The Death
Penalty
The very term “death penalty” sends cold chills down
my spine. The fact that government--any
government--must send a man’s soul into eternity should cause all of us to ask ourselves
if fallible human beings have the obligation or even the right to execute
criminals, regardless of the nature of their crime. It would be unchristian, insensitive and
cruel to rejoice when a fellow human being has to pay for his crime by forfeiting
his life. But what you and I feel about
the death penalty has little or no bearing on its legitimacy. The real question must be: What does the word
of God teach on the topic? We may object
to a particular execution, but our concern has to be what God thinks about the
subject. Does God approve of executing a
vicious murderer, such as Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh and Charles
Manson? If Osama Bin Laden could be
brought to the
If you read the newspapers or popular books and
magazines, watch television news or listen to talk radio, you cannot be unaware
of the controversy surrounding the death penalty. A brief review of some of the opinions of men
and women who have written to the editor of The Tennessean will show
conclusively just how divided opinions on the death penalty are, at least, in
On
A letter dated
One letter to The Tennessean (June 4, 1997)
says “Capital punishment” is “as bad as abortion.” He correctly observes that a lot of people in
the church are against abortion. The
opponents of abortion give many religious reasons for being against it. He then asks, “What about the other kind of
legalized murder--capital punishment?”
He affirms that capital punishment is a violation of the sixth
commandment that reads, “You shall not kill.”
He wants to know where all the good Christians have gone. Bible students know the difference between
killing the guilty and killing the innocent.
All babies in their mothers’ wombs are innocent; murderers and rapists
are not innocent. Should anyone have any
difficulty understanding the difference between capital punishment and
abortion?
A letter to The Tennessean (Wednesday, April
30, 1997) argued that the death penalty ought to be given a proper burial. He mentioned one religious leader who was
against killing. The religious leader,
whose mother was murdered several years before, said he had learned “the
miracle of forgiveness.” The writer of
the letter said that a life sentence is a greater deterrent to crime than the
death penalty. Besides, he argues, “life
in prison is also much less costly to taxpayers than it is to carry out the
death penalty” (p. 8-A). One hesitates
to say it, but the writer of this letter has erred in every point he made. Of course, we have to forgive those who have
sinned against us--even if the person has killed one of our loved ones--but
that has nothing to do with the death penalty for murderers. And do we base our decisions regarding
punishing criminals on the cost to taxpayers?
Doing nothing might be less expensive than doing something, but what
kind of message does that send to vicious criminals?
Is execution inherently wrong? One three-star letter to the editor of The
Tennessean (Monday, October 25, 1999) answers in the affirmative. The writer of the letter expresses the wish
that controversy surrounding the death penalty would go away, but he says it
will not so long as the state of
One final letter to the editor of The Tennessean
(
These excerpts I have read to you show just how
emotional the death penalty is. It is
not easy to discuss such controversial subjects--whether abortion,
physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, infanticide or the death penalty--in an
unemotional and logical atmosphere. Most
of us have already made up our minds on all of these topics, especially on the
death penalty, and do not want anyone upsetting our conclusions. What, to me, is particularly troubling is for
a respected theologian to deny that we should use the Bible to justify capital
punishment. Robert Parham, Director of
the Nashville-based
Parham affirms that Hebrew society was theocratic,
not democratic. He argues that the
American government has not been given the right and the responsibility to
execute people. He wonders why the
supporters of the death penalty have not spoken in favor of executing people
for breaking the sabbath and parent-cursing.
His observation about the sabbath is almost childish. The new covenant abolished sabbath-keeping
(Col. 2:14-17). And the gospel does not
allow for killing parent-cursing children.
But our concern today is not what the law of Moses either authorized or
forbad. I want us to examine God’s
original law on capital punishment--a law that was ordained hundreds of years
before the Mosaic law was given. As
Jesus said concerning marriage (Mt. 19:4, 8), we are going all the way back to
the beginning.
As you know from your reading of the Old Testament,
God sent a flood on the entire world to remove the sin that had become almost
universal. “The earth also was corrupt
before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it
was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh
is come up before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and,
behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Gen. 6:11-13). Please listen to what occurred after the
flood: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and fill the earth. And the
fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and
upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moves upon the face of the earth,
and upon all the fish of the sea; into your hands have I given them. Every moving thing that lives shall be meat
for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the
blood thereof, you shall not eat. And
surely your blood of your lives will I require it, and at the hand of man; at
the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man” (Gen. 9:1-5).
Genesis 9:6 has served throughout the ages as the
biblical basis for the death penalty.
Since it was written before the Mosaic covenant was given, it still
applies. Just like the pattern God gave
for marriage, this verse has no time limit.
Please listen carefully. “Whoso
shed’s man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God
made he man.” I am fully aware of the
difficulty of many biblical passages--both in the Old Testament and in the
New. But the passage I have just read to
you from Genesis 9 seems so simple that no one should misunderstand it. I shall paraphrase it as follows: “If a man
kills another, other men are to kill the killer.” Virtually every modern translation renders
the Hebrew almost exactly like the King James Version does. The reason is very simple: That is exactly
what the Hebrew says.
C.F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch, two scholarly German
theologians, who lived in the latter part of the 19th Century, wrote a
26-volume commentary on the Old Testament.
Their volumes on The Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1888), make the following comments on Genesis 9:6: ““This
was the first command,” says Luther, “having reference to the temporal
sword. By these words temporal
government was established, and the sword placed in its hand by God.” It is true that the punishment of the
murderer is enjoined upon ‘man’ universally; but as all the judicial relations
and ordinances of the increasing race were rooted in the family, and grew by a
natural process out of that, the family relations furnished of themselves the
norm for the closer definition of the expression ‘man.’ Hence, the command does not sanction revenge,
but lays the foundation for the judicial rights of divinely appointed ‘powers
that be’ (Rom. 13:1)” (volume 1, p. 153).
My favorite commentary on the book of Genesis is the
Exposition of Genesis (Grands Rapids: Baker Book House) by H.C. Leupold,
a very scholarly Lutheran preacher. Dr.
Leupold makes this very pertinent comment: “…This power of life and of death is
bestowed upon man only in an official capacity, insofar as the governmental
power is centered in him. It has
remained for the shortsightedness of our day to claim that this verse is in
conflict with the basic word in the Decalogue, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’” According to Dr. Leupold, Genesis 9:6 is
“laying down principles of official conduct” (volume 1, pp. 333-334).
The late Dr. Francis Shaeffer, an American/Swiss
theologian and philosopher, wrote a beautiful little book on Genesis in
Space & Time (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972). His comments on Genesis 9:5-6 could hardly be
simpler or more forceful. “God commands
capital punishment simply because of the unique value of that which the
murderer has killed” (p. 152). If you
have any doubts about Dr. Shaeffer’s respect for human life--all human life,
including that in the mother’s womb--you can discover his pro-life stance by
reading his many books on that topic. I
especially recommend the book he co-authored with Dr. C. Everett Koop: Whatever
Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979).
I could offer to you many scholars whose books
endorse capital punishment--not because they are thrilled at the prospect of
killing someone--but because they cannot get any other position from the
scriptures. My concern at this time
relates to the Lord’s reason for ordaining the death penalty for
murderers. God himself said: “Whoso
shed’s man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God he
made man” (Gen. 9:6). All Bible students
understand the expression, “in the image of God he made man.” They know the significance of these words
from the very first chapter of the Bible: “And God said, Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen.
1:26-27). If a person commits murder, he
snuffs out the image of God in the victim.
Belief in the biblical principle of God’s image in man establishes the
sacredness of all human life. It is also
the basis for executing the murderer.
Taking the life of any man--even by properly established
authority--should be done only for the most serious crimes: murder, rape and
betrayal of one’s country. Dr. William
Bennett’s challenging book, The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our
Culture and Our Children (New York: Summit Books, 1992), endorses “capital
punishment for major drug sellers” (p. 117).
If Dr. Bennett had limited his support of the death penalty only to
those crooks who sell drugs to children, I would agree with him. Adults can easily refuse to buy and use
drugs; children may not be able to do so.
Selling drugs to children often results in permanent disability or
death.
Before our time expires today, I believe it is in
order to make some comments on the execution of Timothy James McVeigh. In their new book, American Terrorist:
Timothy McVeigh & the Oklahoma City Bombing (New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc., 2001), Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, staff reporters for the Buffalo
News, provide an enormous amount of information about Tim McVeigh. These men make it very plain that Tim McVeigh
grew up in a normal home, with good schooling and in a good neighborhood. I am reminded of the words of a Jewish man
who attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the German butcher. When the Jewish man saw Eichmann, he began to
weep. When asked why he was weeping, he
said, in effect, Eichmann looks so ordinary--just like the rest of us. Eichmann did not look like a villain. But his heart was as evil as Satan’s. Timothy McVeigh looks so ordinary--so
all-American. He does not look like a
monster.
The two reporters I have mentioned--Lou Michel and
Dan Herbeck--interviewed McVeigh for about seventy-five hours. He freely admitted planning and executing his
scheme to kill as many people as possible in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City. He knew there would be
hundreds of people in the building, including a substantial number of
children. He apparently did not want to
kill the children, but he referred to them as “collateral damage.” He freely admitted to the two reporters that
he was guilty of the most devastating act of terrorism ever perpetrated on
American soil. He does not look like a
monster, but he is a monster. He
unquestionably deserves to die for robbing 168 people of God’s image and for
destroying so many families.
Does the horrible crime Timothy McVeigh committed
take away his parents’ and other family members’ love for him? They are not trying--so far as I know--to
appeal his decision to be executed sooner than later. His life might have been spared for a longer
period, but he chose not to ask for further appeals. His parents and other family members are
praying for him as he leaves this earth and enters eternity. They are unquestionably suffering in ways
most of us cannot understand. So I ask you
today to send a prayer heavenward in behalf of Timothy McVeigh’s family and for
those families in Oklahoma whose lives have been altered as long as they remain
on earth. And pray for our nation that
we shall in some way prevent tragedies like the one in Oklahoma City.
But should not the American people--especially the
victims of the bombing and their families--forgive Timothy McVeigh? The sad truth is that Timothy McVeigh has
expressed no remorse and has not asked for forgiveness. How can we forgive when he has not repented
and asked to be forgiven? God does not
forgive until sinners repent and seek forgiveness in the heart of God. Jesus prayed for those who crucified him:
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). When did God forgive them? He forgave them when they repented and were
baptized (Acts
Winford Claiborne
The
International Gospel Hour
Back
to Home Page
Back to Transcripts Titles