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and the puritans and the scribes and the pundits. their definition is legal, their definition does not arise out of consciousness or love. Their definition arises out of the legal court. If the woman is not your wife and you have been found sleeping with her, it is adultery. It is just a legal matter, technical. The heart is not taken into account, only the law. You may be deeply in love with the man or with the woman, but that is not to be taken into account. The unconscious mind cannot take higher things into account. He can only take the lowest into account.
His problem is always legal. Is it YOUR woman? YOUR wife? Are you legally wed to her? Then it is good, then it is no more sin. If she is not your woman, you are not legally wed to her... You may be in deep love, and you may have immense respect for the woman -- you may almost be a worshipper of the woman -- but it is sin, it is adultery.
These people brought this woman to Jesus, and
THEY SAID UNTO HIM, MASTER, THIS WOMAN WAS TAKEN IN ADULTERY, IN THE VERY ACT.
Just the other day I was reading the memoirs of an English Christian missionary who went to Japan in the early days of this century. He was taken around Tokyo. His host took him around to show him the city. In one public bath there were men and women taking their baths in the nude. The missionary was very much shocked.
He stood there for five minutes, watched everything, and then he told his host 'Is it not immoral -- women and men taking baths naked in a public place?'
And the host said 'Sir, this is not immoral in our country, but to stand here and watch is immoral. Sorry to say' he said 'but I am feeling very guilty standing with you, because that is THEIR business if they want to take a bath naked. That is THEIR freedom. But why are you standing here? This is ugly, immoral.
Now the missionary's standpoint is very ordinary, and the host's standpoint is extraordinary.
These people say
MASTER, THIS WOMAN WAS TAKEN IN ADULTERY, IN THE VERY ACT.
And what were you doing there?
These were peeping Toms or... what type of people were these? What were you doing there? Why should
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