Tag Archives: law

Christians, Government, and the Death Penalty

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Government, Grace

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Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.

state justice Christians, Government, and the Death Penalty
Genesis 9:6 is viewed as God’s first ordaining of government and for God’s command that the government should take the lives of those who take the lives of others through murder.

Matthew Henry, the great commentator, had this to say in his commentary on this verse.

Wilful murder ought always to be punished with death. It is a sin which the Lord would not pardon in a prince (2 Ki. 24:3, 4), and which therefore a prince should not pardon in a subject. To this law there is a reason annexed: For in the image of God made he man at first. Man is a creature dear to his Creator, and therefore ought to be so to us. God put honour upon him, let not us then put contempt upon him. Such remains of God’s image are still even upon fallen man as that he who unjustly kills a man defaces the image of God and does dishonour to him. When God allowed men to kill their beasts, yet he forbade them to kill their slaves; for these are of a much more noble and excellent nature, not only God’s creatures, but his image, Jam. 3:9. All men have something of the image of God upon them; but magistrates have, besides, the image of his power, and the saints the image of his holiness, and therefore those who shed the blood of princes or saints incur a double guilt.
Blue Letter Bible – Commentaries – Matthew Henry – Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible – www.blueletterbible.org

Paul, in Romans 13, echoes that God has ordained the government to bear the sword, and cautions that they don’t bear the sword for nothing.

In the Old Testament law we see the death penalty for murderers, even for men  whose animals kill another due to the owners neglect. (Exodus 21:28-29) While the Israelite law doesn’t apply to us, we can clearly take some things from it in what God’s expectation of a government is.

My question is, where is grace in this? Clearly, Christians aren’t to retaliate when persecuted, to turn the cheek when struck, to walk the extra mile, and to give freely to those who ask to borrow from us, but does this extend to murder?

Is the government to extend grace to criminals? Not that I’m suggesting murderers be set free, but does God want murderers executed still today? We live in a day and age where we have prisons that criminals are kept in relative safety, so there isn’t an absolute need to kill them to keep others safe. Did God give us this command as a means to keep others safe from the murderer, or is it a command that the murderer’s life be ended when found guilty of their crime?

What do we as Christians, say to a nation, that God has ordained, about their role of executioner of murderers?

The Law

18 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Forgiveness, Grace, Law

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God has blessed me with the amazing privilege of teaching junior high and high school students the bible once a week. Over the last month this opportunity has been used to expose the students to the book of James.

While grace is touted in many churches, it seems the law is often ignored. Or, at least it isn’t used for what it was meant to be used for. The law can’t make us righteous, because we can’t keep it perfectly. In fact, we can’t keep it at all.

In the book of James one is shown the law, and one is practically beat up by it, or even killed by it as the bible says, if they consider the consequences of what James has to say regarding the law. He compares the law to a mirror. We can use the law to see what we look like spiritually, just as a mirror shows us what we look like physically. Paul says elsewhere that it is by the law that we come to a knowledge of sin.

10 God Man The Law

Looking at the commandments we can see ourselves as we are before God’s eyes. We are idolaters, blasphemers, adulterers, thieves, liars, covetous, and even murderers. Lest we think we are somehow okay with some of them Jesus explained that to look upon a woman lustfully makes one guilty of adultery, and to be falsely angry with someone makes us murderers. To make matters worse, James says that to break even one of the commandments is to make us accountable for the whole law. It is clear, we are sinful, and that we have no hope of keeping the law ourselves. The bible says that we are dead in sin.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. God provided the offering needed to pay for our sin and to cleanse us from it. And then He even gifts us with the faith to trust in His Son whom He provided for us.

We are nothing but sinners dead in sin, already condemned, but God provided the way out. A healthy view of the law gives us a basis to understand God’s wrath against sin, and against us, sinners. And the law helps us to understand just how much we need God’s grace and mercy to set us free.