17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e] 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
In his article The case for capital punishment of child sex traffickers1Matt Clark argues that child sexual abuse is deserving of the death penalty. This may surprise you, but I agree. Mr. Clark gives his own survey of Scripture in defense of his argument. You will find the link to his article in the footnotes below.
I will note that he relies heavily on the Old Testament. He establishes the moral case for the death penalty satisfactorily, but he gives only half of the story. Above, you’ll notice that I quoted Romans 12:19 – 21. Most of you probably skimmed through that but here’s the gist: God establishes that vengeance belongs to Him alone.
Mr. Clark forgets this when he states: If there were ever a crime deserving the same punishment as murder, it is child sex trafficking. We must avenge the children forced to endure the deepest recesses of hell, and we need to deter would-be traffickers from preying on children. Capital punishment is the way to go.
The State is no replacement for God. Every society that has attempted to supplant God with government has deeply regretted the mistake. The State, unlike God, is flawed. The State only comes in size human because no matter what system we employ, a government is just people with power to make decisions for its citizens. God makes no mistakes; people make little else.
So, why is capital punishment practiced in the Old Testament? The answer deserves a much longer treatment than I can give here but it boils down to a couple of basic points. First, God gives the Law to Moses and establishes the priesthood. This matters because it creates an avenue to simply ask God long after Moses has passed away. This was done with the Urim and Thummim2 the details of which are not known. Regardless, Scripture clearly teaches that the priests did have a means to inquire of God.
God, Who makes no mistakes. Omniscience is invaluable in ensuring justice and that only the guilty are punished.
The other reason concerns the culture of the time. Personally, I don’t find ’cause culture said so compelling. The argument is more nuanced than that but I can’t do it justice here and it isn’t salient to my own argument.
In Scripture, God doesn’t tell His people to go avenge themselves every time they are wronged. He t4ells them to seek righteousness and justice and to show mercy.
Most people arguing against the death penalty argue on the basis of mercy. This is a poor argument. Not because we aren’t called to be merciful even to the worst sinners – just as God is merciful to us – because we very much are. No, the problem is that mercy without justice isn’t mercy anymore than justice without mercy is justice.
Mercy and justice are two sides to the same coin. They are of equal value. A coin isn’t less valuable on one side than the other. It’s never justice or mercy. It is always and forever justice AND mercy.
Arguing that we should show mercy when justice hasn’t been given to the victim is absurd.
But but, ‘eye for an eye’!
Seriously, Christians?! READ the BOOK!
This one is just stupid. The verse occurs in the Exodus 21:24. The more familiar ‘eye for an eye’, instead of ‘eye for eye’ is from Matthew 5:38 where Jesus goes on to say: But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Not exactly a rousing endorsement of ‘punishment fitting the crime’. But it is much more than that. In Exodus the verse is specific to ‘serious injury’. In context, it is more a limitation than a proscription, especially since the passage makes clear that it does not always apply. The principle it establishes is that the punishment may not exceed the crime, not that the punishment must fit the crime.
This is crystal clear when Jesus addresses the passage. If punishment must fit the crime, there would be no turning the other cheek. Remember, Jesus is fulfilling, not setting aside, Scripture. Jesus isn’t making up His own rules but clarifying what the Jews of His day have gotten confused about. Only if punishment may not exceed the crime does this make sense.
At the bare minimum, Christians, Jesus is emphasizing mercy and we are called to follow Him, remember?
Jesus spends a lot of His time emphasizing mercy. We humans are good at wanting justice to be done to other people – not so much ourselves – but we stink at mercy. Jesus isn’t telling us to only show mercy but not to ever forget that mercy is just as important as justice.
Same coin, different side.
The best argument for the death penalty from mercy is that God will provide justice. The problem with that argument is that God provided government to provide justice on Earth. Ultimately, it’s correct that God will provide justice. He already did with the death of His Son, but we are supposed to do justice as much as humanly possible while still in this fallen world. Justice AND mercy.
What we are forbidden is vengeance. God comes in Size Perfect; we come in size messed up. We make mistakes literally more often than we change socks. We have no place in avenging anyone.
And unless the Temple has been rebuilt in Jerusalem and some sanctuary cities have been re-established, the Old Testament’s mention of the Avenger of Blood does NOT mean us.
At. All.
No matter how much we think or even know that the person deserves it. Adam only had to leave alone one tree. We only have to leave alone one thing: vengeance.
Because God said so.
Also because it’s stupid. We know all sorts of completely nonsensical stuff. Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman, the mafia, Castro, the FBI and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you it was not a conspiracy or a conspiracy. Sixty years and umpteen investigations later, everyone ‘knows’ something. But do any of them truly know the truth?
God does.
We don’t.
Even under the best of circumstances, humans do human stuff. We get details wrong. We misidentify people. We assume things. We just plain old mess up.
This is why God denies us vengeance. God doesn’t want us to be murderers.
Because no matter how sure you are, if you get it wrong and revenge yourself on an innocent person, you are the guilty one.
Same is true for the State. If the justice system gets it wrong and the ultimate penalty is demanded of an innocent person, the State has that person’s blood on your hands. The State has committed murder.
We the People govern our government. When that government murders, so do we.
Government, like people, must never, EVER seek vengeance. Government is not appointed to get revenge; it is appointed by God to do JUSTICE.
Killing innocent people is murder, not justice.
The death penalty is moral in concept. It’s perfectly just to demand a life for a life. It’s not pragmatic in the modern world, however. Because there is no perfect justice system. No perfect evidence, either. People make mistakes. Witnesses make mistakes. Prosecutors make mistakes. Defense attorneys make mistakes. Judges make mistakes. Scientists make mistakes. Laboratory technicians make mistakes. Investigators make mistakes. Experts make mistakes. Supreme Court Justices make mistakes.
Dred Scott was fully adjudicated. The Supreme Court got it wrong. Plessey v Ferguson was fully adjudicated. The Supreme Court got that one wrong, too.
How many innocents have waited for justice from the Supreme Court and not received it? We will never know for sure but we can be sure it has happened. The Innocence Project has proven that possibility is a likelihood, not a probability.
Innocent people have been executed.
We can’t control what the guilty have already done but we can prevent ourselves from becoming murderers. Justice does not demand the punishment fit the crime but it does demand punishment for the crime.
Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole should be the ultimate penalty allowed in our nation. We should amend the Constitution and spell that out.
That’s not a slap on the wrist by any means. Yes, it shows mercy to the guilty but it preserves justice for the innocent. We can’t give back the years in prison to an innocent person but we can try to atone for them.
We can’t give back life to the dead. There is no atonement adequate for that. And we can’t execute the whole country for murder.
Better to avoid murdering one innocent than to execute a host of guilty.
