I'm not sure when it happened (probably in part through Hollywood), but Americans frequently have more sympathy for someone who commits a crime and less sympathy for the victim. It depends on how the crime is presented (or
spun). Thought experiment: Don't ask "what is the right punishment for this crime," but rather "what punishment has this man earned for himself."
It is incorrect to view the Old Testament as no longer applying to us. That's oversimplistic. It is not a bad place to be, but it is only partway along the path. It shows us God's nature extremely well, what he approves of, and what he does not. To fulfill the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37-8), we must know God as well as possible.
So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. (2 Corinthians 5:9, 1984 NIV)
God is ultimately responsible for the fact that we are alive. It is he that sustains our life until such time as he decides otherwise. No one on earth has the right to murder another person—but it is still done. A murderer must violate someone’s God-given right to life to kill them.
But the murderer does not become a murderer when his victim dies. He becomes a murderer when his thought to murder turns into an intention. God knows when a thought turns into an intention, but we cannot. Our governmental laws reflect our inability to see a person’s intentions. The laws examine only the verifiable physical world facts—primarily what a person’s actions were.
Accommodating that limitation means that at the moment a person points a gun at another with the intention or possible intention to murder, he yields his right to life. Both God’s justice and our laws allow that the offender can be killed if it will stop the crime from being committed. A police officer who kills the gun pointer has done a good thing—not the taking of the life which is always sad—but of preventing someone from destroying the only life the potential victim has.
The issue of capital punishment is regularly brought into the light of public debate. Often the focus is its deterrent effect, which is an important aspect of what a just sentence is, because crimes affect a whole community, through the friends and relatives of the criminal and the victim, and even of those who simply read about the crime.
However, the primary focus should be on what a just
punishment is. Our own fear of death gives many of us queasiness about capital punishment. None of us wants to experience capital punishment, and we project our fear onto the criminal and say it should not be done to him, either.
Just punishment has its foundation in believing in and knowing a God of justice. Our increasingly secular society has no choice but to look to other sources such as its deterrent effect and what “seems right.” That capital punishment leaves no room for remediation of the criminal is seen as an argument against capital punishment. The misunderstanding in that is punishment is often seen as a mode of
correction. While they both have their place, just punishment need not be corrective.
The death penalty is a more severe form of
punishment than decades in prison, but it is not
cruel or
unusual punishment, and allowing a criminal to live can sometimes be the greatest injustice of all.
That the victim doesn't have to die for murderer to be guilty of murder, see Matthew 5:21-22. When the government executes a justly convicted murderer, it is not "murder," it is just punishment—see Romans 13:3-4 among others. Someone who commits a crime cannot be seen as someone who, by his crime, earned the right to food, clothing, and shelter (in prison) paid for by the government (through taxes). The people, through the government, extends this grace because it is good for the community. If someone doesn't care to respect another's life, he is speaking more loudly than with his voice that it is OK to kill someone against their will. A crime of passion is not exempt—he has proved that he is has a violent nature without enough control over it. Here's a different kind of crime (i.e., someone who framed another for the crime).
If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time.The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 19:16-19, 1984 NIV)
We won't be seeing Deuteronomy 21:18-21 anytime soon. It is harsh, but then, so is rejecting any God-instituted authority, more than it seems to us who grew up in a culture where being rebellious is "cool."
Portions of this post are reprinted with permission from Through God-Colored Glasses.
