Current Events 1

Morning!

Raises his cup of coffee

Current events inspire a lot of different things. There’s an urgency to them as they are very real and very present in our world. News spreads fast these days, and the cry for justice to be quick and decisive rings the same as it has throughout history. Scripture, too, can inspire many things. Today, it is the intersection of Scripture and current events that inspires our study. Our topic of thought: the death penalty.

Jesus said:

Matthew 5:43-48

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Solomon said:

Ecclesiastes 8:10-13

“Then I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of holiness, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done. This also is vanity. Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him. But it will not be well with the wicked; nor will he prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he does not fear before God.”

The death penalty is the act of requiring someone’s physical life as a penalty for the evil they have committed, in terms of the Kingdom of Heaven and Christendom. I specify physical life because that is the only life humans are capable of taking. It is important to distinguish between physical life and the life of the soul, or immaterial life. We as humans have no control over souls or their fate. This raises an important question: Who, then, is in control of souls?

The answer is simple: Jesus. You can insert God here, as we are working within the Christian framework of the Triune God. God, through His awesome power, wisdom, love, and purpose, creates souls. Jesus judges them at the time of judgment, which occurs when a human dies. The Holy Spirit communes with our souls. In the Biblical worldview, there are no two ways about it—Jesus is in control of souls and responsible for the judgment and punishments associated with them. God will punish whom He punishes, and He will pardon whom He pardons. It is not up to us to decide who is guilty and who is forgiven in the end.

This does not mean, however, that we are not called to recognize, react to, judge, and punish evil in the here and now. To explore this further, I did a quick search for Bible verses about capital punishment.

The first verse I found is in Genesis. After Noah and his family survived the flood and left the ark, one of Noah’s first acts was to build an altar to the LORD. Shortly afterward, God gave them instruction:

Genesis 9:1-7

“So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it.’”

Murder is the unjustified taking of a human life by another human. As far back as Noah, we see Scripture teaching that God requires justice—defined here as the shedding of man’s blood for shed man’s blood. This particular passage is significant because it explains why God punishes murder: mankind has value in the eyes of God, a value derived from being made in His image. This divine connection gives every human an inherent dignity and worth that murderers violate when they kill.

Exodus 20:13

“You shall not murder.”

It is for God to decide who lives and dies, but there are crimes for which God has already spoken through prophetic revelation.

I think that’s a good place to start today. We’ll pick up next time.

Be good.