Pastor Fannin recently preached from John 8:1-11. I’m sure some of you, as I, have always been curious about what Jesus wrote on the ground that caused the accusers of the adulterous woman to walk away, one by one. What, if anything, was significant about His writing in the dirt? What did it say? We cannot be certain because the Word of God is silent on the subject.
We would agree that the main points of this encounter with Jesus were grace over judgment, and exposing hypocrisy; but what was written in the dirt? I find only a few commentators who discuss this part of John 8:1-11.
As I focus on what was written I find a clue in the Old Testament that may relate to what Jesus wrote.
When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, God wrote them on stone twice, as recorded in Exodus 31:18 and Exodus 34:1.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.”
Moses was not inspired to write on the stones. The hand of God Himself did the writing, just as Daniel 5:5 records the hand of God writing on the wall a judgment against King Belshazzar.
Then we come to Jeremiah 17:13 and read: “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.”
This Old Testament passage refers to those who reject and abandon the God of Israel, whose names are written in the earth because they have forsaken the fountain of Living Water.
Is it possible that Jesus was writing the names in the earth of those who accused the woman, and in tandem with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, they could do nothing but walk away?
I’m sure Jesus knew their names. Did He write those names and shame them, as Jeremiah 17:13 implies?
That possibility reminds us of the joy we have as believers and followers of Jesus Christ because God’s promise to us is that our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life! See Luke 10:20, and Revelation 3:5, 20:15, and 21:27.