Scott wrote a while back (9/22/05 post) on being consistently pro-life: against abortion AND the death penalty. Here were some of my thoughts:
There is a very simple answer to how a Christian against abortion can be for the death penalty.
There is this thing called guilt and innocence.
When a man murders a baby, the baby is not guilty of any crime justifying this. It is injustice.
When a man murders another man, he is guilty and God tells the state to execute him (Gen 9:6; Rom 13:4). This is justice, by God's standards, not ours. Will we do what we think feels right by allowing life, or will we follow God's Word?
Given the Bible, I think there is a serious parting of the ways between being completely pro-life, and being completely pro-God's-will...
[Some objection was raised about the flawed legal system, and too much uncertainty sometimes over actual guilt/murder to execute.]
Whether the system is flawed or not does not touch upon the legitimacy of the death penalty.
I partially agree with you as to legal system flaws, though I would also say part of the truth could include racially disproportionate executable crimes committed. I don't we need to assume one way or another, and I don't think this has any bearing on whether one is for the death penalty or not.
If God gives civil gov't the right to execute, as I believe he does in Rom 13:4 (see next paragraph), who are we to be wiser than God, claiming our fallibility as an excuse to not do what God gives us the authority to do? This is like the husband who won't lead his family, because, he reasons, he's no better or less fallible than his wife. That's not the point. The point is, God has established society this way, with these roles and functions. There is a difference (I think) between actually obeying God's Word out there in the world and theonomy.
The phrase "bear the sword" in Rom 13:4 had a specific historical context within Paul's Roman Empire, referring to the right of a city mayor, regional governor or whatever subordinate ruler, to take life on behalf of the state/emperor, as civil punishment for crimes. It is precisely this that the Jews did NOT have when they brought Jesus to Pilate. Pilate bore the sword. Sound historical exegesis does not allow this phrase to be watered down to exclude the death penalty.
I've struggled for years over what it means to be "consistently" pro-life. Many on the pro-life left argue for the anti abortion/anti death penalty parallel, whereas those on the pro-life right argue that the unborn are "innocent" while adult murderers, etc. are guilty because of their "active" behaviors. The previous poster brought up the issue of even the undorn being "in sin". While that's true (Scripture clearly affirms that), I don't believe it really has any bearing on the issue at hand. It has to do with what God has clearly revealed in His word. Human life is valued because we are all created in God's image, however you may define that, yet that value is not absolute. The exception to that value is when someone has intentionally taken another life or some other heinous crime proscribed in Scripture. When a person has committed such a crime they "must" pay with their life precisely because human life is valuable. The language of Scripture is substitutionary throughout. And of course it sees it's apex in the issue of a "life for a life", and this no more clearly than in God working through Christ on the cross. Christ, our great Substitute, simply had to die in order to make us right before God. God is righteous. He ordained that Christ should die. The means that came about to bring His death to pass were unjust as far as the human participants were concerned, yet God used these imperfect, actually evil, means and motives, to bring about His perfect justice. Death was the immediate consequence of Adam's sin, not of him and Eve, but of the animal that provided their covering. While I admit the text doesn't explicitly communicate a sacrificial intent in that description, the fact that blood sacrifice permeates the rest of Scripture makes it clear that it is, has been, and always will be (until the fulness of the eschaton of course) the required method for "balancing" the scales if you will. So while the civil death penalty doesn't atone for sin in any way, it nonetheless does point towards the truth of the necessity of full payment for a life taken, which is of course central to the gospel shown in the cross of Christ.
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