From the Desk of Jeff King

Finger of God

Yeshua of Nazareth sends a sobering text message to the scribes and Pharisees in John 8:3-11. Without access to a cell phone He resorts to hardware of the day: writing in the dirt with His finger. Most of us know the story. The men try to entrap Yeshua by parading a woman caught in adultery, a capital crime in Jewish civil law.

When the religious leaders ask if the woman should be stoned, as directed by the Torah, Yeshua stoops and scribbles in the dirt as though He did not hear. He then stands and challenges the men, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." Overcome by conviction, the accusers flee.

The gospel passage does not reveal what Yeshua wrote with His finger. But the Old Testament offers a clue. It's possible, perhaps likely, that the Lord inscribed Jeremiah 17:13 to warn the men they were on dangerous ground spiritually with Him:

Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.

The day before He wrote in the dirt Yeshua identified Himself as that fountain. He told a crowd gathered in Jerusalem for the fall feast of Sukkot, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38)." The throng likely included the Pharisees trying to entrap Yeshua. The next day they would make the connection: the fountain described in Jeremiah pointed prophetically to the One writing in the earth before them.

The Pharisees and adulteress had one thing in common, a sin nature. By turning from sin and receiving God's forgiveness by grace through the atoning work of His Son, the finger of God no longer marks us as lawbreakers. We are refreshed with rivers of living water. Our spiritual thirst is quenched.

Noteworthy – Yeshua spoke about living waters at the climax of the seven-day feast of Sukkot. During the week a priest carried water in a gold pitcher from the Pool of Siloam to be poured into a basin at the foot of the Temple altar. According to Bible commentator David Stern, it symbolized prayer for rain and pointed to the outpouring of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) on the people of Israel. Rabbis associated the custom with Isaiah 12:3 – "With joy shall you draw water from the wells of salvation." The water pouring on the final day was accompanied by shofar blasts, singing, the waving of palm branches and chants of the Hallel Psalms (113-118). It was during this celebration, and in the presence of all 24 divisions of the priesthood, that Yeshua cried out in the Temple, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me . . . ."

Posted by Jeff King at October 25, 2006 10:03 AM