“When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:10-11). When Jesus used the word man when He asked the woman - “hath no man condemned thee?” - we might assume that He was just using man as a generic term for a person in general. Maybe He was but probably He wasn't. In either case, I don't believe that the woman was using it in an unspecified sense. No Man, Lord, implies that the woman believed that someone other than a man was still left to condemn her. Jesus rules out the possibility of someone Divine still condemning her when He said, “neither do I condemn thee.” But ruling out God and ruling out Man, there was still one who fit neither description and yet may have still condemned her. I'm reminded of the confrontation between Eowyn and the Witch King in The Lord of The Rings, when the Witch King says that no man can slay him and Eowyn triumphantly cries, “I am no man!” The woman said that no man condemned her because there was a woman that still condemned her - herself. Christ, of course, was having none of it. Oh no, He might as well have said, I sent all of those other sinful hypocrites packing. None of them were allowed to throw a stone at you, and neither are you! Go, and sin no more. There is no man left to condemn you, and the Son of Man Himself will not condemn you, so don't let any woman condemn you either. So often we bristle and fight back if others judge and condemn and call us out. But we have a hard time ignoring and rejecting the angry mob inside of our head, all too eager to hurt sticks and stones and condemnatory words at us. The other day I heard a very profound testimony from someone who said that we don't get to choose if we are worthy or not. That is God's choice. God will forgive whom He will forgive but of us it is required to forgive all men and women, including and perhaps especially ourselves. When all of our accusers have been convicted of their consciences and have dropped their stones and gone away, then it is time for us, last of all, to drop our stones and go and sin no more.
