[Streets, 2009 JAVan Devender]
Main Street, Wellsboro, Pa. just after breakfast.
17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death."The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Le 24:17).
The newspaper is exulting this morning over the MD legislature passing a law banning capital punishment in this state.
How sad.
The general line of thinking is that this is the "civilized" thing to do... after all, look at all the other states that have done it. "It's time for the US to join the other civlized nations of the world" it is urged, as if somehow that distinction is applicable to only those countries that have done so. "It's the "Christian" thing to do" we hear from some corners, pointing to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:38. Somehow those who quote Jesus so freely here seem to not mention the rest of the paragraph where it says that if someone strikes us we are to "turn the other cheek" (No right to self defense? No criminal prosecution for assault?) and if someone wants our shirt we are to give him our jacket also (generosity, not prosecution, for muggers?).
It's just so sad.
We have lost more American lives in the top ten cities alone last year in this country than we have lost in Iraq and Iran in 10 years of warfare. Blood is filling our streets. Criminals are being turned loose because of prison over population. Repeat offenders are killing and raping those who pay taxes to provide politicians with armed body-guards.
When someone argues the economics of capital punishment ("It's just so much more expensive than serving life in prison.") where do they factor in the price of the human lives that would be saved by the extermination of those who have demonstrated that they can kill without conscience and sometimes for sheer pleasure? Why are the reasons why the death penalty is so "expensive" not explored? If it takes 25 years and thousands of "hearings" and "reviews" and etc. etc. to carry out the just sentence that a wanton murderer deserves, why is not the outrage expressed at that violation of constutional provisions for a swift trial (and punishment)?
The bottom line is this. It is not the economics of the issue nor the "deterrent" effect of the penalty that is the final problem. It is the idea of "justice" that ought to prevail. God has not changed. Jesus did not alter one "jot or tittle" of God's Law. Yes, we, as individuals are not supposed to pursue vengeance. Yes, to the extent of freedom that we have to do so we should take personal humiliation over sinning with outraged wrath over some slight (a slap in the face). We are, as individuals not to presume upon the responsibilities that have been, by God, assigned to the government. It is the magistrate that is to bear the sword to punish unrighteousness (Romans 13:4), not us as individuals. But if the magistrate does not wield that sword, if he does not execute God's wrath on the evil doer, then, by all rights God's wrath will fall on him and his government.
Our business, as Christians, is to remind government that it should be most concerned about deterring God's anger rather than wringing its hands over some semi-demented animal off the streets. There is one sure way of making certain that a convicted killer never kills again... and that is to remove him from among the living. (Incarceration does not certainly prevent another murder... there are many murders in prison also). Certainly, a convicted killer should be offered the gospel. Certainly we should grieve over his wasted and evil life. Certainly we have no right to gloat, or to hypocritically think that somehow we are more deserving of God's Son than he. Certainly we are to represent the righteousness of Christ to all, even if they are already hanging on the cross they deserve as testified by the criminal executed with Jesus.
But... and about this there should be no mistake... God does not change. And if a man is certainly a murderer then it is not only just, it is righteous, and it is necessary to fulfill righteousness, that his life be taken.
This state and this country need to reform our criminal system dramatically. We need more prisons, more courts to hear cases, fewer loop holes for escaping punishment, and we need more executions, not fewer. This, I believe, is what God requires.
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