A Christian group is calling for the restoration of the death penalty for those convicted on what it describes as ‘overwhelming evidence’.
The call comes as the Government has announced plans to reform the law on homicide. There was also criticism of the defence of being ‘seriously wronged’, which will exclude adultery.
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said today:
‘In the Christian understanding, upon which our laws are or should be based, the death penalty was given to mankind for perpetuity under God’s covenant with Noah. That covenant was sealed with the sign of the rainbow (Genesis 9:12-13).
‘The Bible verse says: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6, AV) and it goes on to explain why: “for in the image of God made He man.”
‘When we lock someone up for between 10 or 13 years, which is the average for murder today, we are saying that such a term is all that an innocent human life is worth. That perception permeates through all society. Justice is not done by ‘life imprisonment’.
‘In fact we set the value of a human life even lower. In the sixties, with the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 and the Abortion Act 1967, our politicians took away the death penalty from the guilty, by the state, where it belongs, and imposed it upon the innocent, within the family, where it does not.
‘The result is a society with no compassion for the victims of crime and their families or for the weaker members of society. We see this today in the callous nature of crimes committed by teenagers on each other and in the increasing brutality of Britain .
‘The death penalty should not be available to judges for all convicted murderers, just for those convicted by overwhelming evidence: that is on the testimony of two or three eye-witnesses, or the equivalent in forensics.
‘I would argue that lower-grade convictions, those secured on ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ evidence, should not be allowed at all. The imprisonment of innocent people like Angela Cannings, Trupti Patel and the late Sally Clark, who were wrongly convicted of killing their children on no evidence at all, just the opinion of Sir Roy Meadow, or the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, is a life-destroying punishment in itself.
‘It has historically been held that it is preferable for a hundred guilty persons to walk free then for one innocent person to be convicted. If convictions on weaker rules of evidence were to be abolished, and we could be certain that murderers were properly convicted, the mandatory life sentence for murder could be abolished, as Geoffrey Robertson QC has argued, but only to be replaced by the death penalty, to which he is of course opposed.
‘But until rules of evidence can be changed, a two-tier penalty based on the soundness of conviction would be a first step reflecting the demands of justice.
‘The Governments’ proposed ‘seriously wronged’ defence will not command public confidence, as most people would agree that the commission of adultery is a serious wrong; yet that is to be specifically excluded. However, it would be right to abolish the defence of diminished responsibility – no-one has the right to diminish another’s responsibility. But we do not find ‘medical conditions’ reducing a man’s culpability for murder in the scriptures either. It all just shows how wrong we can get it when man presumes to make laws which should be made by Almighty God.’
While I agree with many of Christian Voice’s stances on certain issues, I cannot agree on this point.
In this article you quote Genesis 9:6: “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed” which I admit sounds like it gives us permission to us to exact the death penalty upon murderers;
However you fail to account for the important fact that this passage is found in the Old Testament, and there are many rules laid out in the Old Testament that we do not follow today, such as ‘do not eat pork’, ‘do not eat meat with the blood still in it’, ‘do not shave the sides of your head’. God had good reason to establish these laws at this time, but the New Testament tells us clearly that we do not need to follow them anymore: Galatians 3:23-25, “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian”
So these laws were put in place at a certain time for a specific group of people in order to prepare them for the coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ coming fulfilled that old law; and when He came he established a New Covenant with the commandment found in John 13:34: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
As Christians we must seek to imitate Christ (1 Peter 2:21; 1 Corinthians 11:1), And Jesus taught us love and forgiveness. Did He ANYWHERE in the Bible condemn a man to death, or even condemn him for his sins? No. He offered them forgiveness. And this is the example we should follow. A prime example of this is found in John 8 when a woman guilty of adultery is brought to Jesus. The men who bring her to him even say, “In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” But of course Jesus rebukes them saying, ““Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And when none of them do so he says, “Then neither do I condemn you, go now and leave your life of sin”.
He does not condemn her, he does not condone the Old Testament law of stoning. He himself defies a law found in the Old Testament. It is very clear that rather than comply with the old laws, Jesus wants us to forgive one another, as is stated over and over in the Bible. He doesn’t want people to be condemned but to be given the the chance to turn their life around. And again we should follow this example.
Besides who are we to judge? Jesus also taught us not to judge one another. Luke 6:37 clearly states, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven”. We are also told not to kill (Matthew 5:21). Does not implementing the death penalty amount to killing a man?
In conclusion, it is simply not our place to judge each other, we are told only to love and forgive. God should be the only judge of us, and truly He is. Romans 12:19: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
Hi Laura,
FIrstly, I don’t like the death penalty any more than the next Cambridge-educated liberal. But when I see that rainbow in the sky, put there by God to remind us of his covenant with Noah and his sons, I have to accept that the death penalty is a further expression of God’s love towards mankind. You see, God’s law is based on putting right what has gone wrong, on restitution. You steal, you restore it, with an addition. In our system you get locked up in a university for criminals. How does that help? But with murder (and the word ‘kill’ as in ‘thou shalt not kill’ is the Hebrew ‘ratsach’ which means ‘murder’) there is no way of putting the matter right except with the blood of the murderer, and I assume they are properly convicted, of course, at the mouth of two or three witnesses.
Secondly, you need to separate out the ceremonial and sacrificial laws, which passed with the sacrifice of our Lord, from the physical, civil and moral laws, which continue for all time. The examples you quote are all from the ceremonial law and are passed away. You did not quote ‘Thou shalt not steal’, for example, because you are well aware that some laws, on the other hand, continue.
When the Apostle says ‘when faith came’ he means faith in the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus as opposed to ‘the law’ of temple sacrifices. The context makes that clear.
Thirdly, when Christ said ‘love one another’ he was talking to his disciples, to the church. That command has no relevance to civil government except that civil government was instituted for us by God at the time of Noah as an act of love.
Fourthly, John 8 is frequently misunderstood. At no time during the exchanges did Jesus defy the law of stoning or say anything remotely like, ‘The law said stone people for adultery, but I say don’t.’ Look at the context. He was teaching in the Temple on the law. This was a test as to whether he would uphold the law. So he carried out the law to the very letter, asking for the witnesses to throw the first stone, precisely as required by the law, and reminding them to come to the action with clean hands, in other words, not to be implicated in the same sin themselves. Only when no-one could do that did he ask the woman if no-one had condemned her, and at that point he said ‘neither do I condemn thee.’ What else can the judge say when the prosecution have withdrawn their case? And then he did what no earthly judge could ever do and tell her not to sin again! How judgmental is that?
Fifthly, by saying ‘Who are we to judge?’, do you mean no Christian can be a magistrate or a district judge?
Lastly, and to sum up, forgiveness is not a New Testament invention, it is integral to the character of God.
Psalm 86:5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
The civil law is also part of the loving character of God. Wickedness must not go unpunished because society depends on a just rule of law:
Eccl 8:11 Because 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.
And Christ does not abolish that principle, in fact the Apostle Paul, who you quoted, tells the church in Rome:
Rom 13:1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Rom 13:2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
Rom 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
Rom 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
It is not our place to judge each other in terms of eternal salvation, but we are called to admonish and encourage each other in both testaments:
Lev 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.
Prov 6:23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
2Tim 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
I hope that helps.
Hi Stephen, thanks for your reply, that is certainly food for thought. I am no expert on Scripture so I try to keep an open mind and am always interested to hear other’s opinions on controversial issues such as this.
I’m afraid I remain unconvinced on this one however. I think that John 8 teaches us an important general principle and shouldn’t be picked apart too much with regards to the number of witnesses. And concerning the Old Testament laws- since they are not separated in the Old Testament according to whether they are ceremonial or civil laws (they are all mixed up together in Leviticus) and since Paul didn’t make a distinction when he says that “we are released from the law”, I think we shouldn’t take it upon ourselves to decide which ones apply here and which ones don’t, or which ones are more important than others. If Paul had wanted us to understand that there was a distinction between the two types he would have said so. So I take it that he meant all the laws. Christ established a New Covenant which Paul tells us in Hebrews 8:13 “makes the first one obsolete”. The reason why some laws, such as stealing, still apply under the New Covenant is because the New one bears similarities to the Old, not because these specific parts of the Old Covenant are maintained.
The reason we know that stealing is still unacceptable is because Jesus tells us, as in Matthew 19:17-19. Other rules are the same too and Jesus tells us in the New Testament which they are. They incorporate Moses’ 10 Commandments in fact, but they are not limited to them and this does not mean that all the Mosaic laws still apply. Since Jesus established a New Covenant, it is His commandments we should obey, not the old laws, which I believe were put in place at a specific time for a specific purpose (to prepare the way for Jesus). Likewise we know that the antiquated laws about stoning people no longer apply because Jesus did not condone it. Jesus came and died for us for the forgiveness of sins, and God judges us on whether we repent our sins or not. Therefore men do not need to (and should not) pass judgement on one another. I’m not saying that we should let crimes slide, just that we should teach, not condemn, as Jesus did.
Timothy 4:2 teaches us to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” If we condemn someone to death how is it patient and how does it teach? No one can turn their life around if they are dead. God doesn’t want to condemn anyone, he wants them to come to Him and repent. Prison gives people the time to do this.
Hi Laura,
You need to be so very careful about who exactly you mean by ‘us’. Do you mean Christians, or all people alive in the 21st century?
John 8 shows the Lord Jesus upholding the law on stoning to the very letter. That is probably the reason the passage was excluded from some heretical antinomian versions of the Gospel of John.
The very fact you did not exclude the laws against thieving, bearing false witness, etc, from laws you said had passed and exposed others which the curch does not observe shows you get it that the law can be subdivided.
There is a crucial statement from the Lord:
Matt 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Christ says himself that the Old Testment law is not abolished! But how do we make sense of ‘fulfil’ as opposed to ‘destroy’? How does Christ ‘fulfil’ ‘thou shalt not murder’? He doesn’t. He keeps it, obviously, but he does not ‘fulfil’ it. The same is true of all the civil and moral law. How on the other hand does he fulfil the sacrificial law? By being the one perfect once-for-all sacrifice.
In fact Christ upholds all the moral law, says Caesar must have funds to govern (very controversial at the time), but never once upholds the sacrificial law in his teachings. So there is a valid subdivision.
The ‘old laws’ were put in place ‘to prepare the way for Jesus’ only makes sense if you mean the sacrificial laws. It makes no sense if you mean ‘though shalt not covet’. The sacrificial laws were prophesying Jesus, but not the moral or civil laws and not the physical laws which hold the world together. We are not bouncing all over the place because Jesus fulfilled the law of gravity.
Jesus was actually very condemnatory. He condemned Herod: ‘that fox’. He condemned adultery: ‘Sin no more’. He condemned money-fixing cartels by overturning the tables in the temple. He condemned divorce-on-demand. He condemned Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. He condemned the comfortable rich. He condemned false prophets. He condemned over-observant Pharisees. He condemned self-satisfaction. He condemned those who would not follow his teachings. He condemned whole churches in Revelation.
‘Therefore men do not need to (and should not) pass judgement on one another’ Of course we need to pass judgment on each other’s actions! In the real world that is what real people do! That is what the prophets and the apostles did. It’s what Christ did. That is what you do when you suggest to a friend that they should do this rather than that. That is what a magistrate, or a judge, or a jury does in any jurisdiction. That is life.
You cannot build a justice system on hopes that people might repent. Why stop at murder? ‘We know you battered that old lady and stole her handbag, but this court forgives you and urges you to repent’. ‘How did you get on in court, mate?’ ‘I got away with it!’ Very compassionate to the victims of crime. Many people we hear repented on death row. It concentrates the mind. And it does justice. Which is where we came in.
I wasn’t saying that criminals shouldn’t be disciplined and sent to prison, only that we should be merciful just as Christ was, and draw the line at the death penalty.
Is our place to decide when a man should die? Isn’t it better to leave such a decision up to the better judgement of God?
Even if governments have been endowed with authority by God to rule, it doesn’t mean that they possess God’s wisdom, and a matter of such finality requires enormous wisdom. I know you will argue that that the necessary wisdom has been imparted to us via the Bible (Numbers 35:30) and that the rule about witness numbers was put in place to protect against man’s fallible judgement; but I still take issue with the relevancy of some of these Old Testament decrees, and maintain that many of them became obsolete after the coming of Christ when he taught us a different way.
Otherwise you are saying you agree with stoning (John 8) which is cruel and Christ would never be cruel. Furthermore I do not think that when Jesus said, ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’ has anything to do with a lack of witnesses. Who is to say that there were not two witnesses amongst the men who brought the woman to Jesus? No, he was teaching us a different lesson.
If Jesus wasn’t teaching us a new way of handling things then what is your opinion on the relevance of other non- ceremonial laws such as Leviticus 20:9: “‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death”? Does God not want us to have mercy on stroppy teenagers?
Jesus DID overturn many of the rules found in the Old Testament, sometimes by his words and sometimes by his actions (instructing people to imitate him, validates this mode of teaching). For example, he directly contradicts Leviticus 24:19-21 which calls for ‘an eye for an eye’. This passage says, “Anyone who injures their neighbour is to be injured in the same manner: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury”; but in Matthew 5:38 we read that Jesus explicitly said: “You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. 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.”
I am not saying that this specific passage is evidence of the death penalty not applying, it isn’t, but what this passage proves is that Jesus changed things.
I think the big problem, Laura, is that you are starting with mercy and justice is taking a back seat.
You can temper justice with mercy, but you cannot temper mercy with justice. Start with justice.
I wasn’t actually saying criminals should be sent to prison, I said God’s justice is restorative, so that the thief pays back what he stole and the violent man pays for his victim to be healed and for the time and money he has lost. Banging them up in jail benefits neither them nor their victims nor wider society. The victim gets no money back, the criminal does not confront his crime, there is little visible deterrent, prison costs the taxpayer money and prison is a university of crime, designed not to reform but to reinforce criminality and make criminal connections.
God said (Gen 9:6) ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.’
God instituted the death penalty and even gave a reason for it: ‘for in the image of God made he man.’ We didn’t put that in place, God did, and as you say yourself, he has more wisdom than us.
So what are you saying?
(1) That God was unrighteous to put the death penalty in place?
(2) That it was temporary? So are we no longer made in the image of God?
(3) That God has changed?
Mal 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
(4) That Jesus has changed it? So has Jesus changed human beings from being made in the image of God to not being? And does he not do what the Father does?
John 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
So if Jesus has changed it, the Father has changed it, and the Father, we read, changeth not. So that won’t do.
Some say that such a law was appropriate for society at that time, but not in our time, but they fly in the face of scripture, in the face of ‘in the image of God made he man’ and in the face of human nature. They have yet to show that human nature has changed for the better from the time of Noah! So the temporal argument falls as well.
And although I want to agree with you that stoning is cruel, that makes God who instituted that penalty, Christ who upheld is in John 8 and was with the Father in the beginning cruel as well. What would someone of that time say to us? Would they not say that adultery and walking out of a marriage for no reason are unimaginably cruel to spouse and children? When will we try to see things as God sees them?
You miss the point about our Lord’s call for the witnesses to throw the first stones. That is the law, but it is also the law that they must come with clean hands, in other words, not be implicated in the same sin themselves. There were no witnesses who could meet that demand. Not one. That is where the case against the woman fell apart and acquittal was the only possible outcome.
Let me ask you about Leviticus 20:9: ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death’. Which is more civilised? A society where children respect their parents and older people in general, or a society like ours where a grandfather is beaten to death by ‘stroppy teenagers’ for complaining to them outside his house about the noise they are making?
It is Antichrist who changes laws, not Jesus:
Dan 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Matt 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
(And we have already seen how Jesus fulfilled the law by being the perfect sacrifice, never by saying ‘don’t keep the moral or civil law’.)
BTW, there is more to the turning of the cheek than immediately meets the eye, as Walter Wink has pointed out, and talking of eyes, ‘eye for an eye’ was always ransomed or satisfied by a payment of money in Bible days. The two penalties which could not be so ransomed was, you guessed it, the death penalty for murder and banishment for manslaughter:
Numb 35:31 Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death.
Numb 35:32 And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest.
The death penalty puts a high value on human life. In decadent Western society, the value of a human life is on average 11.5 years in prison. Four years in one case. Zero years if that human life was taken in the womb. Can anyone explain to me how civilised, let alone just, any of that is?
To tell the truth, you convinced me a little while back that God does condone capital punishment for murder. Provided it is exacted by governing authorities not individuals, and provided it is proven without doubt with two or more witnesses.
I wanted to throw every verse I could at the argument that seemingly contradicted capital punishment in the hope that there would be a ray of hope that it did not apply anymore. However, the verses you have quoted relating to the matter appear to be indisputable, such as Romans 13:14.
Furthermore you have shown me that there are verses condoning capital punishment in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament (that I admit I was ignorant of) which demonstrate that Jesus’ coming did not do away with this law. Paul himself, who had first-hand knowledge of Jesus, wrote in Acts 25:11, “If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.”
I didn’t want it to be true because I was afraid of a God that would permit such a thing. But of course we should indeed fear the Lord, and now I fear Him more! But this is a good thing. And I am comforted by Psalm 11: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.
I know it is written in Proverbs 3:5, “Trust God with all your heart, and not rely on his own understanding”; therefore I must accept God’s mode of justice, which has been made clear to me now, even if I struggle with it. God’s justice is perfect- Deuteronomy 32:4.
There is a part of me that is loathe to admit that I was mistaken! But that would be wrong of me. I can see that you have won the debate. You certainly know your scripture, and so I must concede defeat. I truly thank you for correcting me and aiding me in a better understanding of the Bible. Praise be to God.
May God bless you Laura.
2Chr 34:27 Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD.
Psalm 10:17 LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: