Even the Mob Believes in the Death Penalty

We need the death penalty today. Some will have difficulty accepting this fact but God approves of it. In fact, in some cases He demands it.[1]

Even the best of us who love God and His word have become desensitized to the horror of capital crimes. Our sense of outrage has been dulled. Our demands for justice have waned. We have forgotten why God established the death penalty in the first place. We have fallen prey to modern sentimentality and fuzzy humanism. We must repent.

God has not changed His mind about the death penalty. If someone believes He has, please make your case. Clearly show how and when He changed His mind.

Today, only a minority guilty of capital crimes dies via the death penalty. However, many more innocent people are dying because we fail to use it when we should. I refer to the victims of those who escape prison and kill others while on the run. And why would they not kill if they think it necessary, they have nothing to lose. Then, there are those who kill other prison inmates. Again, what's to stop them?

Christians are deeply split over the death penalty while the mob has no doubts about it. Of course, the mob uses it for the wrong reasons, but they never hesitate when the situation calls for it. They believe that there are some violations of (their) law that only death will satisfy. If only Christians would be so consistent. There are times, I believe, when Scripture allows only one response to a crime: the death penalty.

I am a firm believer in the death penalty when it is properly administered as prescribed in Scripture. Scripture is clear as to when the ultimate penalty should be applied, how it is to be applied, and under what circumstances. It also denotes the proper use of the perjury laws that are crucial in any court case to ensure that justice is served.[2]

Many times when preaching, doing a radio program, or teaching a seminar I will bring up the death penalty to see who is for it and who is against. Almost always there is a clear split within the group. What is most interesting to me is why each person holds to his or her respective position. In my experience, with very few exceptions, death penalty opponents cannot or at least they do not defend their position biblically.

Some years ago I hosted a two-hour radio program for a pastor friend of mine who was out of town. In this case I was both the host and the guest so I could talk about anything I wanted to. So, I chose to talk about the death penalty. For about thirty minutes I laid out my case from Scripture. I shared why I believed the death penalty was God's only remedy for certain crimes today just as it was in times of old. I backed up my position with both Old and New Testament verses and examples.

I learned many years ago that if I use Scripture from only the Old Testament someone would object "Well, that's just the Old Testament." The implication being, I guess, that God was only kidding back then. I also use New Testament Scriptures from both before and after the resurrection or I'll get an objection there too. After I made my case, I opened the phone lines for questions or comments. I wish I had recorded it. This turned out to be classic stuff. I was actually depressed when it was over. I was convinced more than ever that epistemological self-consciousness[3] was not to be found anywhere in radio land that night.

The first several callers agreed with my position and that was encouraging. However, no controversy makes for boring radio so I asked for those who opposed the death penalty to call in, and they did. For ninety minutes, I got emotional arguments, "I know someone on death row," arguments, supposedly logical arguments, and some arguments peppered with Scriptures out of context. Not one single person submitted anything close to a valid biblically reasoned argument.

All of us, I'm sure, have been guilty at some time of quoting Scriptures out of context to make a point. This practice has, unfortunately, become a form of Christian magic. We quote a Scripture at a problem like an incantation and "poof" it's fixed. At least this is our thinking. We have in many situations substituted biblical thinking and reasoning with a magical approach. There was a lot of this going on during this particular radio program.

Let me share with you one incredible call that I received that day. A lady, probably in her 50s or 60s, called in to make her case against the death penalty. Her point was that we should not put anyone to death because Jesus said from the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

I was thankful that I was on radio rather than television because my face would surely have been something to see all scrunched up with thought and confusion. I could not for the life of me figure out where she was getting her argument. In all my years I've never heard that Scripture used to negate the death penalty.

I was going to employ the Vulcan mind meld but instead I opted for the presuppositional approach to expose her reasoning. I was very gentle with her too I might add. I responded to her this way, "First of all, how did you determine that this Scripture in context had anything to do with the death penalty? And, if it does, why wouldn't it also apply to every crime? What I hear you saying is that we should not punish anyone for anything." She responded, "That's not what I'm saying." "What are you saying then," I asked. "I don't know," she finally admitted. I got this same "I don't know" answer several times over the balance of the program when I walked callers through their own thought process.

It seems a widespread problem that we think on such a shallow level. Sometimes our strongest beliefs sound so good on the surface until someone adequately challenges us, pushes us into a corner, and forces us to admit "I don't know." People seem willing to almost kill over the death penalty issue but most don't seem to be able to biblically defend their own position when challenged.

Why is this so? Have we lost a godly hatred for sin? Have we joined the liberals in thinking that no matter how heinous the sin or crime it's not the perpetrator's fault? Someone else, society is to blame?

I will submit to you that many people are dead today because we refused to put to death those who deserved it. Murderers who were given life imprisonment rather than death have escaped and killed more people. Others have simply killed other inmates. What's to stop them in a state that doesn't believe in the death penalty?

Why are so many of us horrified at the idea of the death penalty? Have we just become too sophisticated to think this way? Is it too barbaric? If so, where does that put God in our thinking? Is He barbaric? After all, He started it.[4]

In society, one of two groups of people is going to live in fear, the citizenry or the criminals. In America, we opt for the citizenry to live in fear.

Although I'm focusing on the death penalty, I think we should resort to the biblical remedy for all crimes. How about making thieves pay restitution, not to the state, but to you and me when we are robbed? Wouldn't that be a refreshing idea? Or how about letting criminals who cannot pay restitution work off the debt to the victim? Ooooh, I like it![5]

Did you know that beyond temporary holding facilities, jails are unbiblical? God's law doesn't provide for locking people up for long periods of time. Check it out.

Here is a famous (or it will be famous) statement I created. When man tries to solve man's problem's man's way, he ends up creating the very problem he was trying to solve.[6] My point is let's just do things God's way. He's much smarter than we are and has been around much longer too.

[1] Numbers 35:30ff. If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses. But no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death (ESV). Also in Acts 25:11, post resurrection, the Apostle Paul said, If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death (ESV). Paul acknowledged the right of the state to execute wrongdoers.

[2] Deut 19: 16-19 states: If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days. The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. In short, if you lie as a witness in a capital case, you die. I'm sure lying was much more rare in those Old Testament days.

[3] Epistemology is the study of the source of knowledge. When we are epistemologically self-conscious we know "why" we believe "what" we believe. It seems everybody knows what but the minority know why.

[4] In Genesis 9, God put the death penalty into the hands of man. Later Moses and others defined under what circumstances the death penalty was to be administered but all by the direction of God Himself.

[5] Exodus 22:1-5. These passages detail the specifics of biblical restitution including the possibility of a thief being sold to make full payment to the victim.

[6] For example: Man's remedy for poverty is welfare. So, instead of reducing poverty, he has created a permanent welfare class dependent on government with little motivation to escape the system. Another example is man's remedy for crime: prison. Instead of reducing crime he increases it. Prison simply provides a learning environment where criminals teach each other how to be better at what they do. Recidivism rates are extremely high.