Obama and Keys on the Meaning of Life.
Published on September 9th, 2007.
From a 2004 Illinois debate on the death penalty and abortion,
Keys makes a helpful distinction between the issue of abortion and capital punishment. I have been asked by a good friend at work, a practicing Catholic, how I am able to remain consistently pro-life while endorsing the death penalty. We agreed that there is a fundamental difference between the taking of innocent life and the institutionalization of such a holocaust as abortion and the administration of death as punishment for certain criminals in certain circumstances. But my answer to this friends question was this, “I am pro-death penalty precisely because I am pro-life.” That is, the taking of life is the only just response to the taking of a life.In the Old Testament we find a revelation of the character and heart of God in the law of God. Israel was to be a just society. Punishments were to fit crimes, a feature that distinguished them from among other peoples of the Ancient Near East. “Life for life” was an entailment of the justice of God reflected in his law.In light of the coming of Jesus Christ, we recognize that every law found in the Old Testament has been fulfilled in him. That is, Jesus lived the life the law demands of humankind and died the death that the law demands of those who fail meet its requirements. On the cross, Jesus took on the cursings of the law earned by our disobedience and gained for us its blessings by means of his obedience and secured those blessings by his resurrection from the dead. Nevertheless, the post-resurrection New Testament affirms a place for the mediation of God’s justice through human government and the New Testament affirms the right of human government to take life when life is taken.
Here is an attempt at a few gospelcentric thoughts about human life and capital punishment – thoughts that reflect and clarify the impact of the Bible’s teaching about the nature of human beings, the nature of God and the reality of eternity on the question of the moral legitimacy of capital punishment.
1) As God’s image bearing creatures, mankind is so important and so valuable that any person or animal who takes the life of a human necessarily forfeits his own.
But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. -Genesis 9:4-6
“Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. 18 Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. -Leviticus 24:17-21
2) Human life begins when human life begins. That is, human life begins at conception.
“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Exodus 21:22-25
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. -Psalm 139:13-16
3) The same justice that requires life demands a just process that ensures both the legitimacy of the accusation and the fittedness of the punishment to the offense.
On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. -Deuteronomy 17:6
“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” -Deuteronomy 19:15
4) The Old and New Testaments affirm a distinction between the mediation of divine justice through human government and personal retribution, which is always sinful.
If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. – Deuteronomy 15:20-21
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. “-Matthew 5:38, 39.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God…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. -Romans 13:1-4
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. – Romans 12:17-21
5) The administration of justice in the termination of a physical life is a dim foretaste of the severity of the justice that God will execute finally and fully against every offense.
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. -Matthew 10:28
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment… -Hebrews 9:27
6) The sentence of physical death does not remove the possibility of eternal life, for the infinitely valuable blood (life) of the One Perfect Man was given as a payment for the lives of any imperfect person who embraces his death as his or her own.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. -1 Corinthians 6:9-11
7) That God can forgive murderers who are in Christ does not mean he takes murder lightly, but that in his death Christ suffered greatly. Ultimately, the cross is a picture of the true meaning and severity of every punishment ever required by God for sin.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit…He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. -1 Peter 3:18, 22-24
Every human person outside of Christ, murderer or not, deserves the wrath of God but is offered the forgiveness and the status of perfection before God through faith in Jesus Christ.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 6:23
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. -John 5:21-24
But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. -Hebrews 9:26-28
Filled under Miscellany.
