Expository Thoughts (continued)
on boys and girls their moral duties. Happy is he who never stifles his conscience, but strives to keep it tender! Still happier is he who prays to have it enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and sprinkled with Christ's blood.
We learn, for another thing, the nature of true repentance.
When our Lord had said to the sinful woman, "Neither do I condemn you," He dismissed her with the solemn words, "go and sin no more."
He did not merely say, "go home and repent." He pointed out the chief thing which her case required—the necessity of immediate breaking off from her sin.
Let us never forget this lesson. It is the very essence of genuine repentance, as the Church catechism well teaches, to "forsake sin."
That repentance which consists in nothing more than feeling, talking, professing, wishing, meaning, hoping, and resolving, is worthless in God's sight. Action is the very life of "repentance unto salvation not to be repented of." Until a man ceases to do evil and turns from his sins, he does not really repent. Would we know whether we are truly converted to God, and know anything of godly sorrow for sin, and repentance such as causes "joy in heaven"? Let us search and see whether we forsake sin. Let us not rest until we can say as in God's sight, "I hate all sin, and desire to sin no more."
Technical Notes:
1. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him; and he sat down and taught them. 3. And the Scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, 4. they said to him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say? 6. This they said, tempting him, that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger, as though he did not hear. 7. So when they continued asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9. And those who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the eldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10. When Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, Woman, where are your accusers?
Has no man condemned you? 11. She said, No man, Lord.
And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.
These eleven verses, together with the last verse of the preceding chapter, form perhaps the gravest critical difficulty in the New
Testament. Their genuineness is disputed. It is held by many learned
Christian writers—who have an undoubted right to be heard on such matters—that the passage was not written by St. John, that it was written by an uninspired hand and probably at a later day, and that it has no lawful claim to be regarded as a part of canonical Scripture. It is held by others—whose opinions, to say the least, are equally entitled to respect—that the passage is a genuine part of St. John's
Gospel, and that the arguments against it, however weighty they may appear, are insufficient and admit of an answer. A summary of the whole case is all that I shall attempt to give. In the list of those who think the passage either not genuine or at least doubtful, are the following names: Beza, Grotius, Baxter, Hammond, A. Clarke, Tittman, Tholuck, Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Tregelles, Alford, Wordsworth, Scrivener.
In the list of those who think the passage genuine, are the following names: Augustine, Ambrose, Euthymius, Rupertus, Zwingli, Calvin, Melancthon, Ecolampadius, Brentius, Bucer, Gualter, Musculus, Bullinger, Pellican, Flacius, Diodati, Chemnitius, Aretius, Piscator, Calovius, Cocceius, Toletus, Maldonatus, á Lapide, Ferus, Nifanius, Cartwright, Mayer, Trapp, Poole, Lampe, Whitby, Leigh, Doddridge, Bengel, Stier, Webster, Burgon.
Calvin is sometimes named as one of those who think the passage before us not genuine. But his language about it in his Commentary is certainly not enough to bear out the assertion. He says, "It is plain that this passage was unknown anciently to the Greek Churches; and some conjecture that it has been brought from some other place and inserted here. But as it has always been received by the Latin
Churches and is found in many old Greek manuscripts and contains nothing unworthy of an Apostle, there is no reason why we should refuse to apply it to our advantage." [A.] The arguments against the passage are as follows: (1) That it is not found in some of the oldest and best manuscripts, now existing, of the Greek Testament.
(2) That it is not found in some of the earlier versions or translations of the Scriptures.
(3) That it is not commented on by the Greek Fathers, Origen, Cyril, Chrysostom, and Theophylact in their expositions of St. John, nor quoted or referred to by Tertullian and Cyprian.
(4) That it differs in style from the rest of St. John's Gospel and contains several words and forms of expression which are nowhere else used in his writings.
(5) That the moral tendency of the passage is somewhat doubtful, and that it seems to represent our Lord as palliating a heinous sin.
[B.] The arguments in favor of the passage are as follows: (6) That it is found in many old manuscripts, if not in the very oldest and best.
(7) That it is found in the Vulgate Latin, and in the Arabic, Coptic, Persian, and Ethiopian versions.
(8) That it is commented on by Augustine in his exposition of this Gospel, while in another of his writings he expressly refers to and explains its omission from some manuscripts; that it is quoted and defended by Ambrose, referred to by Jerome, and treated as genuine in the Apostolical constitutions.
(9) That there is no proof whatever that there is any immoral