When Shame Meets Mercy: Jesus And The Accused Woman

A crowd gathers at dawn, a scandal erupts, and stones are ready. We step into the temple court where a woman is thrown before Jesus, and a carefully staged legal trap tries to force him to choose: uphold Moses or defy Rome. Instead, he kneels and writes in the dust, then turns the moment into a mirror—exposing hypocrisy, honoring the law’s heart, and covering a shattered life with mercy and a clear call to change.

From that turning point, we widen the frame to explore what Scripture means by “uncovering nakedness.” Drawing from Leviticus, we unpack why God gives sexual boundaries—not to shrink joy, but to protect it. We talk about adultery as social harm, the way faithfulness strengthens families and cultures, and how modesty carries dignity rather than shame. Along the way, we reckon with a culture that celebrates exposure and claims it as freedom, even as trust erodes and exploitation rises. The conversation is frank, compassionate, and anchored in the conviction that holiness and love are not rivals.

We also get practical: how to guard our eyes and habits in a hyper-sexualized world, how churches can be salt and light without sneer or compromise, and how the gospel moves us from accusation to restoration. The thread running through it all is covering—God’s initiative to clothe our shame, heal our desires, and teach us to love with integrity. Whether you carry regret, confusion, or fatigue, this is a space to breathe, to tell the truth about brokenness, and to rediscover the beauty of fidelity.

If this conversation stirred you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your voice helps this message of truth and mercy reach more hearts.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

Theme Of Exposure And Covering

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

When we're exposed before the Lord, we're set bare before him and we we have all our sin exposed to him. We don't like that. And yet we parade ourselves physically in our culture today in a way that ignores the fact that we're naked before the Lord and we're made naked before each other and we think it's great. So there are problems. And it's because we've we've messed up what God intended for sexuality.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I remember watching cartoons as a kid and all the different animal characters with human traits. It was funny when the rooster's feathers would get blown off by a shotgun blast, and then he'd reach down with his hands to cover his nakedness in embarrassment. In today's message, Pastor Carl tells you that it's shameful to have your sin uncovered. But Christ came to cover

Ministry Intro And Setup

SPEAKER_01 1:13

your sins, just like in the Garden of Eden, when he provided the skin of an animal to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Now, I used to work for a fellow named Larry Brickett. Anybody familiar with Larry? He taught what the Bible said about money. One of the greatest things he said was, before we get started, let's back up. He would say that often. I'm like, that kind of makes sense. So we're going to do the same thing. There was a weird chapter break between seven and eight. And either this verse 53 or 7 should have been in 8, or verse 1 of 8 should have been in chapter 7. So we'll just back up. Everyone went to his own house. Everybody had a place to go. But you know, Jesus doesn't have a place to live. He doesn't

Jesus Teaching At The Temple

SPEAKER_02 2:05

have a home. And so he went to the Mount of Olives. Oftentimes, when they came to Jerusalem, if they didn't go to Bethany to stay with Mary and Martha and Lazarus, they would camp out on the Mount of Olives, and that's where they were that night. Then they come back early the next morning to day eight of the festival, which is kind of a wind things down day, though I don't think there were official ceremonies going on that day, but people were still meeting in the temple. And in that early in that morning he came again to the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and he taught them. He's in the midst, he's in the temple courtyards, and he's teaching things from his heart, from the word, because he is the living word, and he's declaring who he is in the midst of the danger of getting arrested, but he never got arrested this time because it was not his time. However, he was challenged a few times, and again, this time he's being challenged.

The Adulterous Woman Brought Forward

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Verse 3 the scribes and the Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery, and they had set her before him in the midst, and they said to him, Teacher, this woman is caught in adultery in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say? This they said, testing him that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear. This is such an interesting story, and it's uh interesting to note, too, that in some Bibles it's not even included, because in the earlier manuscripts there are some that include it and some that don't, and there are arguments about why, but I believe it's supposed to be here because it fits the flow of everything Jesus did and how he reacted to things. So it's in the Bible, we're teaching it, and we believe it to be true. So he's addressing this idea that the Pharisees are coming, they have accused this woman of adultery, and they're saying, What do you do about it? And uh he just starts writing in the ground. Let's take a look at what the law really does say about this situation, because it's true.

Law, Hypocrisy, And Roman Limits

SPEAKER_02 4:21

This is something that uh the Lord talked about in the book of Leviticus, chapter 20, verse 10. It says, The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. So indeed, the law says if you're caught in adultery, you should be put to death. But uh there's a big question here. Who did they bring to him? They brought the woman who was caught in the act. What about the dude? You see, here in the law is that both of them need to be put to death. A little hang up there. So already there's this idea of something's fishy. This seems like a setup. All right, well, let's let's go on and think about this. All right, so the man and the woman should be put to death. Did you realize at this time in Israel, their right to execute people was taken away by the Roman authorities, and Rome could be the only one that was to uh execute somebody. So they're actually challenging Jesus to break the law of Rome in order to fulfill the law of the Lord, which is, you know, they're starting to manipulate the law. And while we're here, I went back and forth whether I should go here. And yes, I should go here because we're

God’s Design For Sexual Faithfulness

SPEAKER_02 5:49

here. In the book of Leviticus, chapter 20, it talks about a number of sexual immoralities. And just for the sake of getting it out in the open, that there are things that God blesses and there are things that God warns against. Let's say that kindly. This is not what he intended it to be. He did not intend people to commit adultery, because adultery is a form of murder because it destroys relationships. And of course, when we look at marriage as a picture of Christ and his church, it misrepresents who Christ is because Jesus does not commit adultery, he's faithful to us spiritually. And yet, we as the church, we often go our own way. And we commit spiritual adultery, which does not help our relationship with the Lord, it does not help our witness, it does not help others to come to the Lord. And so this is important because it's a picture not only of what happens in our relationship with God, but his whole plan for salvation was built on the marriage of one man and one woman for life. Families, strong families are created through that relationship. Strong societies, cultures are created through that relationship of faithfulness, of sacrifice, of truth, of enjoyment, the way God intended it to be. So there are other situations too that he needed to point out because apparently these things were happening, and so he needed to say these are not things you should do. Verse 11 says, The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness, and both of them shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them. So now you have a son having an affair with his mother, his stepmother. The implication here was the father remarried or something like this. You think of David and Absalom, that sort of thing happened. It's just not right. And it destroys relationship, it destroys lives. Now, there's an interesting term here called uncovering his father's nakedness, uncovering the nakedness of somebody. It seems pretty straightforward, but there's more to it. And I had an idea in my head of what that means, but I wanted to figure out is there something more to it? And whenever you have a Bible question, we have a site that we have a link to on our website called GotQuestions. And as a matter of fact, on the on the right-hand column, there are a lot of Bible helps for you as you grow in the Word and you grow in the Lord. And this is one of them. Go to gotquestions.org and uh they'll help you with a lot of answers. And they had a pretty good article on what it meant to uncover the nakedness of somebody. So I thought I'd just read the article to you since it uh did such a great job. And here it goes.

Uncovering Nakedness Explained

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Before the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lived without clothing in a perfectly natural state. But after the fall, nakedness became a source of shame. In fact, shame at their own nakedness was the first consequence of Adam and Eve's sin. Since then, nakedness has been linked with sexuality, privacy, and vulnerability. When the Bible speaks of uncovering nakedness, it usually refers to some type of sexual sin, perversion, or dishonor. The first reference to uncovering somebody's nakedness is in Genesis chapter 9, which continues the story of Noah after the floodwaters receded. Noah and his sons and their spouses had established a new life as the only human beings left to repopulate the earth. As time went by, Noah planted a vineyard and made wine from the grapes, and then he drank the wine becoming drunk, and passed out naked in his tent. His son Ham entered the tent, saw his father's nakedness, and went to tell his brothers. Scholars debate what may have transpired in this scene. The sin may have been more than merely mocking his father's naked body. Ham or his son Canaan may have engaged in some sort of sexual activity to dishonor Noah's private parts. Whatever he did by uncovering his father's nakedness was wicked enough to invite Noah's wrath when he sobered up. Then he pronounced a strong curse on Canaan. The phrase uncover nakedness almost always refers to sexual sin. In most newer versions of the Bible, the phrase uncover nakedness is usually reworded as have sexual relations with. Other passages, such as Deuteronomy 2230, forbade a man to sleep with his stepmother because doing so would uncover his father's nakedness. By entering into intimacy with the same woman who had slept with his father, a man disgraced his father. This was one reason the sin of Absalon, David's son, was so great. As the ultimate act of disrespect, Absalom let it be known publicly that he was having sex with his father's concubines. He was not only violated his father's bedroom, but he violated God's written law. Cursed is anyone who sleeps with his father's wife, for he dishonors his father's bed. As our world's morals continue to spiral downward, uncovering nakedness in one way or another has become a favorite pastime. Culture has glorified nakedness and worked to numb our natural modesty by parading nakedness before our eyes. Even children's clothing is sexualized, and media outlets praise nakedness as bold, brave, and liberating. We watch actors uncovering each other's nakedness publicly on the big screen. The pornography industry has made a fortune by uncovering nakedness in every possible way, mocking biblical moral standards as archaic and restrictive. We've lost the concept of honor for one's sexuality, treating the sex drive as just another need to be met the way we treat hunger and thirst. Uncovering nakedness is no longer a source of shame in a culture that has been trained to expect and applaud it. Ironically, in a world that celebrates the uncovering of nakedness, sexual dysfunctions, abuses, and even infertility are skyrocketing. God created the human body and sexuality is his idea. He therefore knows how best we function. And God will destroy them both. The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God intended the uncovering of nakedness to be done only within his prescribed boundaries of marriage. Christians can help reclaim the sanctity of mortal relations and modesty by refusing to deaden our consciousness through sexual graphic TV programs, movies, and magazines. We can guard our eyes against pornographic images by installing filters on our internet devices. And we can honor our bodies by refusing to uncover our own nakedness in the way we dress, talk, or behave.

Cultural Drift And Modesty

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Nakedness is no longer innocent as it was in the Garden of Eden, and wise people do not uncover it in dishonoring ways. That's from God questions. That was a big answer to what it means to uncover your nakedness. And we can almost dismiss after that. Isn't that what's going on today? And doesn't that speak to us? Why do we carry ourselves in the way that we do? Why do we why are we careful in how we dress, to dress modestly? It's not because we're ashamed of our bodies, it's because there is a shame to be uncovered, to be exposed. When we're exposed before the Lord, we're set bare before him, and we we have all our sin exposed to him. We don't like that. And yet we parade ourselves physically in our culture today in a way that that ignores the fact that we're naked before the Lord, we're made naked before each other, and we think it's great. So there are problems. And it's because we've we've messed up what God intended for sexuality.

Further Levitical Boundaries And Warnings

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Well, let's look at more of these laws of what God did not intend sexuality to be. Verse 12 of Leviticus 20 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed a perversion, their blood shall be upon them. First you have a son sleeping with his stepmother, and now you have a father sleeping with his son's wife. It's just not right. It's destruction. No matter what kind of idea you can come up with in your mind that says this is a good idea. Yeah, this is a good idea. Verse 13 If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them. This argument that homosexuality is sanctioned by the Lord is just a farce. It's pretty straightforward. And I'm not saying that in a hateful manner, I'm just this is not how God set it up. In fact, he calls it an abomination, which means it makes him sick. Because this totally blows what he intended it to be out of the water. And the enemy has a good time with it. The enemy has come to kill, steal, and destroy. And one of the greatest areas that he does destruction is against the marriage bed the way God intended it to be. You just look at the things in society. Isn't this what it points to? Verse 14 If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is wickedness, and they shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no more wickedness among you. In reading some of the commentaries and seeing what the context of this is, is being burned with fire is not a death sentence as much as it is like a branding, like what you do to a cow. They brand these people so they would be witnesses to what they did, and that it was not right before the Lord, to give them an opportunity to repent and to do what's right, to do things that bring life and build up relationship and glorify God and build a relationship with God instead of breaking it down. Verse 15. You know, these things were written because people were doing it. And we like to think we're in an advanced society where these things won't happen, but we've already looked back at these admonitions and we're doing all these things. I don't know how soon this will be legalized. We're on that track. Unless we stand up and say, No, this is wrong, this is an abomination. But look at this, he not only is the man to be put to death, but the animal should be put to death as well. Does that seem a little cruel? Well, first, there are two thoughts that I have on this. One is that, you know, animals are made lower than man. And so we kill animals to eat animals, and so just killing an animal is is not a something that is cruel necessarily if you do it right. But the other thought is if you see that animal walking around on the hillside, there's Billy the goat. Isn't that Frank's friend who was stoned to death because of that? It brings back those images, it brings back that sin, it uh it makes it a joke, and so we we wouldn't get totally out of our thinking. So you need to get rid of the person who committed it and the animal as well. Now, something interesting I noticed in a lot of these admonitions, most of the time it's talking about a man. If a man comes upon a woman in adultery, his neighbor's wife, and so forth, it seems like the man usually is the one that pushes these ideas and and causes these actions to happen. And yet sometimes it's the woman that does it. In this case, it's the woman that didn't want to have anything to do with a man. But, verse 16, if a woman approaches any animal and mates with it, he shall kill the woman and the animal, they shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them. I don't know how much to comment on some of these things. And I like to think that we have consciences that are aligned with the Holy Spirit and and and the word of God that help us to understand this is just not right. And yet we live in a society that more and more is moving towards this idea that why isn't that okay? Because we've abandoned the Lord. We need to lift up the banner of the Lord, we need to declare what's right, we need to stand up for truth. This is what God has called us to do: to be salt and light in this world that desperately needs truth. Verse 17 says, if a man takes his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a wicked thing, and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people, and uh. Again, it could mean that there is some sexual encounter there. It could just mean exposing the nakedness of his sister. Either way, it is not right. I don't know about you, but I had problems in high school going to gym and undressing and taking showers and with other guys. It just didn't seem right. And there's a reason why it doesn't seem right, is because it isn't. If we have these thoughts, these convictions, it's not because we're weird, it's because the Lord has put these things in our hearts. This isn't right. And now it's it's gone to the next level. You've got guys going in the girls' room because they call themselves girls or something else in between, and it's just not right, it's destructive for everybody involved. Can we stand up and say that? And of course, we're gonna be attacked that we're hateful, but I hope that you hear my heart that I'm not hateful about this. I want them to know the Lord, and I want them to experience the freedom that God gives them to walk in the blessings that He's given us to walk in, and not to walk in these things that the enemy brings up to trip us up and to kill, steal, and destroy. Verse 18 says, If a man lies with a woman during her sickness and uncovers her nakedness, he has exposed her flow, and she has uncovered the flow of her body. Both of them shall be cut off from their people. When Women are in their monthly cycle, they're considered unclean. And you don't want to expose her uncleanness. And so there's that as well. We need to be careful. We need to be considerate. We need to look out for the interest of others. Do things that lift up and not break down. Verse 19 you shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, nor of your father's sister. For that would uncover his near of kin. They shall bear their guilt. And in uh chapter 18, there are all sorts of ancestral uh rules there. And you you sit back and you go, Wow, did these things really go on? Do these things really go on? And

Call To Be Salt And Light

SPEAKER_02 22:56

you know, I might be naive in in my thinking, and I might not want to really know what's going on out there. But one thing I know for sure, it's not what God intended. And as much as the world thinks, or our flesh thinks, that wow, this is great. If I only did this, this just gives me a wild high, it really is destroying. Our flesh, they're physically we're being destroyed, but even more so, our spirits, our souls are being destroyed. Jesus has a way for us that has life, an abundant life, a fulfilling life. But the enemy wants to distract us from it and just destroy things. If a man lies with his his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness, and they shall bear their sin, and they shall die childless. As a consequence of their sin.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

You've been listening to Pastor Carl on Come On Up. We're in the book of John. John had been a simple fisherman before meeting Jesus. He was actually a disciple of John the Baptist before realizing

Closing Encouragements And Local Invites

SPEAKER_01 24:20

that John the Baptist was just paving the way for Jesus to enter the scene. There were so many examples for John to observe, where Jesus made something out of nothing. He fed the 5,000, he brought about a boatload of fish when there had been no bites all night. These miraculous happenings were all around them, and John couldn't help but be enamored by Jesus Christ. What about you? Has the newness of knowing or following Jesus worn off? Are you apathetic about what God's doing in your life or how he's working and how he's trying to speak to you? Keep that spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. John lived a full life devoted to the Lord, and even though he was persecuted and tortured, he never swayed from telling people about the hope and faith he had in Jesus. After all, he had lived with Jesus for three and a half years and had learned much about the heart of God. A way for you to keep learning about the heart of God is by joining us on Sunday mornings at Smokey Mountain Cinema in Waynesville for Bible study. We also have a faith film night the first Monday of every month. We offer quality Christian entertainment that challenges your faith and spurs good conversation. Learn more at themountaincross.com or search for Faith Film Night on Facebook. That's all for today. Come on Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.