We are so quick and even apt to judge, when we are unaware that we are the real protagonists in question. At least twice, through the Scriptures, God gave his people the lesson, but when he sent his son among them, they still had not grasped it. But the worst thing is that even today, so many of us don't always understand it.
Let’s return to the two examples mentioned above:
David, the rich man who snatched his poor fellow citizen's only lamb
David had committed the most despicable act of his entire life, and it was the main one for which God reprimanded him (1Kings 15:5). But before we get back to that; note that at that time, the king actually officiated as supreme judge, this function was not yet reduced to a more or less symbolic attribution.
To bring David not only to understand the seriousness of an act he had just committed, but also to pronounce his own sentence, God led his prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12) to submit the question to him in the form of a parable, and David ordered the severe sentence that such a crime deserved, unaware that it was actually about himself, ... until the prophet clearly revealed it to him.
As a reminder, this is this phase of David's life where he committed adultery with the wife of Uriah his servant, then learning that a child had been conceived during this act, he brought Uriah back from war, hoping that he would approach his wife, but in his loyalty he refused to sleep with his wife while his comrades in arms were at the front, also David realizing that his crime would be discovered since the husband would never have approached his wife during the entire period of conception of the child, because being at war; he (David) resolved to have him killed at the front; so he ordered the leader of his army to expose that soldier's life so that he was killed by the enemy army. As he commanded, so it was done. But in order to announce to the king guilty of murder the punishment that would fall on him, the prophet Nathan began by telling him a story which in fact was only a parable…. The rest we commented on from the start.
Judah, more guilty than his daughter-in-law that he accused of “prostitution”
Judah, one of the 12 patriarchs of Israel, had an eldest son (Er) whom God put to death because of his wickedness, without leaving any posterity. His immediate junior (Onan) marrying his widow was in turn removed by God due to his wickedness because he did not want to give his seed for a posterity that was not his. And finally Judah used subterfuge out of fear that his third and last son (Shelah) would meet the same fate; claiming that he had to have grown up before the widow was given to him, he sent her back to wait with her parents.
But realizing that although this last son had grown up, she was not given to him, the widow took advantage of the fact that her father-in-law Judah had also just lost his wife, he had also just become a widower. Barely had he finished mourning when she disguised herself as a prostitute and managed to conceive from him; without him realizing the identity of the woman he was sleeping with. And from this act between a widower and a widow, God sovereignly permitted two twins to come into the world...
But before getting there, when Judah learned that his widowed daughter-in-law had “prostituted herself” and become pregnant, he became angry and pronounced sentence against her, unaware that in reality he was the real responsible, .... At least until Tamar, such was the name of his daughter-in-law, made him face his responsibilities. (Genesis 38)
A whole crowd caught in the act of adultery
The first two stories talk about prostitution: one proven (case of Uriah's wife) and the other alleged (case of Tamar). But also, mention is made of men judging their fellow men without knowing being judging themselves (David on the one hand and Judah on the other). But in this last story which will follow, the woman was caught in the act of adultery, but here again the Lord insists that it is in fact about us. Let's take a look together...
In his time, while Jesus was among his people, an event occurred which demonstrated that although the crowd certainly knew each of the two previous stories by heart, no one among them had really grasped the lesson. Many of them could say to each other, we have never slept with someone else's wife, we have never approached a prostitute woman; and therefore, feel justified in condemning, and even stoning, a woman caught “red-handed”. But fortunately, the Lord Jesus Christ reminded them once and for all of the memorable lesson they were supposed to have understood long ago: The question is not what sin the accused has committed, but rather whether we are righteous (free from all sin) to be able to exercise judgment. In this story, the only one who was able to stone the woman was Christ himself, but he did not do it either. Let us note it in red, this was not to encourage the woman to continue in this life of dissolution or debauchery, because he gave her this order, both loving and firm: “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:3-11)
Lessons to learn
We have a multitude of lessons to learn from this:
- Do not do to others what we do not want others to do to us: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)
- Forgive others in order to be forgiven in turn:
- Parable of the man to whom the master forgave the debt and who in turn refused to forgive that of his fellow man, although much less. (Matthew 18:21-35);
- They will use our own measure to measure our part. (Mark 4:24; Luke 6:27-38).
- Sympathize with the suffering of others by remembering the suffering we ourselves have endured, not so as to become complacent, but so as to sufficiently intercede on their behalf before God; and to encourage them to get up, if they happen to have fallen.
Add comment