In today's passage, the Pharisees attempt to trip up the Lord. They find a woman, caught in the act, guilty of adultery and bring her to Jesus. These men had never referred to Jesus as an authority before, so why were they all of the sudden trusting His judgement? They weren't. These men wanted Jesus to disagree with the Law of Moses and/or to rebel against the Roman rule which would not permit a Jew to inflict capital punishment on a person who broke their religious law. So, Jesus was, in theory, between a rock and a hard place.
The only problem is that not all adulterers were killed as a result of their sin. Namely, David. David was caught, was rebuked by Nathan the prophet, and forgiven by God.
Jesus asked the Pharisees to begin the stoning if they could prove their innocence of breaking the law...and they all left before a stone was throne.
Jesus did not overlook the sin however. He tells the grateful woman to go and sin no more.
What are we to learn from the Scripture? I think we see a great picture of how we can so easily find the sin in other people when we really should be putting our main focus on our own insufficiency. We can also use other people's problems to promote ourselves the way the Pharisees were using this woman's sin to get Jesus out of the way so that they could protect their standing.
When we do rebuke a brother or sister in Christ, we must do it in love. That does not mean we should sugar-coat anything (That is only detrimental to the offender). Instead, when we do rebuke, we should do it with a heart to help the other person to be conformed into the image of Christ. And, when we do find faults in others, we should also look at our own lives and make sure we are not guilty ourselves.
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