Why the Death Penalty Is Still God's Will

First off, some Christians who oppose the death penalty have their hearts in the right place, and I'm sympathetic to some of their arguments. The strongest version of that opposition usually comes from serious Catholics, arguing on moral and doctrinal grounds.

I'm going to answer it from the Bible, for two reasons. One, I'm a Protestant, and I come at everything from the perspective of Sola Scriptura (which I take to be distinct from, but reasonably compatible with, Vatican II's Dei Verbum). Two, it's the territory I know and care about. I'm sure somebody's got a better handle on what Aquinas or Chrysostom teaches about this — but no matter, because that's not where the argument lives for me.

Here goes nuthin':

After the Flood, in Genesis 8–9, God received Noah's offering and promised not to destroy the world by water again, and hung up His war-bow (that's what the rainbow in the sky meant) as a sign of this promise.

On the heels of that promise (called the Noahic Covenant by egghead types), God issued new rights, conditions, and expectations which He had for Mankind in this new world (these are called "covenant stipulations" or "covenant ethical obligations" depending on which egghead you ask).

Here they are.

One. Animals will regard us with suspicion now, and we may eat them. Before the Flood, man had no God-given right to eat animals at all — so this is a brand-new right.

Two. We may not eat the blood of the animals we kill. That qualifies and restricts the right He just handed us.

Three. We are now granted the right, and handed the responsibility, to execute murderers.

Why does blood come up in the middle of it? Because even the blood of an animal is holy to God, since He is the giver of life. That is the jumping-off point for the whole thing: if the animal's blood is God's, so is a man's. Human life belongs to Him.

Christianity has generally taken all three of these as a package deal.

Now somebody will say, "But that's the really Old Testament — that's before Moses, even." The short answer to this is a question: do you think God's promise NOT to flood the entire world again has been revoked? Asked another way: do you believe the rainbow promise still holds? If you do, then the whole package holds true along with it. Like I said, it's a package deal — that's how covenants work.

But wait, there's more.

Fast forward to Paul, in Romans 13:3–4:

Rulers are no terror to good work, but to evil. You don't want to be afraid of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will have his commendation. He is God's servant to you, for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid — because he doesn't wear that sword for nothing. He is God's servant, the avenger who carries out God's wrath on the man who does evil. (my translation)

Paul is arguing that the legitimacy of the State rests on its God-given responsibility to execute murderers. You could claim "the sword" doesn't refer to the death penalty — but then you'd have to show that anybody in the first century AD actually held that view.

Finally, in Acts 15, one of the requirements the Jerusalem Council laid on Gentile believers was to abstain from eating blood. Many scholars think that is because the early church saw the Noahic Covenant as universal to all humanity, while the Mosaic law was for Israel. The blood law carried across — because it was never Israel's alone.

One more quick thought. I realize that some Christians object to the death penalty on the grounds that we are stupid and evil, and that civil government only exaggerates these qualities. While I heartily agree, I also know that God knew this about us when He mandated that we carry out the death penalty. Noah and his family were (with regard to sin and brokenness) just like the rest of us. That argument cannot stand if a person believes that the death penalty was instituted the way the Bible says it was.

In summary:

• God's promise not to wipe us out again rests on the premise that we will honor human life by governing ourselves and seeing to it that murderers pay with their lives, thereby honoring God as the author and sustainer of that life.
• We have a moral responsibility to do it, and God gave us that responsibility with the full knowledge that we would not and could not do it perfectly. Perfect justice is reserved for eternity. We are still called to carry out the best temporal justice we can.
• There is strong evidence from the New Testament that the Christians of the apostolic age concurred with this reasoning.

— tobe