COLUMBIA EVANGELICAL SEMINARY Longview, WA

Term Paper Title: A Christian Case For Capital Punishment

Class number, title, and credit: CP-502 Ethics (3 semester hours)

By Jeffrey Jones Calgary, Alberta, Canada

October, 2008

Professor: Ric Walston, D.Min., Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION Christians are called to place the highest value upon human life. This value touches many aspects of Christian living and confession. Christian opposition to abortion is founded upon the conviction that the fetus, being a human being, is made in the image of God and is thus precious. Christian caution toward the exercise of war, and the development of just-war theory within Christian theological circles, is based upon the belief that the wanton destruction of innocent life is an evil to be avoided. Life is not taken for granted within the Christian tradition, but is treasured as a gift from a gracious God. It is therefore to be guarded and protected wherever possible. At the same time, however, many Bible-believing, Spirit-filled Christians who hold and fight for these convictions just as strongly advocate the destruction of the lives of some of their fellow human beings. Those who take the lives of others, outside of the generally accepted contexts of war and self-defense, are understood to have merited the taking of their own lives by the community. At first glance, and to many skeptics, this appears to be a contradiction. How is life valued by the advocacy of capital punishment? How is a position in favor of the death penalty congruent with the Christian ethic of life? Even more foundational than this challenge is the basic question: what has God said? The debate over capital punishment is not simply a matter of Christians versus the secular world. Christians stand on both sides of this debate, and so do unbelievers. For the Christian, the most fundamental authority for faith and practice is the Holy Spirit speaking through the Bible. The disagreement on this point between Bible-believing Christians thus

2 raises the question of what the Bible has to say about capital punishment. Has God given a divine opinion on the matter? For the Christian, it is necessary to discover what the Bible has said about the death penalty before approaching the secular debate. It is far too easy for Christians, immersed in a society that does not share their values or worldview, to have their opinions and thinking shaped by culture in a way that then unduly influences their reading of the inspired text. For Christians to have a clear and prophetic witness in a fallen world, they must know the will of God regarding the matter before speaking. Part of this process is interaction with the concerns of fellow believers who do not share their perspective. It is the contention of this essay that the Bible gives an unmistakable mandate to mankind for the exercise of capital punishment, and that this mandate is timeless and universal. This mandate is taught first in the Old Testament and reinforced in the New, and is capable of withstanding the strongest objections from within the Christian camp. Furthermore, the biblical position has much to say to the contemporary secular debate on the question.

A BIBLICAL CASE FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Old Testament Support For Capital Punishment The Old Testament gives many explicit commands and examples of the judicial application of the death penalty. While space prevents an exhaustive treatment of Old Testament examples, several important texts require note. The Pre-Patriarchal Period The first clear biblical statement regarding a death penalty, and perhaps the most important, is found in Genesis 9. Noah and his family had just been delivered from the flood, and God had initiated a covenant with Noah and the earth never again to destroy the world with a flood. Chapter 9 begins with Gods blessing upon Noah and his descendants: all creation was delivered into their hand (v. 2) including animals for food (v. 3). Yet they are forbidden to consume flesh with its blood, out of respect for life (v. 4). God then applies that concept to the realm of human behavior. If a man slays another, God will require a reckoning for his blood. Homicide is the gravest of crimes, because it represents an affront to the sacred place of humanity in creation and its special relation to God, and thus it merits the death penalty at human hands (v. 5-6).1 The spilling of innocent blood cannot simply be dismissed; it must find recompense to meet the requirements of the justice of God, who is

Gordon Wenham, Story As Torah: Reading Old Testament Narratives Ethically (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), p. 26.
1 1

4 its vindicator.2 It is very important to underline at this point that the purpose of the punishment as given is retributive justice, not deterrence, rehabilitation, or other common purposes cited today as proper purposes for punishment. The text describes God as giving humanity the responsibility of avenging human life destroyed by murder.3 While not denying other effects of this punishment as being desirable, the fact that this passage, being a universal covenant applicable to all of creation, is foundational to the biblical discussion of capital punishment, means that retributive justice is the most important purpose of criminal punishment. In other words, in this passage God lays the foundation not just for capital punishment in human jurisprudence but for the retributive principle in criminal justice. God here invests humankind with judicial authority, rather than promising to destroy the murderer himself, and this fact suggests Gods intent is to lay the foundation for human justice and even organized government.4 The objection has been raised since at least the mid-nineteenth century that this passage is not prescriptive, but rather predictive.5 In other words, Gen. 9:6 is not a command but a proverb. Stassen and Gushee, for instance, cite the chiastic structure and poetic nature of the statement as an indication of its proverbial character as part of an argument against this passage as a continuing biblical basis for the death penalty.6 This Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), pp. 303-304.
2 2

D.H. Johnson, Life, in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander et al (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 642.
3 3 4

Waltke, p. 304. Lloyd Bailey, Capital Punishment: What The Bible Says (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1987), p. 38.
5 5 6

Glen Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus In Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 202.

5 objection, however, fails to properly consider the statement in its immediate context. While the Hebrew grammar of the statement, considered in isolation, might allow such a reading, the chapter begins in verse 1 with imperatives and continues with prohibitions (v. 4) and thus portrays God as not merely laconically describing reality but directing his audience.7 It must also be stressed that verse 6 is an expansion and application of verse 5, where God explicitly declares that he will require a reckoning from murderers, language that implies an imperative rather than a description.8 Furthermore, the appeal to the image of God renders the predictive interpretation impossible, for the image of God in man can never furnish a motivation for the likelihood of the exaction of blood-vengeance.9 In light of the context, any attempt to blunt the prescriptive force of this statement is highly contrived at best. Others have attempted to deny the applicability of the command to contemporary life by pointing out that the related command that blood not be consumed out of respect for life (v. 4), while temporarily upheld in the New Testament (Acts 15:20, 29), was apparently later repealed (Rom. 14:14, 1 Cor. 10:25ff.).10 However, it does not follow that simply because one element of a piece of legislation or covenant is bound to a particular period of time, the rest of the legislation or covenant is similarly constrained. It must be pointed out that humanity today still lives under the provisions of the Noahic covenant, as the
7

Bailey, p. 38. John Jefferson Davis, Evangelical Ethics, 3rd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004), p. 208.
8 8 9 9 1 10

Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth, 1975), p. 53.

O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ Of The Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), p. 120.

6 regularity of the seasons (Gen. 8:22), and the presence of the rainbow (Gen. 9:14-16) which signifies Gods commitment never to destroy all life with a flood, both testify.11 Since some provisions of the Noahic covenant do therefore remain in force, it need only be shown (as will be done below) that the rest of the Bible reinforces and upholds the continuity of the specific command for capital punishment in order for the universality of the command to be established. The Patriarchal Period During the patriarchal era, references to capital punishment may also be found. The principle of deterrence is seen in Gen. 26:11, which shows the king of the Philistines, Abimilech, commanding his people not to touch Rebekah upon pain of death. Even outside the more developed cities, in the nomadic culture of the patriarchs families, the head of the household possessed the power to prescribe the death penalty as a judgment. One example of this power is seen in Gen. 31:32, where Jacob declares that anyone in possession of Labans household gods shall not live. Another is found in Gen. 38:24, where Judah prescribes death by burning for his daughter-in-law Tamar, who had been found pregnant out of wedlock. The Bible merely reports these events without explicitly passing judgment upon them, but it is clear that the death penalty was well-accepted in the culture of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacobs time.

The Law Of Moses The Mosaic law provides some of the best-known examples of capital punishment in the Old Testament. In all, 18 offences merited the death penalty in the Sinaitic
1 11

Ibid., p. 121.

7 legislation:12 murder (Ex. 21:12-14); causing a pregnant womans death, and perhaps causing her unborn child to die (Ex. 21:22-25); negligence causing death in failing to cage a known dangerous animal (Ex. 21:28-30); kidnapping (Ex. 21:16); raping a married woman (Deut. 22:25-29); fornication (Deut. 22:13-21); adultery (Lev. 20:10); incest (Lev. 20:11-12, 14); homosexual intercourse (Lev. 20:13); bestiality (Lev. 20:15-16); assaulting ones parent (Ex. 21:15); cursing ones parent (Ex. 21:17); rebellion against ones parents (Deut. 21:18-21); occult practice (Ex. 22:18); cursing God (Lev. 24:10-16); proselytizing for other religions (Deut. 13:1-16); killing an acquitted man (Deut. 17:12); and bearing false witness against a person in jeopardy of capital punishment (Deut. 19:18-19). It has been pointed out that while this list is long by modern standards, it is remarkably restrained when compared even to relatively recent history (England had 160 separate capital offences as late as the eighteenth century).13 Even against the standard of its own time the Mosaic Law shows restraint, as it conspicuously excludes, for example, execution for crimes against property,14 and left no provision for monetary compensation or differing values of life based on social status which favored the wealthy in other Near Eastern law codes.15 An important aspect of biblical justice may be seen in the Mosaic legislation. In Deut. 17:13 God prescribes capital punishment for the following purpose: And all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.16 The same principle is found
1 12

The following list is adapted from Davis, p. 208.

1 13

Bailey, p. 17.
1 14

Ibid., p. 29
1 15

Ibid., p. 30. All Bible references come from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise indicated.
1 16

8 two chapters later (19:20), where God prescribes for bearers of false witness the penalty which they sought to visit upon the innocent: And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. These examples suffice to demonstrate that the Bible does intend deterrent value in capital punishment, and that deterrence as a principle is a legitimate purpose of criminal punishment.17 The Period of the Monarchy The period of the monarchy also shows use of the death penalty, and by this time treason against the king was also considered a capital offence. Solomon had Adonijah put to death for attempting to marry Abishag (1 Kings 2:24-25), which, since she had slept with David, Solomon saw as attempt to gain legitimacy for an attempt on the throne. The Bible places the crime of treason in a uniquely theological light, as killing the king was considered raising hands against the Lords anointed and thus merited death (2 Sam. 1:14-15). The Mosaic stipulations continued to be observed in this period, as David had the assassins of Ishbosheth put to death for having killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed (2 Sam. 4:10-12). During the reign of Josiah, pagan priests were executed en masse by sacrifice as a means of defiling their altars (2 Ki. 23:20), an application of the Mosaic prescription of death for those leading others into apostasy. In short, the Old Testament provides many commands and directives with respect to the death penalty, as well as many examples of its application in narrative passages. The purpose of capital punishment, according to the Old Testament witness, is first and foremost retributive justice, and then deterrence. While the narrative passages do not
1 17

H. Wayne House, In Favor Of The Death Penalty, in H. Wayne House and John Howard Yoder, The Death Penalty Debate (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1991), p. 84.

9 usually provide an explicit comment by the narrator as to the justice of the act, the context of many of them suggests approval. One obvious example is the slaying of the pagan priests by Josiah in 2 Ki. 23, which is part of a series of reforms that are highly praised by the narrator (2 Ki. 23:24-25). The Old Testament evinces a clear pattern of approval for capital punishment when the crime is sufficiently grave. New Testament Support For Capital Punishment In contrast with the Old Testament, the New Testament does not have nearly as much to say about capital punishment. The most obvious and well-known example of capital punishment in the New Testament is the crucifixion of Christ, which was clearly an unjust act. This unique event aside, however, the New Testament does have several things to say that support the practice of capital punishment. The Book of Acts The account of Pauls arrest in Jerusalem reveals the continuing existence of capital offences. The mob seeks to kill Paul because, having seen him in the company of a Gentile, they assume that the sacred areas of the Temple had been defiled (Acts 21:30-31). Archaeologists have recovered two stone plaques from the Temples Court of the Gentiles that warned Gentiles to approach no further upon pain of death,18 thus demonstrating that the death penalty was used to maintain the sanctity of the Temple. The Romans eventually took the power of capital punishment away from Jewish courts, though historians are not agreed upon when this took place,19 and the priests response to Pilate in John 18:31 seems
1 18

Thomas Brisco, Holman Bible Atlas (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1998), William Baker, On Capital Punishment (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1985), p. 7.

p. 232.
1 19

10 to indicate that they had already lost this power. However, the example of Christs crucifixion suggests that the Romans were at times inclined to carry out the death penalty on behalf of the Jewish leadership as a way of keeping the peace. Pauls arrest led to another confrontation which has bearing upon the question of capital punishment. Brought before the governor Festus, Paul assumes the legitimacy of the death penalty as he states in his own defense: If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death (Acts 25:11). It has been objected that Paul said not that he approved of the death penalty but that he was unafraid to die,20 and that therefore Pauls statement has no bearing on the question since its point is about Pauls preparedness to face judgment. This view, however, fails to account for the fact that, if Pauls religious views (for which he was on trial) necessitated opposition to capital punishment, Pauls statement that he did not seek to escape death would be empty at best and baldly hypocritical at worst. If no crime could ever merit death, then Paul could never have deserved to die, and since Paul was only prepared to die if he had deserved to die (a point proven by his appeal to Caesar), then it follows, contrary to his statement, that Paul could never under any circumstances have accepted death. In short, the statement is only ethically consistent if Paul is assuming the death penalty to be a legitimate exercise of punishment. Romans 13 Possibly the most important New Testament statement regarding capital punishment is Romans 13:3-4:
2 20

Glen Stassen, Biblical Teaching on Capital Punishment, in Capital Punishment: A Reader, ed. Glen Stassen (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998), p. 125.

11 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Here Paul commands Christians to submit to civil authority as having been ordained by God to maintain peace and justice in the world. The rulers here bear the sword in order to do so, and it must not be missed that they do so in Gods service to carry out Gods wrath on wrongdoers. It is important to notice both biblical purposes for justice reinforced

here in this text. Rulers are a terror to bad conduct because of the power of the sword, which is an example of a deterrent motive. The description of the ruler as an avenger, a word having the basic meaning of satisfying justice, provides a strong example of retributive justice as the biblical purpose of the death penalty.21 The Greek word machaira means a small or short sword,22 or even a dagger.23 This has tempted some interpreters to downplay the words implication of deadly force. Stassen states that the machaira was the symbol of authority for the police who accompanied tax collectors in arguing that Paul must have been primarily concerned with Christian submission to taxation than with the states authority to wield the death penalty.24 John Howard Yoder sees the machaira merely as a symbol of judicial authority [since]

2 21 2 22

Baker, p. 79.

Joseph Henry Thayer, Thayers Greek-English Lexicon (1901 reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 393. Johannes Louw and Eugene Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based On Semantic Domains, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (New York, NY: United Bible Societies, 1989), p. 58. 2 24 Stassen, p. 126.
2 23

12 in imperial Rome the machaira was not the arm either of the soldier in combat or of the executioner.25 In response, it may be fairly asked how a deadly weapon might legitimately represent authority if that authority had no legitimate right to wield deadly weapons for their designed purposes. As Paul uses the term, it would be emptied of meaning by a universal denial of the death penalty, and it would have been far better to use another expression to symbolize the rulers authority. It is no doubt significant that Luke in Acts uses the same word to refer to the instrument of James execution (Acts 12:2). Machaira has the common figurative meaning of death by violence and execution,26 and it has been observed that the machaira was the symbol of authority for the superior magistrates of Roman provinces, who possessed the right to administer capital punishment.27 William Baker may have summarized it best when he stated that the sword is not so much a symbol of capital punishment as it is the instrument of capital punishment.28 In this light, the most straightforward interpretation is that Paul is describing a divinely given mandate for capital punishment by the civil authority. While the New Testament does not speak as explicitly of capital punishment as does the Old, and notwithstanding the shadow of Christs unjust crucifixion over the question of the New Testaments perspective on capital punishment, the New Testament authors nowhere repudiate the Old Testaments view on its application as punishment. Indeed, New Testament passages bearing upon the topic are actually supportive.
2 25

John Howard Yoder, Against the Death Penalty, in H. Wayne House and John Howard Yoder, The Death Penalty Debate (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1991), p. 146.
2 26 2 27

Louw and Nida, p. 236. Davis, p. 211. Baker, p. 69.

2 28

13

Summary The Bibles perspective on capital punishment can be fairly described as cautiously supportive. It is cautious in that the Bible places, both by precept and example, strict limitations upon both what crimes are punishable by death and the due process by which it is to be administered. It is almost always exercised by the community or the legitimate ruler of the community, and even in the exceptional Mosaic case of the goel or kinsmanredeemer who was bound to avenge the death of a relative, his activities were regulated by legislation and his responsibility was not just to himself but to the community and ultimately to God. It is supportive in that capital punishment is everywhere understood as an act of human agency on behalf of God, delivering divine vengeance upon the evildoer, and never as merely human retribution. It is always founded upon the authority of explicit divine revelation, not merely human cultural practice. Furthermore, the biblical use of capital punishment, especially as described in the New Testament, had the aim of establishing justice in human society. To that end, the Bible cites what are known today as the retributive and deterrence principles as justification for capital punishment. Retributive justice, being as it is part of the foundational revelation of Gen. 9:5-6 and reinforced in the vital New Testament text of Rom. 13:3-4, takes the most important place. Since the history of capital punishment in the Bible begins with Noah and Gods covenant with all the earth after the flood, the biblical teaching that murder deserves death at the hands of men is best understood as a universal, transcultural, and timeless command. The universality of this principles applicability is further shown by the fact that the Bible carries the application of this principle across the ages of Biblical history, whether in a

14 theocratic (i.e. Mosaic covenant) context or in a pagan (i.e. Romans 13) context, whether among Jews or Gentiles, whether among nomadic tribal herdsmen, in a theocratic confederacy, in a monarchy, or in a far-flung bureaucratic empire. On this basis, it is legitimate to state that it is consistent with biblical teaching for Christians to support and advocate capital punishment for murderers, who would merit the penalty under Gods instructions to Noah. Biblically-Based Objections To Capital Punishment Considered Many Christians are not swayed by the traditional argument for capital punishment, finding it wanting for various reasons. It is therefore necessary to examine these objections as part of any responsible attempt to craft a Christian argument for capital punishment. The Sixth Commandment One such argument takes its stand based on the prohibition of killing found in the Ten Commandments. Some opponents of the death penalty read the Sixth Commandment as a universal and blanket prohibition of all killing of any kind as support for an abolition or radical restriction of capital punishment.29 However, this argument simply has no grammatical or lexical basis. The Hebrew word used in Ex. 20:13, ratsach, everywhere carries a connotation of a deed of enormity and horror in which mans crime against man and Gods censure of it is the most prominent implication.30 In its use it universally meant unauthorized killing, even though other words were available that could have

2 29

Yoder, p. 173.

William White, ratsach, in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 2, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer, and Bruce Waltke, ed. (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1980), p. 860.
3 30

15 covered judicial or other authorized killings.31 Furthermore, even death penalty opponents point out that the fatal weakness of this argument is that this commandment stands side by side in the Mosaic texts with others which provide for legal killing.32 The Sixth Commandment is to be understood as a prohibition of murder, not of all killing. The Sermon On The Mount A more sophisticated argument takes as its basis the words of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount. In Matt. 5:21-24, Jesus gives a dominical interpretation of the Sixth Commandment, and death penalty opponents such as Stassen and Gushee point out that while stating the reality of judgment Jesus conspicuously refuses to specify what form that judgment will take and does not quote Old Testament passages prescribing the death penalty for murder.33 Furthermore, Jesus goes on in Matt. 5:38-42 to quote the Old Testaments lex talionis, the law of retribution, and while quoting the famous eye for eye and tooth for tooth leaves out life for life and shall be put to death.34 This, Stassen and Gushee argue, is evidence that Jesus was advocating non-violence and non-retaliation as a way to handle murder, and that Jesus thus opposed taking a life as a retribution for life.35

3 31

Gerald Blidstein, Capital Punishment: The Classic Jewish Discussion, in Capital Punishment: A Reader, ed. Glen Stassen, 107-118 (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998), pp. 107-108.
3 32

Yoder, p. 173.
3 33 3 34

Stassen and Gushee, p. 197. Ibid., p. 198.

3 35

Ibid.

16 These, however, are arguments from silence. Jesus did not explicitly deny the legitimacy of capital punishment either, and one might just as legitimately wonder whether Jesus statement that he came not to abolish the Law but fulfill it (Matt. 5:17) could be taken as an implicit approval of the death penalty. Since this interpretation of Jesus view of capital punishment is Stassen and Gushees admitted starting point for approaching the question of the death penalty,36 it clearly colors their reading of other key texts. Stassen and Gushee take the principles they see implied in these passages and then interpret texts that explicitly address capital punishment by them. Such a hermeneutic is questionable, as a generally accepted rule of interpretation holds that implicit texts are to be read in light of those speaking explicitly, not vice versa.37 John 8 Stassen and Gushee continue their attempt to start a case against capital punishment from the words and actions of Jesus by turning to John 8:2-11. As observed above, the Romans had prohibited Jewish capital punishment, and this fact may have been the foundation of the scribes and Pharisees attempted trap of Jesus in this passage. It must be observed at the outset that scholars are generally convinced that the evidence for the nonJohannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming.38 It will, however, be assumed to be inspired and genuine for the purposes of this examination.

3 36

Ibid., p. 197. See the excellent discussion of this principle in R.C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1977), pp. 75-79.
3 37 3 38

Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), p. 187.

17 Jesus is on the horns of a dilemma: either he breaks the Mosaic Law by directing the woman to be set free, or he incurs the wrath of Rome by supporting an unauthorized execution. The trap makes less sense without the Roman prohibition of Jewish capital punishment, since verse 6 shows the Jewish leaders assuming they will have some charge to bring against him (presumably either way he answered). Regardless, the event, if it is authentic, does also presuppose the Jewish communitys acceptance of capital punishment as a legitimate penalty for crime, or else Jesus would hardly be at risk if he advocated freeing the woman. Jesus evades the trap and the woman goes free, but what is noteworthy in light of Stassen and Gushees use of this passage is that nothing is said about the morality of the death penalty per se by Jesus or anyone else. In short, John 8, like Matthew 5, represents yet another argument from silence. The most compelling reason to deny that John 8 teaches the illegitimacy of capital punishment is the fact that such an argument simply proves too much. As an example, Yoder believes that Jesus was really challenging the Pharisees right to take life judicially because execution, understood as an act of God, would require that the judge and executioner be morally above reproach.39 In other words, human beings, being sinful, cannot assume for themselves the right to administer capital punishment. Paul House points out in response that, first, Scripture never requires absolute or general moral purity as a precondition to pass judgment or administer punishment upon another person, and second, that if this principle is carried to its logical conclusion, no justice could ever be administered as every human being is morally imperfect.40

3 39 4 40

Yoder, p. 140. House, p. 196.

18 Davis, for his part, makes a compelling argument from the observation that Jesus use of the term anamartetos (without sin) in this context actually refers to faultlessness as a witness. This becomes important because the Pharisees, who had only brought one of the guilty parties for capital punishment, had thus failed to observe the Mosaic code in dealing with adultery (Deut. 22:22-24), and had consequently destroyed their own credibility as witnesses. If so, Jesus, far from abrogating the law, had actually taken its procedural guidelines most seriously and established that in the eyes of the law the woman could not be proven guilty.41 Capital Punishment and the Atonement of Christ Some theologians have attempted to make the sufficiency of Christs atoning work for sin the basis for abolishing the death penalty. Yoder has stated that, in light of the fact that Christs sacrifice on the Cross was a sufficient expiation for sin, it is heretical to insist that murderers pay the penalty of death to expiate their sins again.42 A more secular version of this same argument has been developed by Rene Girard, seeing the death penalty as a cathartic exercise by which a community punishes a scapegoat, taken from a class of transgressors, for the violence that plagues it.43 McBride then builds from this theory to argue that the death penalty in the United States is unconstitutional as a violation of the separation of church and state, being as it is an exercise in which the condemned serves as

4 41

4 42 4 43

Davis, pp. 210-11. Stassen and Gushee, p. 203.

James McBride, Capital Punishment as the Unconstitutional Establishment of Religion: A Girardian Reading of the Death Penalty, in Capital Punishment: A Reader, ed. Glen Stassen (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998), p. 187-88.

19 a sacrificial lamb who dies for us [T]he death penalty is, in fact, a religious ritual in which the death of the surrogate victim is actually substitutionary atonement.44 The problems with this perspective, in both its theological and secular forms, are manifold. First, it ignores the biblical (and secular) emphasis on due process of law as prerequisite to the administration of capital punishment. The Mosaic Law required no less than two eyewitnesses before the death penalty could be prescribed, while in the United States capital cases are subject to many levels of appeal before finally bringing the condemned to execution. While mistakes do (and no doubt in biblical times did) happen and innocent people executed in error, to argue as McBride does that factual innocence is irrelevant45 misses the basic design of the entire exercise: to put to death the perpetrator of a terrible crime. Second, neither in biblical or secular thought does the condemned legally bear the sins of others. Rather, he dies for his own sin (2 Ki. 14:6). In contrast, the remarkable thing about McBrides argument (and Girards) is the repeated reference to the concept of a scapegoat, when in fact a scapegoat by definition carried or bore away the sins of others.46 The efficacy of Christs atonement, which the scapegoat ritual typified, depended absolutely upon his perfect obedience to the Father: that is, his sinlessness and perfection.47 Thus, to compare the administration of the death penalty upon a person legally found guilty of a crime to either the scapegoat ritual or the Atonement of Christ is terribly misleading.
4 44

4 45 4 46

Ibid., p. 189. Ibid., pp. 183-84.

Victor Hamilton, Handbook on the Pentateuch, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005), pp. 276-77.
4 47

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), pp. 570-71.

20 In a way, Yoders comparison to the atonement would only be consistent with itself if he denied the sinlessness of Christ, in which case he, and not his opponents, would be in a heretical position! Third, and most importantly, in capital punishment the accused does not suffer death in order to set himself righteous before God. This can only be done through faith in Christ. The accused is put to death because Gods (and the states) justice demands that a person who takes the life of another forfeits his own. Christs atonement does, certainly, free sinners from the eternal consequences of their crimes. It does not, however, free those sinners from all of the consequences of their sin in the space of their earthly lives. The fatal weakness of Yoders argument is that if it were to be applied consistently to all crimes and not just capital punishment, it would render the administration of justice impossible. This argument, by equating judicial punishment with propitiation and expiation, leads logically to the conclusion that all punishments, being attempts to satisfy Gods wrath, are thus denials of the sufficiency of Christs blood and should be avoided. The Bible simply does not oppose capital punishment. Arguments that depend upon inferences from silence, or which prove far too much when applied consistently to all of jurisprudence and not simply the institution of capital punishment, cannot overcome the explicit mandate for and implicit approval of the use of capital punishment found throughout the Bible. General Objections To Capital Punishment Considered In addition to theological objections based upon biblical texts, opponents to the death penalty, both Christian and secular, employ more general arguments to make their case. In much of the world these arguments have been successful; in France, capital

21 punishment has been abolished in practice, and in Britain, by legislation.48 In Canada, for instance, capital punishment was removed from the Criminal Code in 1976,49 and many other nations have also abolished the death penalty. Why have these nations done so? What arguments did their legislators find so compelling that they abolished the death penalty? Canadas case is instructive in this regard. The Canadian Department of Justice lists on a Fact Sheet three reasons why Parliament decided that capital punishment was not an appropriate penalty: first, the possibility of wrongful convictions; second, concerns about the state taking the lives of individuals; and third, uncertainty about the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent.50 These arguments are fairly representative of secular objections to capital punishments, and so each of these reasons are worth examining in light of the biblical argument laid out above. Many of these arguments are echoed by Christian opponents of capital punishment, and if the Bible does not oppose capital punishment, these stand as the most serious objections to the practice. The Danger of Wrongful Conviction Capital punishment has been questioned by many because of its irreversible nature. If a person is wrongfully convicted and put to death, then restoration is impossible. Combined with the grim truth that human justice systems are imperfect and that there are many occasions where a person is found guilty despite actually being innocent, the
4 48 4 49

Walter Berns, For Capital Punishment (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1979), p. 4.

Canadian Department of Justice, Fact Sheet: Capital Punishment in Canada [article online]; available from http://www.doj.ca/eng/news-nouv/fsfi/2003/doc_30896.html; Internet; accessed July 22, 2008.
5 50

Ibid.

22 irreversibility of capital punishment means that the probability is that innocent men and women will be put to death, an injustice impossible to restore. Is the reality of wrongful convictions a compelling argument against capital punishment? One answer is that while this objection has the most weight where the judicial system poses danger to the innocent and the courts are not worthy of trust,51 modern justice systems require a very high burden of proof: guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt before the sentence is given. Furthermore, advances in law enforcement techniques and forensic technology are steadily reducing the possibility of error in criminal cases. Certainly, errors do still occur, but a reasonable response to this is to require a higher procedural standard in capital cases, and to root out the sources of corruption in the system of justice.52 Indeed, as John Stuart Mill once said, the shocking nature of capital punishment necessarily renders the Courts of Justice more scrupulous in requiring the fullest evidence of guilt.53 The classic burden of proof could not be practically raised any higher, for if a different burden of proof, such as guilty beyond all shadow of doubt, were implemented, the standing of the verdict would hang not on the reasonableness of doubt but on the very presence of doubt. J. Budziszewski points out that anything can be doubted by anyone, for even the most ludicrous reasons, and so to require such a burden of proof would result in convicts let off the hook for less than reasonable doubts.54 The proper
5 51

John Stuart Mill, Speech in Favour of Capital Punishment, in Contemporary Moral Issues, 4th ed., ed. Cragg Koggel (Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997), p. 128. 5 52 J. Budziszewski, Categorical Pardon: On The Argument For Abolishing Capital Punishment, in Religion And The Death Penalty, ed. Erik Owens, John Carlson, and Eric Elshtain (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 118.
5 53

Mill, p. 128.
5 54

Budziszewski, p. 119.

23 question [in capital cases] is not whether juries ever err, but whether we have reasonable ground to think that this jury has erred in fact.55 Most importantly, from a biblical perspective the answer must also be no. In an age much more primitive than now, before the advances in forensic science and legal procedure that modern justice systems depend upon, God in his wisdom still saw it fit to institute capital punishment and entrust it to the hands of imperfect and sinful men. The Bible clearly recognizes the possibility of wrongful convictions and injustice in court; after all, the Ninth Commandment is aimed directly at those who might give false testimony in court. Yet this fact was not considered sufficient to set aside the use of the death penalty. In modern times, the risk is far lower, and from a biblical perspective this argument would thus be much less compelling. Christians who adopt this argument run the serious risk of attempting to be wiser than God. Does the State Have The Right To Take An Individuals Life? Some argue that human life is of such dignity that even the state has no right to take it. Capital punishment, in their eyes, is guilty of the same lack of respect for human life as murder. The destruction of life by the state thus represents the ultimate attack on human dignity,56 the annihilation of the very essence of human dignity.57 Joseph Cardinal Bernardin asks, What does it say about the quality of our life when people celebrate the death of another human being?... Where human life is considered cheap and easily
5 55

Ibid., p. 121. Cory, Peter. Dissenting Opinion: Kindler v. Canada (Minister of Justice), 1991, in Contemporary Moral Issues, 4th ed., ed. Cragg Koggel (Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997), p. 121.
5 56 5 57

Ibid., p. 122.

24 wasted, eventually nothing is sacred and all lives are in jeopardy.58 In short, the inherent dignity of human life is such that for it to be taken under any circumstances would mean the desecration of that dignity, and therefore no one, not even the state, has the right to take life. It may be said in response that this seemingly laudable ideal is virtually unworkable in practice when consistently applied. Very few adopting this argument against capital punishment will similarly argue against arming police officers, even though they are called to use deadly force to protect the public when necessary. How is the killing of a criminal by a police officer in defense of others any less an example of state-authorized killing than capital punishment? In both cases, deadly force is applied, according to policy guidelines, by an agent of the state, in hopes of protecting the community. If anything, the use of deadly force by peace officers represents far less careful a process than a judicial sentence: there are few (or no) arguments, or trained representatives aiding the accused, or opportunities for appeal. It would seem that if human dignity can withstand the assault of armed police officers taking life in defense of citizens, it would be capable of tolerating the careful and judicious use of capital punishment as a judicial sentence. The Bible also does not support the idea that capital punishment is an affront to human dignity. Far from demeaning human dignity, capital punishment in fact upholds it. The biblical institution of the death penalty (Gen. 9:5-6) is framed in verses 1 and 7 by the command to be fruitful and multiply. The entire narrative is concerned with teaching Gods intent that the world be filled with God-shaped creatures and that consequently those who oppose this plan by taking the life of their God-imaging fellow man must be Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, A Consistent Ethic of Life and The Death Penalty In Our Time, in Capital Punishment: A Reader, ed. Glen Stassen (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1998), p. 154.
5 58

25 destroyed.59 Biblically speaking, capital punishment for murder thus paradoxically reflects the pro-life ethos of the Bible,60 and so actually upholds human dignity. Uncertainty About Capital Punishments Deterrent Effect A common argument against capital punishment in both secular and Christian circles is that capital punishment cannot be shown to deter homicide or other crimes. Until 1975, researchers studying the effect of capital punishment upon homicide statistics were unanimous that no empirical evidence supported a unique deterrent effect by capital punishment.61 Thorsten Sellin, who conducted thorough research on the link between homicide rates and capital punishment, concluded after studying statistics for eleven U.S. states that had experimented with abolition: there is no evidence that the abolition of the death penalty generally causes an increase in criminal homicides or that its reintroduction is followed by a decline.62 Ezzat Fattahs study of homicide rates following the start of a five-year suspension of the death penalty in Canada concluded that a statistical increase observed in the Canadian homicide rate could not be attributed to the suspension of the death penalty.63 Brian Forst conducted a multi-state analysis of homicide rates over a period in the 1960s when the homicide rate had dramatically increased, and concluded that his findings do not support the hypothesis that capital punishment deters homicides. The 53 percent increase in the homicide rate in the United States from 1960 to
5 59 6 60

Wenham, p. 83.

Ibid. Ezzat Fattah, Is Capital Punishment A Unique Deterrent? in Contemporary Moral Issues, 4th ed., ed. Cragg Koggel (Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997), p. 137.
6 61 6 62

Ibid., p. 134.
6 63

Ibid., p. 134.

26 1970 appears to be the product of factors other than the elimination of capital punishment.64 Forst suggests instead that his results support Cesare Beccarias idea that it is the certainty, rather than severity, of punishment that deters most effectively.65 Stassen and Gushee argue that capital punishment might actually have an imitative effect that actually increases the homicide rate, stating that a spike in murder rates can often be seen in the area after a judicial execution and that murder rates are higher in states that have the death penalty.66 Several things might be said in response. First, it must not be overlooked that a convicted murderer will be permanently deterred from killing again if he is executed. Arguments that life imprisonment without chance of parole could accomplish the same thing are patently wrong, as the prison population and staff are still at risk from the offender. Second, the basic argument from statistics described above, that the numbers do not support a unique deterrent effect, is often misinterpreted to mean that the numbers positively support the notion that capital punishment has no deterrent effect. A British parliamentary committee investigating capital punishment once questioned Sellin on his studies, and the following exchange is instructive: We cannot conclude from your statistics that capital punishment has no deterrent effect? No, there is no such conclusion. Brian Forst, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Cross-State Analysis of the 1960s, in Capital Punishment: A Reader, ed. Glen Stassen (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1998), p. 66.
6 64 6 65

Ibid.
6 66

Stassen and Gushee, p. 196.

27 But can we not then conclude that if it has a deterrent effect it must be rather small? I can make no such conclusion, because I can find no answer one way or another in these data. It is impossible to draw inferences from the material that is in my possession, that there is any relationship between a large number of executions, continuous executions, no executions, and what happens to the murder rates. I think you have already agreed that capital punishment cannot, on the basis of your figures, be exercising an overwhelming deterrent effect? That is correct. But you would not like to go any further than that? No.67 The way that Sellins figures are used by Fattah68 and Yoder69 would seem to suggest that Sellins work can only be read to conclude that the death penalty has little or no deterrent effect. As a matter of fact, Sellins studies are simply inconclusive. They certainly do not support a strong deterrent effect on the part of capital punishment, but it must be noted that they do not support a minimal effect either. In short, it is very questionable whether statistics can say anything conclusive about the death penaltys deterrent value, and so the question must be decided on other grounds. Third, and very importantly from a Christian perspective, the Bible indicates that capital punishment does have a deterrent effect. As shown above, several biblical passages, such as Deut. 17:13 and 19:20 and Rom. 13:3-4 have already been shown to indicate a deterrent intention in Gods mandate for capital punishment. Fourth, the entire argument-from-deterrence against capital punishment assumes a utilitarian philosophy of justice that is not supported by Scripture. Utilitarianism can be defined as a philosophy that holds that the rightness of an action is determined by whether Thorsten Sellin before the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1949-53), as cited by Baker, p. 110.
6 67 6 68

Fattah, pp. 133-137.

6 69

Yoder, p. 115.

28 or not it achieves the greatest good for the greatest number of people.70 In so doing, utilitarians trace the source of laws to the will of society rather than transcendent principles.71 Utilitarianism lends support to capital punishment based on the idea that by deterring homicides and thus contributing to a greater good, capital punishment is worth the negative of taking the life of a criminal. From a Christian perspective, utilitarianism denies the existence of transcendent and absolute standards of justice and therefore the sovereignty of God over human affairs. As such, the philosophy itself is to be rejected. Christians arguing against capital punishment from such grounds undercut the transcendent ethics they purport to uphold, for a purely utilitarian ethos cannot be sufficient to justify a man visiting death upon another.72 Scripture reveals that there are absolutes, and that capital punishment is not simply a utilitarian matter of deterrence but is more foundationally a matter of divine justice. In the secular realm, then, Christians are best to refute the deterrence argument by dismantling its utilitarian presuppositions, demonstrating that if they are carried to their logical conclusion they might result in horrible injustices. For example, House points out that if deterrence is the only possible basis for judicial punishment (as leading utilitarians like Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham argue), then not only is there no theoretical limit to the severity of the punishment that could be applied to an individual but it becomes unnecessary for the individual to be factually guilty at all.73

7 70 7 71

Baker, pp. 77-78. Ibid., p. 77.

7 72 7 73

Vos, p. 54. House, pp. 82-83.

29 Finally, deterrence is not the primary issue in the debate. Yoder, who himself argues that capital punishment has little deterrent value, admits that the dispute over deterrence is a distraction from the important and deeper issues: A person who believes on profound religious or philosophical grounds that the death penalty is immoral would not admit that the possibility of deterring other killings would suffice to justify it. A person who believes on religious or philosophical grounds that every killer must in turn be killed will not be dissuaded by evidence to the effect that it does not deter. On both sides of the debate, the theme of deterrence is a second-order or ancillary argument.74 If, then, the question of deterrence is merely secondary (except from the discredited utilitarian perspective), then an alleged lack of deterrent effect is not a strong argument against capital punishment. Summary The arguments cited as having swayed Canadas Parliament against capital punishment are, upon closer inspection, found to be weak. The argument from the risk of wrongful convictions not only fails a biblical test but, by implicitly prescribing a burden of proof far higher than beyond reasonable doubt, would have us measure the legitimacy of a verdict not by the reasonableness of doubt but by its very presence. The argument questioning the right of the state to take life is so idealistic as to be impractical. The argument from deterrence is founded upon a questionable interpretation of inconclusive statistics, depends upon an unworkable philosophy of justice, and attempts to settle the issue by appeal to a secondary aspect of the problem. As a representative example, the shortcomings of Canadas rationale for abolishing the death penalty suggest that the overall secular case against capital punishment is weak

7 74

Yoder, p. 117, footnote 6.

30 and self-refuting. It cannot withstand a critical analysis, much less provide a coherent alternative to the biblical case.

CONCLUSION God instituted capital punishment after the Flood in order to establish justice on the earth. He gave the responsibility and mandate to punish those who spill innocent blood with the death penalty. Throughout the Bible thereafter, the institution of capital punishment is upheld and supported, from the covenant at Mount Sinai through to the letters of Paul. For the Christian believer, this means that God has spoken, and that it is His will that murder, as an assault upon His image, be avenged by the taking of the offenders life. Not only does the Bible reveal the fact that capital punishment is Gods will, it provides the reason. God, who created and sustains life, desires to see it upheld and protected. Capital punishment, far from being an implicit denial of an ethic of life, in fact establishes it. Life is so precious that, if taken illegitimately, nothing less than the life of the offender will satisfy the requirements of Gods justice. Christians need not apologize for supporting capital punishment. The strongest arguments against the practice fail to withstand critical scrutiny. Why, then, do so many Christians disagree? Perhaps it is all too easy for Christians to uncritically imbibe a secularized vision of God as simply being love and mercy. Surrounded and bombarded with the values of the culture every day, a culture that wants to believe in a God that winks at and tolerates their sin and rebellion, undiscerning believers run the real risk of taking their view of God from popular opinion rather than from Scripture. It may be that in a culture that dislikes the idea of a God of wrath, capital punishment is resisted because it

31

32 serves as a witness to the severity and finality of Gods judgment. Christian resistance to capital punishment, then, may actually be the unintended result of an incomplete conception of God, a conception that de-emphasizes the idea of God as Warrior, King, and Judge in favor of a more user-friendly God of mercy and love and forgiveness. God, however, is not divided. For those who wish to understand the contours of the death penalty debate within the Christian faith, then, it might be fruitful to determine whether there is any correlation between resistance to capital punishment on the one hand and a particular conception of God on the other. For those who wish to reach a consensus within the family of faith on this divisive topic, perhaps it may be more useful to begin with the doctrine of God than to dive immediately into the biblical treatment of crime and punishment.

WORKS CITED I. Books Bailey, Lloyd. Capital Punishment: What The Bible Says. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1987. Baker, William. On Capital Punishment. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1985. Bernardin, Joseph Cardinal. A Consistent Ethic of Life and The Death Penalty In Our Time. In Capital Punishment: A Reader. ed. Glen Stassen, 149-154. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1998. Berns, Walter. For Capital Punishment. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1979. Blidstein, Gerald. Capital Punishment: The Classic Jewish Discussion. In Capital Punishment: A Reader. ed. Glen Stassen, 107-118. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998. Brisco, Thomas. Holman Bible Atlas. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1998. Budziszewski, J. Categorical Pardon: On The Argument For Abolishing Capital Punishment. In Religion And The Death Penalty. ed. Erik Owens, John Carlson, and Eric Elshtain, 109-122. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004. Cory, Peter. Dissenting Opinion: Kindler v. Canada (Minister of Justice), 1991. In Contemporary Moral Issues, 4th ed. ed. Cragg Koggel, 118-124. Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997. Davis, John Jefferson. Evangelical Ethics, 3rd ed. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004. Fattah, Ezzat. Is Capital Punishment A Unique Deterrent? In Contemporary Moral Issues, 4th ed., ed. Cragg Koggel, 130-147. Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997. Forst, Brian. The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Cross-State Analysis of the 1960s. In Capital Punishment: A Reader. ed. Glen Stassen, 59-68. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1998. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.

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34 Hamilton, Victor. Handbook on the Pentateuch, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005. House, H. Wayne, and John Howard Yoder. The Death Penalty Debate. Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1991. Johnson, D.H. Life. In New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander et al, 640-644. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003. Louw, Johannes, and Eugene Nida. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based On Semantic Domains, 2nd ed., Vol. 1. New York, NY: United Bible Societies, 1989. McBride, James. Capital Punishment as the Unconstitutional Establishment of Religion: A Girardian Reading of the Death Penalty. In Capital Punishment: A Reader. ed. Glen Stassen, 182-202. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998. Mill, John Stuart. Speech in Favour of Capital Punishment. In Contemporary Moral Issues, 4th ed. ed. Cragg Koggel, 125-129. Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997. Metzger, Bruce. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994. Robertson, O. Palmer. The Christ Of The Covenants. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980. Sproul, R.C. Knowing Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1977. Stassen, Glen. Biblical Teaching on Capital Punishment. In Capital Punishment: A Reader. ed. Glen Stassen, 119-131. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998. Stassen, Glen, and David Gushee. Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus In Contemporary Context. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003. Thayer, Joseph Henry. Thayers Greek-English Lexicon. 1901 reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977. Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology. Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth, 1975. Waltke, Bruce. An Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008. Wenham, Gordon. Story As Torah: Reading Old Testament Narratives Ethically. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004.

35 White, William. ratsach. In Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Vol. 2. ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer, and Bruce Waltke, 860. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1980. II. Internet Documents Canadian Department of Justice. Fact Sheet: Capital Punishment in Canada [article online]; available from http://www.doj.ca/eng/news-nouv/fsfi/2003/doc_30896.html; Internet; accessed July 22, 2008.