The above is just another sinner not believing he can be saved.
Did the woman caught in adultery think, "I am still a sinner so I will go back and continue
sinning", or did they follow Christ and become a dear friend?
I think this was Mary Magdalen who gave so much to her Lord, and is our hero in many
ways of what it means to be forgiven and accepted.
I love the story of the adulteress woman's encounter with Jesus.
Here we have this lady (but not the man) and Jesus saw right through it.
What amazes me is that Jesus puts the accusers in their place and deals so lovingly with the accused.
John 8:7-11
7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”
8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest 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 those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”
11 She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
Jesus would he known that woman was guilty, but Jesus knew also that the accusers were guilty as well.
Deuteronomy 17:6-8
6 Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you.
8 “If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses.
I would assume that that there were no witnesses to this, other than than man. If there were then they were peeping toms.
Both the man and the woman were to be presented.
Me thinks Jesus knew that there were no witnesses or the number required to invoke the punishment.
If memory serves me, under the OT if one was to bear false witness then they were to suffer the same punishment for which the accuser would have received.
In the case death by stoning as their sin was bearing false witness.
Hence given Deuteronomy above "Let he who has not sinned cast that first stone"
With regard to woman, I don't think Jesus was excusing her sin or overlooking it
Under the law Jesus could not condemn her because he would not have been a witness to the accused crime.
He lets her know that he cannot condemn her but he also notes she has committed adultery. She hadn't refuted that or contested that.
When she says no Lord then he says "Go sin no more"
To me what stands out is she calls him "Lord"
I don't think he is talking about sinless perfection here, if so then there would be no need for him to die.
She has called him Lord he says go sin no more and finishes with
John 8:12
12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
I think through this episode she saw the light, the light shone in the darkness and she went away knowing who is the light and wanted to walk in (of course I am surmising here as we have no evidence that she did, I base this on her calling him Lord)