What The Bible Says About Capital Punishment
(Text: Genesis 9:6)
By: Barry L. Cameron
* In an average week in America, close to 500 Americans are murdered. Most are fatalities in family quarrels and neighborhood arguments, drug wars and gang rivalries. But one-third are slain by total strangers who have murdered, often, without reason.
Time, March 23, 1981:
“The curse of violent crime is rampant not just in the ghettos of depressed cities, where it always has been a malignant force to contend with, but everywhere in urban areas, in suburbs, and peaceful countrysides. More significant, the crimes are becoming more brutal, more irrational, more random--and therefore, all the more frightening.”
* That was 22 years ago! It’s worse now.
- B.K. Johnson, who was police chief in Houston said, “We have allowed ourselves to degenerate to the point where we are living like animals.” - Approximately every 20 minutes, a murder is committed somewhere in the U.S.
- Every 10 seconds a house is robbed.
- Every 7 minutes a woman is raped.
* Crime is more rampant and widespread than it’s ever been.
- In my opinion, the crimes we’re seeing today have become more horrific and gruesome as if the criminals have absolutely no morals, no values, no shame and definitely, no conscience.
WHAT BROUGHT ALL THIS ABOUT?
An Interesting Correlation…
- In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled prayer out of the public schools.
- In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled Bible reading out of the public schools.
- That was the beginning of the sexual revolution, rebellion against all institutions and authority figures, and the start of the drug culture.
- In 1972, in a case called Furman vs. Georgia, the death penalty, a staple of the American judicial system since colonial days, was struck down by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court.
* That same year, the crime rate in America exploded exponentially.
- One year later, in 1973, in the infamous Roe vs. Wade case, the same Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, legalized abortion in the United States.
* That same year, the sexual revolution soared to all time highs.
- In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled the Ten Commandments out of the public schools in America.
(In a rare instance for the Court, no one signed the majority opinion on this decision.)
Capsule Summary: (Span of 18 years)
1. Get people to quit talking to God
2. Get people to stop reading God’s Word
3. Remove the death penalty and disregard the sanctity of human life.
4. Because human life is no longer sacred, you can kill babies.
5. We don’t need any controlling legal or moral authority any more.
(1) THE PROVIDENCE OF THE DEATH PENALTY.
- The death penalty was God’s idea, not mans.
- It originated with God, in the days of Noah, after the flood.
- Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.”
(2) THE PRESERVATION OF THE DEATH PENALTY.
- There is an unmistakable preserving quality to the death penalty.
- The death penalty was providentially instituted to preserve the sanctity of human life.
- Capital punishment places a high value of human life.
- It says, in essence, “If you take a life, that life is so important, your life will be forfeited.”
- Gen. 9:6b, “For in the image of God has God made man.”
* It’s interesting that barely one year after the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, they legalized abortion in America.
- If human life is no longer sacred and protected, we can kill little babies and save ourselves the inconvenience or embarrassment brought about by our own immoral actions.
(3) THE PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY.
- In 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down every state death penalty statute in the nation, it was declared to be “cruel and unusual punishment” and a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
- But, because of the skyrocketing crime rates in America, in 1976, the Supreme Court reversed its decision, declaring that the death penalty was acceptable as long as the Court approved of the individual state’s guidelines.
* Death penalty opponents can make a fairly convincing case when all you’re looking at is the life of the person on death row. - Without question, the taking of any life ought to be avoided at any cost.
* However, when the full context of the crime is taken into consideration…and you look at the victims of the crime, who were, in many cases cruelly and unusually killed, you get an entirely different picture.
(4) THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE DEATH PENALTY.
(a) God instituted the death penalty to ensure the protection of human life (Gen. 9:6)
(b) God forbids murder. (Exodus 20:13, “Thou Shalt Not Murder.”)
(c) God does not forbid killing. (He forbids murder.)
1. It’s alright to kill animals. (Gen. 9:3)
2. It’s alright to kill in self-defense. (Exodus 22:2)
3. It’s alright to kill in war. (Psalm 144:1)
4. It’s alright to kill in the maintaining of law and order as a governing authority in the land. (Romans 13:1-5)
Numbers 35:33, “Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” (d) God built the law of the harvest into His universe. * Gal. 6:7, “You reap what you sow…”
(5) THE PRACTICE OF THE DEATH PENALTY.
- Justice must be swift.
- Ecclesiastes 8:11, “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.”
USA TODAY (Dec. 20, 1999) “In the 1976 Gregg vs. Georgia case, it was decided that death penalty trials were to be divided into two parts. In the first phase, a jury determines whether the defendant is guilty of a death-eligible crime. In the second, the jury decides whether the defendant is to be sentenced to death.
Glenn Dunnehew, “In the United States, a convicted murderer goes through a long, laborious process before he ever reaches the electric chair (or lethal injection). Three appeals are made, and the case is reviewed by several judges. This allows for the conviction to be thoroughly examined before anyone is proven guilty. Today, the number of appeals can be up to 20. By this time there is never any doubt as to the guilt of the criminal.”
USA TODAY (Dec. 20, 1999) “The states are slow to carry out executions. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the 98 prisoners executed in 1998 spent an average of 10 years and 10 months on death row from conviction to execution.” “Some states are more prolific than others. Of the 598 prisoners executed from January 1977 through last week, 272, or 45%, were from Texas or Virginia, according to the Death Penalty Information Center of Washington, D.C.”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Justice postponed is justice defeated.”
* The wheels of justice have not always moved as slow as they do today.
(a) President William McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901 by Leon Czolgosz.
Czolgosz was tried, sentenced and executed by October 29, 1901. (53 days later.)
(b) John Flanning Schrank attempted to assassinate President Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee in 1912. The attempt failed and the insane Schrank was committed to life in prison in 5 days.
(c) President Franklin D. Roosevelt, shot at in Miami on February 15, 1933, by Joseph Zangara.
One of the bullets killed Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak. Zangara was tried, sentenced and executed within 33 days.
* The problem with our justice system is not the death penalty, but rather with the failure of the system to carry out any penalty within any reasonable period of time.
- Criminals know they can get out on bail, awaiting trial.
- And many commit second and third crimes while waiting for a hearing on their first crime.
* If the death penalty were carried out effectively and swiftly, it would get the attention of every person on the planet who even thought about committing a crime.
ILL. Several years ago, Judge Marcus Kavanaugh of the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois, in an address before the Detroit College of Law said, “Detroit with 1,600,000 residents has had 485 homicides in the last 2 years, while Windsor, Canada, only 20 minutes from here, with 75,000 residents has had no homicides. Do you need any further arguments for Capital Punishment? Within recent weeks, 2 men have been hung in Canada for the crime of murder; and today, men are reluctant to cross the border into Canadian territory to carry out their nefarious purposes.”
* Sometimes people will say that capital punishment is no deterrent. - I beg to differ. In 100% of the cases where the criminal was punished by the death penalty, that particular person’s criminal career came to an abrupt conclusion.(6) THE PURPOSE OF THE DEATH PENALTY.
- The purpose of the death penalty is the Supreme justice of a Holy God.
- It’s always troubled me how some Christians can argue against the death penalty and somehow think their reasoning is rational and spiritual, yet their very reasoning and rationalizations go against the holiness and justice of God.
- The very existence of Hell is the greatest demonstration of capital punishment.
- It stands as a testimony to the holiness and justice of God Who cannot tolerate sin and Who will unequivocally, swiftly and eternally punish all wickedness.
Hank Hannegraaf (“Resurrection”)
“Common sense dictates that there must be a hell. Without hell, the wrongs of Hitler’s holocaust will never be righted. Justice would be impugned if, after slaughtering six million Jews, Hitler merely died in the arms of his mistress with no eternal consequences. The ancients knew better than to think such a thing. Common sense told Abraham that the Judge of all the earth would do right (see Genesis 18:25). Likewise, David knew that for a time it may seem as though the wicked prosper in spite of their deeds, but in the end justice will be served (see Psalm 73). Geisler underscores the fact that hell is necessary for God’s justice to be maintained. ‘Surely there would be no real justice were there no place of punishment for the demented souls of Stalin and Hitler, who initiated the merciless slaughter of multimillions. God’s justice demands that there is a hell.’ As Jonathan Edwards, arguably the greatest theological mind ever produced in America, explains, it flies in the face of common sense to suppose that hell does not exist.”
Tony Evans (“Kingdom Agenda”)
“As long as the best idea we can come up with for dealing with crime is to warehouse criminals in prison, we won’t get anywhere. Why? Because we will never be able to tax the public enough to build enough warehouses. And even when we build them, they are ineffective in solving the problem because the people in them simply learn how to be better criminals.” “But, if a murderer knew ahead of time he would automatically and quickly forfeit his life, if a rapist knew he would face castration, if a thief knew he would have to repay his victim four or five-fold the amount he stole, things would be different.”
Tony Evans (“The Promise”) “
God established the death penalty back in Genesis 9:5-6. It has nothing to do with our opinions about it--whether we find it distasteful or arrogant to assume that society has the right to take a person’s life. All of that is an irrelevant discussion. The Bible says that anyone who deliberately and with premeditation takes a life, his life shall be taken. It’s a bottom-line issue.”
Tony Evans continues…
“In fact, not only is capital punishment biblical, but public capital punishment is biblical so that those watching will say, ‘I don’t want that to happen to me.’ (Number 16:30-34. Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Joshua 7:24-26. Achan and his family.)
Romans 12:9, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”
Proverbs 21:11, “When a mocker is punished the simple gain wisdom.”
Proverbs 19:19, “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty, if you rescue him you will have to do it again.”
ILL. Consider the case of child killer Jimmy Lee Gray. Gray was sentenced to death for the 1976 sex slaying of three-year-old Deressa Jean Scales. At the time Gray murdered the girl, he was on parole after serving seven years of a 20-year sentence for the murder of his 16-year old girlfriend. Gray was finally put to death after seven years and 82 judicial reviews by 26 state and federal judges.
What Does The Bible Say About Capital Punishment? It says to do it.
- Do it Biblically, do it properly, do it fairly and do it justly.
- But do it.
