Jesus said to the woman caught in the act of adultery, "Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee..."
Christ's actions and words in this story are a perfect picture of God's great mercy. David said in
Psalms 103:8 "The LORD [is] merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy." He also says in
Psalms 106:1 "O give thanks unto the LORD; for [he is] good: for his mercy [endureth] for ever." He says again in
Psalms 86:13 "For great [is] thy mercy toward me."
Our God is a God of great mercy. In seeing this humiliated, embarrassed, and patronized woman, Jesus could not but help to see the hypocrisy and duplicity of her accusers. She had been caught in the act. Many scholars believe she had been set up. Where was the man? The law was clear that he too should be brought to account. Maybe he was numbered with the scribes and Pharisees. Maybe he agreed to set up this woman so they could set Jesus up. Nevertheless Jesus exposed their phony sense of righteous indignation and they all left smitten by their own consciences.
We all would like to think we would react like Jesus. I'm sure many of us would. Many of us would have reacted to this woman much like the hypocrites unfortunately. Many of us would rise to expose her guilt and we would quote the Scriptures and we would feel justified in our stand for what is right. I know I have in times past with much remorse. But certainly to react to this woman as Jesus did would be labeled by many as
"sloppy agape".
Is it really sloppy to err on the side of mercy? Is God sloppy in that He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy? Is it sloppy to trust that people, in spite of their flawed decisions and regretable failures, will respond better to love and forgiveness, mercy and grace as opposed to wrath, indignation and acrimony?
It would have been "sloppy agape" had Jesus only said "neither do I condemn thee." He finished the conversation by saying "Go and sin no more".
I will agree that there are those who only want to talk about the mercy of God. They take advantage of God's grace and pervert it to mean a license to do whatever they want. They truly practice a form of godliness, but there is no power because it is not rooted in a love for God, rather its rooted in a love for self, flesh, and the pleasures of the world. They forget the scripture also says in
Psalms 89:14: "Justice and judgment [are] the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face." God is holy. God is righteous. God is just. God is Judge. And He will with fiery vengeance pour out HIs wrath upon the earth and the wickedness of mankind. The scripture is very plain on this.
But could we also be guilty of
"grandiose hageasmos" (hageasmos = Greek = holiness)? Is holiness purely right versus wrong, purity versus uncleanness, truth versus lies? Isn't it an act of holiness to give people a second chance? Multiple chances? Isn't that what our holy God does? Isn't it a holy thing to love someone and cover a multitude of sins? Isn't it godly to tell someone "Neither do I condemn you" and then say "go and sin no more".
"Grandiose" means "pompous, overblown, more elaborate than necessary". There is an agape that is defined incorrectly, for sure. But there is also a hageasmos that is equally mischaracterized. Somehow, someway we must walk the fine line of the balance between the two extremes. I know the concept of "balance" gets brushed off many times. But its biblical, its accurate and its right.
We see it in Jesus: He was full of grace AND truth. He whipped the money changers out of the Temple but He ate with publicans and sinners. He denounced sin but He loved sinners. He told the woman in
John 8 "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."
We should never make people feel comfortable about sin, but we should always make people feel comforted that in spite of their sin, and in spite of the tragic consequences that follow as a result, they won't find condemnation and "grandiose hageasmos" thrown their way by those of us who are called to Christ's ministry of reconciliation.
Lets practice agape, the greatest of these and let's follow after hageasmos, without which no man shall see the Lord.
deacon blues 
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