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Why Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment

Why Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment

Last updated on: January 22, 2025 at 9:45 pm by Lee Ann B. Marino

Why Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment 2025-01-22T21:45:18-05:00 Lee Ann B. Marino

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“Mercy” isn’t one of those words we hear much today. It’s a Biblical idea that we like applied to ourselves, but we don’t understand it well enough to see it through to others. When something is wrong, we prefer judgment: something that executes the full extent of the law to right the wrong. But mercy – something divine given out of need, rather than retribution – teaches us far more about ourselves.

In this column, we will be looking at mercy; specifically, at the different considerations of its necessity in a Biblical situation: that of the woman caught in adultery.

A pile of rocks

Photo courtesy of Anthony at Pexels.

Do we really know what happened?

The woman caught in adultery, as found in John 8:1-11, doesn’t have a name.The whole of our knowledge of her comes through this story. We read it, and much like those who surrounded her, we assume she was guilty. According to the law, both parties were to be stoned; not just the woman (Leviticus 2:10-12, Deuteronomy 22:22). Right there, we are able to see the judgment issued wasn’t just. For her to stand in this predicament alone, someone either sold her out or the Pharisees were somewhere they didn’t need to be.

There isn’t a question, however, that she was caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. But why was she doing it to begin with?

Maybe she was lonely
Maybe she was a battered wife, abused and abandoned by her husband
Maybe her husband left her
Maybe she was trying to make money (there was no ‘unemployment office’ in those days)
Maybe he was cheating on her
Maybe she didn’t know who she was
Maybe she wanted more in her life and thought she would find it in a man
Maybe she thought he really loved her
Maybe she thought she’d found ‘the one’ and didn’t know where to start with it in her life
Maybe she lied and told him she was single
Maybe she wanted some excitement and didn’t think she’d get caught
Maybe she was unloved in her life
Maybe she wanted to get caught
Maybe she wanted out
Maybe a part of her just wanted to die

Maybe it doesn’t matter what the ‘maybe’ was because we aren’t meant to know. Maybe all that matters is that God knew, and we don’t. Perhaps that is relevant.

A whole community was involved

Whenever something like this happens (even today), everyone has opinions about the person and what they’ve done. Much like today, the people looked down on her, thinking she deserved to die for what she did. It didn’t matter that they did things everyday and just were sneaky enough to not get caught. Not to mention, the vast number of people who knew what they did but looked the other way because of who was doing what they did. Behind closed doors, every one of them either did the same things, did different things, or thought about doing those things.

Somebody envied her. Others pictured adulterous scenes in their head and longed for the same moments. Somebody wanted to pelt the rocks hard and fast because they longed to do what she did, but couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Others hated her, looking at her as if she was everything wrong in the world. Somebody called her names. Groups gathered to talk about her behind her back. They caught wind of what was going on and told everyone they could find, but told everyone they told to keep it a secret. We all knew they went on and talked, too. Somebody mocked her. Others felt the right to wish death upon her. Somebody was there, ready to fling that stone, because they felt they were were better than her.

What about judgment?

The woman caught in adultery reveals something essential about the Christian life, especially for those who are called to leadership. I call it the principle of non-judgment. Non-judgment is a principle by which we make the choice to be merciful, recognizing who we are and choosing not to use the deeds of others against them to elevate ourselves spiritually. We don’t readily admit it, but judgment makes us feel good about ourselves. It makes us feel more acceptable to God in light of what we do, and look down upon people for doing what they have done. It’s a comfortable place, a cushy place, a place where black and white and right and wrong stare in a punitive, cold, unmerciful accusation where what should be right and should be ideal is used as a weapon.

The story of the woman caught in adultery reminds me of the accusations made against Mary when she was found to be pregnant with Jesus (Matthew 1:18-19). The people of Mary’s day didn’t view her any differently than they viewed this woman. She was unmarried, she was pregnant, Joseph was not claiming to be the father, and as far as they were concerned, her pregnancy was the evidence they needed. Pregnant by the Holy Spirit with the Son of God? A big yeah right, get real. Nobody believed her. She could have told the truth and nobody would have listened. She could have implored, but it wouldn’t have mattered.

Introspective reflections on judgment

Scripture doesn’t show Mary speak in her defense. There wasn’t anything to be said. It wouldn’t have changed the sanctimonious self-righteousness disguised as godliness. It wouldn’t make them understand what she was going through or what her life was going to be like. Nobody would have cared about the reality of the task God set before her. It wasn’t going to be manger scenes as the “holy family” sat around the campfire and sang Kumbaya. She didn’t speak because it didn’t matter.

The Bible doesn’t indicate the woman caught in adultery spoke, either. There wasn’t any reason to speak. It wasn’t going to matter what she said. They wouldn’t believe her. It wouldn’t change minds or hearts.

I wonder if there is another reason for their silence; a deeper, introspective reason. I wonder if somewhere behind the silence they remembered all the thoughts and accusations they made about others. They remembered the rumors they heard that they just happened to pass on because the gossip was too good to pass up. I wonder if they had ever thrown stones at someone. Perhaps they thought of the misjudgments in their lives and the way they’d wrongly looked at others. I wonder if, in those moments…they wondered if their thoughts and actions had been justified. If they wished they could have taken what they had done and thought back.

The major difference between the perception of Mary and the perception of the woman caught in adultery: we don’t judge Mary because we know something others didn’t. We have received the revelation only the Holy Spirit can give. Now we need to pray for the spiritual heart and perspective to rest in the grace of God for what we don’t know and refuse to use what we do know against others.

The dishonesty of judgment

Judgment is a dishonest place (Matthew 7:1-5). It is when we convince ourselves that we are above doing certain things because of a sense of self-esteem rather than divine mercy. Too often the modern church scene adapts armchair psychological approaches, trying to analyze people what’s wrong with them so we can avoid what we’ve done. We don’t like to feel that helpless feeling, the sense of void where nothing we say or does matters. We don’t even feel like we can defend ourselves or speak up, no matter how we may feel about what we’ve done. Our lives and the lives of those we’ve known and judged flash before us. All we want is a little mercy…and in judgment, we don’t find that.

Mercy overrides judgment because of judgment’s dishonest front. Suddenly, we must face ourselves, confronting the people we really are rather than the personas that keep our lives comfortable.

The merciful message for us all

Nobody wants to be the woman caught in adultery…but underneath it all, we are her. Jesus listed the sins of the leaders not to prove they were no better than her, but to prove they were her. She is unnamed because she is all of us. We don’t confide in others because we fear what they will say to us. We fear and try to dodge the stones of pity, criticism, loathing, envy, and hatred that people throw when they discover things about us. Our fears of being the subject of social gossip proves how untrustworthy others can be. In honesty, we fear others will never see us the same way again, feeling that awkward strain and silence that results. We fear that moment when we will be set in the city square because everyone will wind up knowing our truth as we lay buried under a pile of stones.

The Bible is full of open-ended situations where we don’t have the complete story. God did this on purpose. We like to write in our own details and endings, the story of the Bible from our own perspective. God doesn’t give us the “why” because He wants us to outgrow the temptation to project ourselves on Scripture. Here we learn the power of mercy. Effective witnesses can’t judge others. We need to keep stones on the ground and remember when the Lord said, “Neither do I condemn you.” He was the only One with the right to condemn her, and He chose not to because He knew something everyone else didn’t. He told her to go and sin no more, knowing she would, and loving her all the same. We need to make the Lord our model, knowing it is only His mercy that carries us to a better place.

A perspective of mercy

In our lives, there will always be something we resisted that others did not. We all didn’t resist something that someone else did. There will forever be other situations where we think we would have done things differently, forgetting that we weren’t in them and we probably don’t know what we would do. All I can advise is think before you throw. Whoever, whatever…you will realize one day is you.

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About Lee Ann B. Marino

Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino, Ph.D., D.Min., D.D. (”The Spitfire”) is “everyone’s favorite theologian” leading Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z as apostle of Spitfire Apostolic Ministries. Her work encompasses study and instruction on leadership training and development, typology, Pneumatology, conceptual theology, Ephesians 4:11 ministry, and apostolic theology. She is author of over thirty-five books, host of the top twenty percentile podcast Kingdom Now, and serves as founder and overseer of Sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle - SIFT and Chancellor of Apostolic Covenant Theological Seminary. Dr. Marino has over twenty-five years of experience in ministry, leadership, counseling, mentoring, education, and business. You can read more about the author here.

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