John 8:10,11

By the οὐδὲ ἐγώ, neither do I, Jesus gives the woman to understand that there was nevertheless one there who, without acting in contradiction to the rule of justice laid down in John 8:7, might really have the right of taking up the stone, if He thought it fit to do so; but this one even renounced it through charitable feeling and in order to leave her the opportunity of returning to virtue: “ Go, and sin no more. ” We must not see in the words of Jesus: I do not condemn thee, a declaration of pardon similar to that which He addresses to the penitent sinful woman in Luke 7:48; Luke 7:50. Bengel rightly remarks that Jesus does not say: “Go in peace: thy sins are forgiven thee.” For the sinful woman who is in question here did not come to Jesus by reason of a movement of repentance and faith. By not condemning her, Jesus simply grants her the opportunity for repenting and believing. It is a promise of forbearance, not justification; comp. Romans 3:24-25 (πάρεσις). And by saying to her: Sin no more, He indicates to her the path on which alone she can really lay hold upon salvation.

Thus vanish all the moral difficulties and all the historical improbabilities which Hengstenberg and others claim that they find in this story. As Reuss says: “The authenticity of the fact seems to be sufficiently established.” This incident is in every point worthy of the wisdom, holiness and goodness of Him to whom it is attributed. Jesus clearly distinguished the judicial domain from the moral domain; He wakened in His adversaries the consciousness of their own sinfulness, and He made this woman understand how she must use the opportunity of grace which is accorded to her. Finally, in the words: Where are the accusers? we think we hear, as it were, the prelude of that triumphant exclamation of the Apostle Paul: “Who shall accuse? Who shall condemn?” (Romans 8:33-34.)

The internal characteristics of this inimitable incident of the life of Jesus locate it chronologically in the same period with the other analogous facts related by the Synoptics, that is to say, immediately after the entrance into Jerusalem on Palmday (Luke 20; Matthew 22, etc.). It is, moreover, at this moment only that so explicit a recognition of the authority of Jesus on the part of the members of the Sanhedrim can be understood.