Recently, I finished reading John Grisham’s book The Camber, about the death penalty. Through the book, Grisham’s protagonist expresses antipathy toward the death penalty. Several other key characters are also anti-death penalty. One lawyer, speaking to the protagonist, says, “…the people who are forced to impose it [the death penalty] are not supporters. You’re about to meet these people: the guards who get close to the inmates; the administrators who must plan for an efficient killing; the prison employees who rehearse for a month beforehand” (pg. 45).
Another character, the condemned man’s daughter, says, “I’m opposed to the death penalty. I’m probably the only fifty-year-old white woman in the country whose father is on death row. It’s barbaric, immoral, discriminatory, cruel, uncivilized – I subscribe to all the above.”
It might be discriminatory. The justice system should always do its best to see that the condemned man is truly guilty. Some forms of the death penalty might be barbaric. But it is absolutely wrong to say it is immoral, cruel, and uncivilized. People who say such things have a completely false view of God. In fact, I would go farther and suggest that they have created a god after their own image – a god who is happier with life-imprisonments than the death penalty. That is absolutely false.
Is stoning barbaric? The God of love commanded it in the Old Testament. The God of love. Not just for murder or rape either. Here are the crimes for which the God of grace commanded the death penalty: Apostasy (Lev. 20:2; Deut. 13:11; 17:5); Blasphemy (Lev. 24:14, 16, 23; 1 Sam. 21:10); Sorcery (Lev. 20:27); Violating the Sabbath (Num. 15:35-36); Misappropriating something dedicated to God (Josh. 7:25); Disobedient children (Deut. 21:21); Adultery (Deut. 22:21, 24; Ezek. 16:40; 23:47); Murder – Exodus 21:12; Patricide – Exodus 21:15; Kidnapping – Exodus 21:16; Cursing parents – Exodus 21:17; A recalcitrant farmer – Exodus 21:29; Bestiality – Exodus 22:19; Homosexuality – Leviticus 20:13; Presumption on someone else’s authority – Numbers 3:10; False teachers – Deut. 13:5.
Listen to the God of mercy: “When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity” (Deuteronomy 25:11-12). The God of love said that? Yes, the God of love commanded that.
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Humans may feel that taking someone else’s life is outside of their hands. I would agree. But that’s where we have to listen to God. You see, here’s the point that most people don’t understand. What is the highest good for man in God’s eyes? It is not the right to life. It is the right to obedience. The most important behavior for man is to obey God. When we disobey God – and we all have and still do – then we forfeit our right to life. That’s why the sacrifice and death of Jesus is so important and so personal.
Something else we often overlook is the nature of God. Because the Bible portrays God as perfect and infinite, then just as He is perfect in love, He is perfect in hatred. Just as He is complete in grace, He is also complete in holiness. Just as He is infinite in grace, He is also infinite in justice. That is why we need to be rescued in Jesus from the wrath that is to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). “Behold then the kindness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22). That’s a more complete picture of the God of heaven.
Someone can be against the death penalty if he/she wishes. But they cannot think they are being more “God-like” in doing so. You can’t out-compassion God. He said certain crimes deserve the death penalty.
–Paul Holland
