John 8:10 · World English Bible
John 8:10 Meaning Jesus
Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?”
What does John 8:10 mean?
When the accusers are gone, the mind is asked to look for them and finds no one there, and this is the whole of forgiveness in a single question. The condemnation that seemed so solid had no substance of its own; it lived only in the minds that carried it, and when they set their stones down, the sentence they pronounced vanished with them.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
John 8:10 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
When the accusers are gone, the mind is asked to look for them and finds no one there, and this is the whole of forgiveness in a single question. The condemnation that seemed so solid had no substance of its own; it lived only in the minds that carried it, and when they set their stones down, the sentence they pronounced vanished with them.
What the accused is invited to see is that the guilt she believed in was never fixed in the world but held in the eyes that judged. Where are those who condemned you? They are nowhere, because condemnation was always a choice and never a truth. The mind that grasps this learns that its own guilt is equally groundless, kept alive only by the deciding to keep it.
Accusers: the judgments the mind believed were real, now shown to have no standing once the choice to condemn is withdrawn.
Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
Christian Psychology lens
Live John 8:10 today
- Think of the thing you are still ashamed of, then look honestly at who is actually holding it against you today. Often the whole courtroom is just you.
- When someone you trust tells you they have let something go, let yourself believe them instead of quietly keeping the file open on yourself.
- When an old mistake surfaces mid commute or mid email and your stomach drops, ask what is happening right now, in this actual moment, rather than replaying the verdict.
Whose judgment am I still carrying that nobody is actually making?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism
The second arrow is the one you fire into yourself. The first injury happens, and then the mind keeps shooting long after the event has passed.
Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius
Take away the opinion "I have been harmed," and the harm itself goes with it. Much of what wounds us is the verdict we add, not the thing that happened.
Zen
A student asked how to be free, and the teacher asked who was holding him. He looked, found no one there, and that was the answer.
Free · No account needed
Read all of John 8 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store