Archbishop Mario Alberto Molina, O.A.R., Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Los Altos, Quetzaltenango – Totonicapán, offers this commentary on the Gospel of the Fifth Sunday of Lent (April 6, 2025, Cycle C), in which he reflects on the scandal of forgiveness in light of the episode of the adulterous woman.
A story with a wandering history
The passage we have just heard is known as the one about the woman caught in flagrant adultery. It seems that this passage, from ancient times, was difficult to understand. It is a wandering tale. Let me explain. Nowadays, in our Bibles, this passage is printed at the beginning of chapter 8 of the Gospel according to John. But that is a kind of port where it finally docked.
The passage is very ancient and there are testimonies of its existence since apostolic times. But in the oldest manuscripts of the Gospel according to John the passage does not exist; others place it at the end, as a kind of appendix. Other times it appears in manuscripts of the Gospel according to St. Luke, and in truth, the passage relates a story of Jesus very much in accordance with the image of Jesus that the evangelist Luke brings us.
The antiquity of the story is indisputable. It has all the characteristics of relating a historical fact of Jesus; but it was an uncomfortable story, which could not be hidden because it was true. It was perhaps annoying that Jesus was so magnanimous as to defuse the death penalty the woman had incurred and let her go with a “sin no more”. It could not be dismissed as an invention, since there was memory of it happening. The story was transmitted with certain autonomy and in different places until it found its place of transmission at the beginning of chapter 8 of the Gospel according to St. John, although it would have been better in the Gospel according to St. Luke.
Why is this story uncomfortable?
Where is the discomfort produced by the story? In the end, I think. When Jesus confronts the woman’s accusers and invites them to carry out the death sentence and let the one who is without sin cast the first stone, they all, one by one, withdraw.
It must be recognized that those men in anger were also honest and examined their conscience with transparency and without subterfuge. What sins each of those men found in their hearts, only God knows. The point is that in the end the woman and Jesus were left alone. Then the Lord turned to the woman and asked her: “Woman, where are those who accused you? Has no one condemned you? She answered him, “No one, Lord.” And then Jesus pronounced the scandalous sentence, “Neither do I condemn you.”
It would seem that with those words Jesus downplayed the sin of adultery, a crime that carried the sentence of death by stoning. Was Jesus downplaying the seriousness of that sin? Was Jesus condoning the woman’s conduct by declaring that he did not condemn her? No, of course not. For when he sent her away, he urged her not to sin again. Therefore, what the woman did was sin. Adultery remains today a very serious sin, whether it is committed by the man or the woman, because it is a sin that violates, hurts, breaks the fidelity due to the spouse. Adultery acquires its gravity in the injury it causes to the loyalty and fidelity that spouses owe to each other. It is an attack against marriage.
Jesus does not justify sin: he offers opportunity for conversion
So what did Jesus do and what did he mean when he said, “Neither do I condemn you”? The prophet Ezekiel pronounced a sentence on God’s behalf that can illuminate this passage: “I do not want the sinner to die, but to turn and live” (18:32; 33:11).
God has renounced the immediate application of the death penalty as a remedy for sin, even the most serious sins such as adultery or murder. He prefers to give time to repentance, conversion, amendment, reparation when possible, and thus give the guilty the possibility of starting a new life.
We are sinners from birth and growing in holiness requires time and patience. The sinner who does not repent and convert despite the respite offered will receive condemnation in due time. God is not the Lord of impunity and injustice. But God’s mercy gives the sinner time to come to his senses, to come to grips with the gravity of the crime committed, to repent and make works of reparation, and thus to begin anew.
That is the extent of the “neither do I condemn you” that Jesus pronounces. That is why he adds: “Go and sin no more”.
The conscience of the accusers
In Jesus’ time, adultery was imputed only to women, not to men. This was a great injustice, and this could also be an implicit motive in Jesus’ attitude. And this could also be an implicit motive in Jesus’ attitude: where was the man with whom the woman was sinning when she was caught? Was he not also to be considered guilty, although socially he was immune at that time?
On the other hand, Jesus took a great risk when He proposed to the men who presented to Him the woman caught in flagrant adultery that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. Hearing those words, the accusers began to slink away one after another, starting with the older ones, until they left Jesus and the woman standing beside Him alone.
Jesus ran the risk of trusting the conscience of those Pharisees and scribes who brought the woman to him to test him and challenge him with a prescription that was written in the Bible, in the Pentateuch. Jesus thus made it evident that the woman’s accusers were just as sinful as she was, only that the woman’s sin was patent and theirs was not yet. By slipping away they acknowledged themselves sinners, though we shall never know of what offenses. Jesus trusted the conscience of these men, and obtained in his own way a confession of sin on the part of the woman’s accusers.
We are all sinners and it is not for us to set ourselves up as judges of others as if we were innocent. But we must all recognize that we are sinners and repent.
Time for patience, not impunity
The mercy and patience of God that Jesus puts into practice in this episode should not be confused with impunity, letting things pass, and even less with the approval of sin. God’s mercy is not a license to go on sinning again and again without correcting us, especially when we are dealing with serious and grave offenses. 
To trust that God will forgive me and, therefore, I can continue to harm others is a presumption and also a serious crime. But the Bible points out that God is patient and gives the sinner time to repent (cf. Rom 2:4; 2Pet 3:9), not to continue sinning.
The time that seems to be a time of impunity is not such: it is the patience of God who waits for conversion. The God who opens roads in the desert and makes rivers flow in the arid land opens roads to repentance and conversion.
The story is an invitation to say with St. Paul: “I press on toward the goal and the prize to which God, through Jesus Christ, calls us from heaven. That way is the merciful patience of God.
Msgr. Mario Alberto Molina, O.A.R.