Who of us hasn’t been wrenched apart by heated harangues about the law: what it says, who is authorized to interpret it, who gets to control how it is enforced?

In the Gospel story of the woman “caught in the very act of committing adultery,” Jesus is forced onto the hot seat and baited to deliver condemnation (John 8:2-11).

Instead, Jesus shows the sublime character of Wisdom.

The story begins the day after the religious leaders send guards to arrest Jesus. When the guards return empty handed, the Pharisees and chief priests ask, “Why didn’t you bring him?” The guards respond, “No one has ever spoken the way he does!”

When Jesus shows up again at the temple, the people gather around, and he sits down to teach. The legal experts and Pharisees, trying again to trap Jesus, bring a woman and force her into the middle of the crowd. Imagine her shame, trembling and terrified.

Someone must have discovered a man and a woman in the act of sexual intercourse, grabbed the woman (only the woman, mind you) and brought her to the religious authorities, who make her Exhibit A in a public showdown.

“Teacher,” the legal experts and Pharisees say, “in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone women like this. What do you say?”

The Gospel story explains, “They said this to test him, because they wanted a reason to bring an accusation against him.”

What does Jesus do? He bends down and writes on the ground with his finger. This unsettles his interrogators, who continue to badger him with questions. Finally, Jesus stands up and replies, “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.”

Don’t you just love this guy?

The Law experts and the Pharisees wanted to take Jesus down — and the woman, too — to prove their moral superiority and authority.

At the center of this encounter is a contest: Who has the power to determine how the law will be interpreted and enforced?

To get the point of this story, we need to understand the function of the Law — and how Jesus understood it.

We go first to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says: “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them, but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17, Common English Bible).

Jesus continues with a series of phrases that contrast what has been said with what he says.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Don’t commit murder.’ But I say . . .”

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Don’t commit adultery.’ But I say . . .”

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say . . .”

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say . . .”

Who has the audacity to say, on the one hand, “Don’t think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets,” and then proceeds to dismantle everyone’s assumptions about what the Law and Prophets expected?

How does that work — to claim both that nothing changes, not even the smallest letter nor the smallest stroke of a pen of the Law — while at the same time, everything changes, because I say to you?

Jesus is speaking here not as lawgiver nor as prophet but as the personification of Wisdom from God — Wisdom who knows how to interpret and fulfill the Law truthfully, justly and mercifully.

The Old Testament comprises the Books of the Law, the Prophets and Wisdom Literature. Wisdom is sometimes personified as a woman who was with God at creation, delighting in the human race. Woman Wisdom is described as a messenger of truth who cries out for justice and welcomes us to her table.

The Apostle Paul said, “Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom,” and Christ Jesus “became wisdom from God for us” (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30, CEB).

Jesus, as Wisdom from God, is showing how to keep faith with the Law’s deep intent by providing fresh insight into how the Law can be fulfilled.

What is the Law’s deep intent? When a legal expert asked Jesus which commandment is the greatest, Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being and with all your mind” and “love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Speaking as Wisdom from God, Jesus said: “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands” (Matthew 22:35-40, CEB).

We can see why the legal experts and Pharisees were infuriated with Jesus. Normally, they had the last word. They wielded authority. But Jesus taught with authority unlike theirs.

With the woman trembling before him, Jesus bent to write on the ground — and bent everyone’s assumptions.

He’s not doing away with the Law. He’s not saying adultery is OK. He is saying unless we factor in our own sinfulness, we won’t be in any position to judge others.

That is Wisdom speaking.

When we see what Jesus is doing, we begin to comprehend how we are called to be wise — to fulfill the Law’s loving, liberating intent by holding together conviction and compassion, accountability and grace.

As we walk in the way of Wisdom, we, too, can say: Don’t even begin to think we’re here to do away with the Law and the Prophets. But, with Jesus as our model, we are empowered to wisely discern how best to love God and love neighbor in light of new data, historical and scientific discoveries, complex personal, political, church and family realities.

Jesus — the Wisdom from God, who could discern matters of the heart, who understood the ways we’re all vulnerable (both to sin and to condemn others for their sin) — said, after everyone had gone away, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she replied.

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on, do not sin again.”

These are beautiful words for a woman the religious authorities had ganged up on. Imagine her joy and her resolve to live liberated from sin.

Are we listening to Wisdom? Are we listening to Jesus?

Wisdom will require us to bend our certainties about what the heart of the Law intends.

Wisdom will require us to trace out the reality on the ground.

Wisdom will teach us how to fulfill the law by holding together conviction and compassion, accountability and grace.

Wisdom will guide us as we remember Jesus’ word that fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets depends on loving God with all our heart, all our being and all our mind and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Truly, “No one has ever spoken the way he does!” Jesus personifies God’s sublime wisdom.

Sara Wenger Shenk is president emerita of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and the author of eight books, most recently Penny-Wise Generosity: Norman G. Shenk — A Financier’s Stories in the Upside-Down Kingdom.