Remember, though, that it was Jesus who instituted the death penalty in the first place. Remember all of the stonings God commanded in the OT?
In addition, Romans tells us that God gives the government the authority to carry out the death penalty.
In addition, when Jesus stood before Pilate, He told Pilate that the only reason Pilate could execute Him is that God gave him that authority.
Remember, in the case of the US, we're not a theocracy, so we don't punish people for sin, but for committing crime.
So then, what is your argument against the Bible's teaching on the death penalty? Was Paul wrong to say that God has granted the government the authority to carry out the death penalty? Was God wrong to order the death penalty so frequently in the OT?
Well, as a non-Christian I have obviously placed more emphasis for my reasoning on purely terrestrial reasoning... I think there is enough there to feel that the death penalty is an inadequate form of punishment for purely utilitarian concerns. I'd be interested what you have to say about those, considering, as you say, this is a matter for the City of Man rather than the City of God.
If I wanted to argue from the biblical perspective, I would say that yes, the old testament God is vengeful and punishes people with death. Jesus, however, comes along and gives us a new commandment - a commandment of love.
He then demonstrates what he means by this - he associates with the sinners that society shunned, he forgave them. He told us to find himself in all others, without exception.
Does the fact that God states that the authority of the state comes from him require us to unquestioningly accept all that the state does? I don't believe that to be the case.
The fact that Jesus submitted to the law of the time, and the fact that the law of the land unjustly killed him, is surely evidence of the inadequacies of the death penalty as a punishment and the potential for it to be used by the powerful for their own ends.
Personally, as an agnostic, I don't believe that Jesus is God. I believe in the possibility of the existence of a God, but I have no way of knowing whether it is the Christian God (or what form of Christian God it is), or any other.
Jesus, however, I beleive was a real man, and the message that he preached has been written down. I am therefore happier to argue about the words and actions of Jesus as himself on earth rather than "his" actions in the old testament. When I look at Jesus I see someone who preached a message which was non-violent, a message of love and respect for humanity. I don't see how Jesus, the man whose teachings have been passed down for thousands of years, would support the penalty which, in the act of his own death, is demonstrated to be unjust. I don't see how Jesus would accept that that penalty was just for any person, sinner or not, criminal or not, because in each person he told us to see himself.
