We at The STAND have been asked to discuss the topic of capitol punishment, and whether or not it is biblical. The answer is yes, it is. The bible makes it very clear that capitol punishment has always been God's will for mankind. In the old testament there were sixteen crimes which were punishable by death. Those crimes are as follow: 1. Murder (Exodus 21:12-14, 22-23) 2. Kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) 3. Striking or Cursing One's Parents (Exodus 21:15, 17) 4. Incorrigible Rebelliousness (Deuteronomy 17:12) 5. Sacrificing to False Gods (Exodus 22:20) 6. Violating the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2) 7. Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10-16) 8. Being A False Prophet (Deuteronomy 13:1-11) 9. Human Sacrifice (Leviticus 20:2) 10. Divination (Exodus 22:18) 11. Adultery (Leviticus 20:10-21) 12. Bestiality (Exodus 22:19) 13. Incest (Leviticus 18:6-17) 14. Homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22) 15. Premarital Sex (Deuteronomy 22:20-21) 16. Rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27)
Some may point out that those examples are under the old law, and want to know if the death penalty is reaffirmed in the New Testament. The answer is yes. In Romans 13:1-4, Paul says "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." Paul is telling us that we should respect our governing authorities, because they have been appointed by God. If we do evil, the government has the God given right to "bear the sword", which represents capitol punishment, and "execute wrath on him who practices evil." Paul believed this, even in reference to himself. In Acts 25:11, Paul tells Festus “If I am an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I do not object to dying”.
Well, what about the woman in John 8, who committed adultery? Wasn't she worthy of death? Why did Jesus defend her? There are a few possible answers to these questions.
First of all, the law stated that a person could only be executed if there were two or more witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15). In the story, it is mentioned that the woman was caught in the act, but it never mentions how many witnesses there were. There very well may have only been one.
Second, the law makes it very clear that in matters of adultery, both the man and the woman are to be executed. Where is the man in this story? This was obviously a messed up situation. To correctly follow the law of Moses, the woman would have had to been let go.
Third, we really need to examine the statement made in John 8:7 , "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." This is often misunderstood. Most people would say this statement means that anyone who had any sin at all would be unable to administer justice. This is not the case. If so, there would have never been an execution, because Romans 3:23 tells us that everyone has sinned. Instead, Jesus was saying the same thing that Paul was saying in Romans 2:1, which was "you who judge, practice the same things." Jesus knew that the men who were condemning this woman, were partaking in the same things of the woman in which they were accusing.
It is quite evident that capitol punishment has always been part of God's plan of justice for mankind, and with good reason. Over the years, the American justice system has failed to "bear the sword" as commanded in the bible, and we have seen the results. Our prison systems our overcrowded. Premature parole and early release has been commonplace in order to make room for lawbreakers. This has had disastrous effects on our society. For example, let's look at what happened in Kentucky with the Kentucky Early Release Program. In an effort to save 30,000,000 dollars over two years, Kentucky released 1,004 prisoners from prison. 146 of those prisoners were once again charged by a grand jury after their release. Sixteen of those were accused of committing violent crimes, including rape, robbery, and domestic violence. This is the case all over our country. We are going to continue to see this trend spread until we get back to our roots. It's a pretty simple concept: The easier we make it on criminals, the more criminals we're going to have.
-Colton Scott
Many of the facts in this article can be found at http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1974. Dave Miller.
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