Ramblings: The Hand of God

Some time ago I posted about the mysteries in Scripture—things that are written about but never completely explained. I can only assume that those things are not really important. One of the things I mentioned was, “What did Jesus write on the ground?” In the story of the adulterous woman, the Pharisees brought a woman, “taken in the very act,” to Jesus, to ask His judgment. He stooped down and wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not. What did He write? The Scriptures do not record that. I offered several theories before, but over the weekend I heard something that I think is a piece of the puzzle and had never even occurred to me before. In Exodus, when God gave Moses the Law, God didn’t just tell Moses what to write, God wrote the Law by His own hand. Granted, Moses broke those tablets, and so, the second time, Moses wrote the Law out by his hand, but, originally, the Law was written out by God’s hand.

Now we know that the coming of Christ meant a New Covenant with man. Not so much a rewriting of the Law, but a fulfillment of the Law. Many things changed as a result of the Christ’s sacrifice. Dietary restrictions, proscribed punishments for sins committed, etc.

This is the only recorded time that Jesus wrote anything, in His entire ministry. He didn’t write down the names of His disciples, He didn’t write down instructions, He didn’t write down His sermon notes. If it were not for this one incident, I’m sure that there would be people that would accuse Him of being illiterate. The Scripture clearly says, though, that He wrote on the ground. He didn’t draw on the ground, or doodle on the ground. He wrote on the ground. The significance of this is that, just as the hand of God wrote out the Law, the hand of God (Jesus being Emmanuel, or God with us) wrote out a new Law, part of the New Covenant. The Pharisees couldn’t understand this (possibly never even stopped to read what Jesus wrote), and were not willing to accept His authority to write new Laws even if they did, but, in retrospect, we can see that Jesus did have the power and authority to do exactly that. So what did He write? I still don’t know, but I am now fairly certain that it had to do with the fact that this woman was brought before Him to face judgment according to the Law, and He was the One who wrote the Law. I feel confident that He didn’t repeal the law against adultery, but He may have mandated a lesser sentence, particularly for one with a penitent heart, and a stiffer sentence for those that would use an adulterous woman in a show of hypocrisy…