remind others that this story was wasn't in the earliest manuscripts and there should not be considered authoritative at the same level that other biblical passages are).  They are quick to imply that Jesus didn't let her off the hook.

Who's right?

          Jesus is. 

The point of this story is not that Jesus said that all behaviors, all sins are okay now.  He was not approving of adultery.  The point of the story was not to browbeat others for their sins.  Rather, this is a story that shows truth and love each in full measure. 

Jesus knew that the Pharisees were right.  Under the law of Moses, she did deserve to be stoned to death.  Jesus also did not stop at "neither do I condemn you." His words were clear that what she did was sin and he told her to go and sin no more.  He wasn't overlooking her sin.  He wasn't minimizing the sin.  He was wasn't ignoring the sin.  He knew what it was and, in love, he told her to stop doing it. However, because of what he would accomplish on the cross, he could also tell her that she was not condemned. 

As churches and as Christians we have a challenging task.  We must remember how much Jesus loved sinners and offered them words of grace and hope.  We must also remember that sin is still a very real thing.  Finally we must remember that it is only through Christ's perfect law keeping and substitutionary atonement that we can tell people that they are no longer condemned. 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.-Romans 8:1