From: John Drebus
Nashville
The day after Christmas, the front page of the Faith and Community section in The Republic was dedicated to an article titled “Sanctity-of-Life Issue.”
The focus was opposition to capital punishment as articulated by three women professing the Christian faith. These women have been actively involved with ministries sponsored by their local churches that reach out to convicted death row inmates and their families.
There was no mention of similar outreach to families whose loved ones were ripped away by the heinous crimes committed.
Numerous reasons were offered against carrying out the penalties determined by legal deliberation of juries and judges. The rationales provided were primarily personal, social, and political.
As one woman described convicted felons, “But really, they’re just people. We’re all just people.” In other words, they are just like us and should be spared their sentence.
A more accurate Christian description, found in the book of Romans, is just the opposite: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Therefore, we all justly deserve His temporal and eternal punishment.
An even more surprising argument was “Jesus Christ would never execute anybody.”
Does this imply that God would never use capital punishment to implement His will? We can explore the Holy Scriptures for insights.
The book of Matthew describes when Jesus first shared his ultimate mission with the disciples. The apostle Peter objected, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”
Jesus would certainly never allow Himself to be executed. But Jesus made it immediately clear: “Get behind me Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Upon his sentencing by Pontius Pilate, Jesus did not languish in prison for decades waiting out the appeals and delays of our current legal system. Neither was He provided a quick and painless mode of execution as applied by today’s methods. The Romans preferred their executions as slow and painful as possible.
There were two other criminals crucified with Jesus. The book of Luke describes one of them mocking Him saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” Stop this execution! The other criminal confessed his guilt, acknowledged his rightful punishment, and recognized Jesus as his Lord by asking to be remembered in His kingdom.
Jesus did not stay the executions — not of the guilty unrepentant, not of the guilty repentant, and not of the innocent and blameless. However, He did promise the faithful repentant criminal something better — that he would soon be in paradise. Victory over death!
Human life, from its very conception, is indeed a precious gift from God. But He has given us the even greater gift of grace and salvation by the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Ironically, God chose to implement His plan through the secular instrument of capital punishment.
