Are you for or against the death penalty?

[dogs4thewin]

Again you are skirting the question of the righteousness of God in assigning humans to execute the death penalty.

Until such time as humans are perfect I believe the "death penalty" should ONLY be impposed if you are caught in the act not after that.

 

[ByTheSpirit]

GOD is GOOD
it is we who are evil. JESUS made it plain. we are all sinners
so even when one deserves death , we aint the JUDGE only GOD IS
we forgive , as we have been forgiven. IT is just . ITS just not just for us who have sinned
to execute the sentence that only the real JUDGE can. All that the law
said is JUST. its JUST that man and all humakind has sinned.
And if the JUST GOD by grace saved us , reconciled us while we too deserved death
How or what gives us who have broke Gods law and DO deserve death , the right
to Act out the LAW against any who has. NOPE. we just preach the life saving
life giving GOSPLE> and forgive as we too were forgiven JESUS sake .
LET that sink in real deep .

You seem to be missing something.

You can preach the "life saving" gospel to prison inmates. Having the death penalty does not negate that. The scriptures are very clear God places rulers and powers in authority to enact justice and punish evil doers.

 

[frienden thalord]

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image." ~ Genesis 9:6

ONLY LET the TRUE JUDGE execute the sentence.
People accuse me of being judgemental . cause I say man with man is SIN
YET I often see its others who are the judgmental ones.
and they too often break the law as well.
MAN WE NEED CHRIST in our hearts cause man is WICKED . jus WICKED.
I warn like heck against sin, yet desire none to perish.
most live in sin and yet have no problem with the death penalty.
GOD knows our hearts and knows all our hidden things.
SO I make a call. COME TO CHRIST peoples, and let him change the wicked heart
and be saved . amen.

 

[frienden thalord]

You seem to be missing something.

You can preach the "life saving" gospel to prison inmates. Having the death penalty does not negate that. The scriptures are very clear God places rulers and powers in authority to enact justice and punish evil doers.

Very true my friend , so true amen. But the question asked was Do you SUPPORT it.
IF a VOTE were to come and we could vote for it. I WOULD say NO.
the jews thought they had no sin. For they only had JESUS brought before
the one who was given power to execute that sentence.
BUT JESUS said , The one who handed me over has the greater SIN.
SINCE I myself would not kill a man. WHY would I support the system that could.
LET men run the world as men run the world . LET Us follow CHRIST .

 

[frienden thalord]

You seem to be missing something.

You can preach the "life saving" gospel to prison inmates. Having the death penalty does not negate that. The scriptures are very clear God places rulers and powers in authority to enact justice and punish evil doers.

Very true my friend , so true amen. But the question asked was Do you SUPPORT it.
IF a VOTE were to come and we could vote for it. I WOULD say NO.
the jews thought they had no sin. For they only had JESUS brought before
the one who was given power to execute that sentence.
BUT JESUS said , The one who handed me over has the greater SIN.
SINCE I myself would not kill a man. WHY would I support the system that could.
LET men run the world as men run the world . LET Us follow CHRIST .

 

[unfinishedclay]

There has been a death penalty carried out by stoning and Jesus addressed it head on.

For the person injecting the poison or releasing the gas in death penalty, are they placed in a position of being judged by God for doing their jobs of administering death?

And it's a hard subject. Families have been hurt tremendously by murders. I believe if non-death punishments were more severe, there would be less crime, less murders, but certainly not a fix-all.

Very difficult question to answer every time I read or hear it.

 

[Raphael Jauregui]

I never claimed that we should be under Mosaic Law. However, the Law given Noah was not part of the Mosaic Law. So assuming that the Noachian Law for capital punishment was abolished along with the Mosaic Law does not necessarily follow..

Also, please note that you are totally ignoring the issue of my objection. If indeed man's execution of the death sentence is evil, than how do you as a Christian explain to a non-believer that God was being just when he instituted it?

Also, how do you explain to an unbeliever that in the NT we are told clearly that the government has the right to execute justice as a previous poster pointed out?

BTW
God knew of the human possibility of errors when he instituted the death penalty and instituted it anyway.

Anyone can claim that any Law uis unjust, But by doing so-what is being implied must be take seriously into consideration and not just be ignored or shunted aside as if it were totally inconsequential. Either God is good or he isn't. You can't have it both ways.

I was not intending to ignore your question. I believed that I had answered it, but I am happy to be more specific. In terms of that particular scenario, I would say that God did not institute it. Rather, the authors of OT Scripture connected their human-made laws and socio-religious regulations with God. For them, this was their experience of how God interacted in their society. I would say that this is not literally true, but was, instead, their interpretation of how God worked with their earthly laws.

In the NT, when Jesus said "let the one who is without sin cast the first stone," I assert that Jesus was making a clear stand against the death penalty. After all, that was an incident in which Jesus intervened to save someone from a death sentence.

It is a subjective assumption to say that God knew about errors; what that means, then, is that, logically, one would be claiming that God instituted the death penalty to also kill innocents. That is inconsistent with God's character. At least, I would argue that such a view is inconsistent with God's character.

 

[Karl.C]

On this issue, I agree with Pope Francis who leads the Catholic Church. Too many innocent people have been killed after being wrongly convicted and wrongly sentenced to the death penalty. On top of that, society does not have the right to take life to show that taking life is wrong. It is, to me, oxymoronic.

“Indeed, nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person,” - Pope Francis
Pope Francis calls for world 'free of the death penalty'

It is a non-issue here in Oz. The death penalty was last applied in Victoria in 1975. My state, NSW, abolished it in 1955. Queensland abolished it in 1922.
Capital punishment in Australia - Wikipedia

If I put my economist hat on, I'd have to be pro. The alternatives are incredibly expensive (Jail, psychiatric centres etc), as is monitoring potential re-offenders. The benefit to society out weighs the occasional injustice...

If I put my humanist hat on, I'd have to be pro. The execution of criminals is no different to abortions and/or euthanasia. These benefit society by getting rid of what is inconvenient, not to mention costly to maintain...

If I put my OT hat on, I'd have to be pro. In fact I'd insist on it as a moral obligation.

If I put my Christian hat on, I'm undecided. There is such a thing as a sin unto death. Whether I have the right to judge who deserves death or not is my concern...

 

[LivingWordUnity]

It depends.

 

[Raphael Jauregui]

It is a non-issue here in Oz. The death penalty was last applied in Victoria in 1975. My state, NSW, abolished it in 1955. Queensland abolished it in 1922.
Capital punishment in Australia - Wikipedia

If I put my economist hat on, I'd have to be pro. The alternatives are incredibly expensive (Jail, psychiatric centres etc), as is monitoring potential re-offenders. The benefit to society out weighs the occasional injustice...

If I put my humanist hat on, I'd have to be pro. The execution of criminals is no different to abortions and/or euthanasia. These benefit society by getting rid of what is inconvenient, not to mention costly to maintain...

If I put my OT hat on, I'd have to be pro. In fact I'd insist on it as a moral obligation.

If I put my Christian hat on, I'm undecided. There is such a thing as a sin unto death. Whether I have the right to judge who deserves death or not is my concern...

It is interesting to hear about other developed nations and how they have already abolished the death penalty. The US is one of the last developed nations, if not the last one, to still have the death penalty. So far, a handful of states, however, have banned it.

 

[SkyWriting]

Opposition to the death penalty on moral grounds accuses God of being unjust when he instituted it.So how does one reconcile that with being a Christian who tells others that there is no injustice with God? Or as Jesus says, that God is good?

People are unable to know everything. They are unable to judge righteously.

 

[SkyWriting]

quite clear as JESUS said about the lady in adultery. HE did not say....no the law iswrong. JESUS knew she deserved DEATH.
for the LAW said SO.

We all deserve death. Jesus made the point that others are unable to
correctly judge sin due to their own imperfectness. He also made the
point that only the lady would know what was sin, and that she should
go home and stop doing what she knew was wrong.

James 4:17
So whoever knows the right thing to do
and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

 

[SkyWriting]

On this issue, I agree with Pope Francis who leads the Catholic Church. Too many innocent people have been killed after being wrongly convicted and wrongly sentenced to the death penalty. On top of that, society does not have the right to take life to show that taking life is wrong. It is, to me, oxymoronic.

“Indeed, nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person,” - Pope Francis
Pope Francis calls for world 'free of the death penalty'

So Francis believes the justice system found in scripture
was more accurate, or less accurate than today.
Or what weight does "nowadays" have and why?

 

[Dartman]

On this issue, I agree with Pope Francis who leads the Catholic Church. Too many innocent people have been killed after being wrongly convicted and wrongly sentenced to the death penalty. On top of that, society does not have the right to take life to show that taking life is wrong. It is, to me, oxymoronic.

“Indeed, nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person,” - Pope Francis
Pope Francis calls for world 'free of the death penalty'

I am not sure what you are asking, since there is a great difference between what a Christian is commanded to do, and what the Governments of this world must do.

Christians shouldn't be violent at all, according to Jesus (Matt 5).

The primary purpose for any Government to exist is, to protect the citizens ... in fact, God keeps them in power specifically for this purpose (Rom 13:1-7) .
Sometimes deadly force is necessary in that role.
Any person who demonstrates they are, and will be, a grave danger to innocent people around them, must be removed as a threat. And, they are authorized to do that in the least costly method, as stewards of public resources.

Also, the Government has the authority to make punishment a deterrent to crime. I am completely convinced, a person who has been executed will NOT repeat their offence. There is no greater deterrent than that.

And, I am completely convinced the Bible is correct;
Eccl 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
The current trend toward keeping the murderers in prison, 3 meals a day, room and board ... is NOT a speedy sentence.

I realize, the last few years have seen an increase in desperate men, committing hideous crimes, including as part of their plan "suicide by cop", and THAT kind of person is not only unaffected by the threat of death .... they are counting on it. But, if they could have been shot the instant they pulled THEIR gun out, think of the innocent lives saved!
Again, this is from the perspective of the GOVERNMENT'S responsibility/purpose ... not the Christian's.

 

[SkyWriting]

On this issue, I agree with Pope Francis who leads the Catholic Church. Too many innocent people have been killed after being wrongly convicted and wrongly sentenced to the death penalty. On top of that, society does not have the right to take life to show that taking life is wrong. It is, to me, oxymoronic.

“Indeed, nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person,” - Pope Francis

So is he opposed to all police or legal action?
If not, why not?

 

[twinserk]

God instituted the death penalty for certain crimes. One must then either accept it as just, or accuse God of being unjust.

 

[ChristianIssues]

I believe that God instituted the death penalty in Noah's day when He said, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man (Gen_9:6)". Remember, God said this before Israel existed and gave the Law of Moses which included the death penalty for certain offenses.

Since God made this law in Genesis, no scripture shows where He has recinded the death penalty. Also, the NT backs this up in Rom 13:4 which says that the authorities do not bear the sword for nothing.

 

[S.O.J.I.A.]

usually such measures are reserved for rather heinous criminals such a serial killers or serial rapists.

I would not be against it as the government has precedent(genesis 9:6) and authority(romans 13:1-5) to do so.

 

[Kiwi Christian]

On August 24, 1527, Roman Catholics in France, by prearranged plan, under Jesuit influence, murdered 70,000 Protestants within the space of two months. The Pope rejoiced when he heard the news of the successful outcome."-Western Watchman, Nov.21, 1912 (Catholic)


Therefore the pope ordered "that malicious and abominable sect of malignants," if they "refuse to abjure, to be crushed like venomous snakes."--Wylie, b. 16, ch. 1.

Decreti, pars ii. causa xxiii. quaest v. can. xlvii: "Those are not to be accounted homicides who, fired with zeal for Mother Church, may have killed excommunicated persons."

"That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history . . . It is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings."--W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, vol. 2, p. 32, 1910 edition. (An excellent though lengthy article describing in detail the right of the Roman Catholic Church to do this, will be found in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12, p. 266.)

"For professing faith contrary to the teachings of the Church of Rome, history records the martyrdom of more then one hundred million people. A million Waldenses and Albigenses [Swiss and French Protestants] perished during a crusade proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in 1208. Beginning from the establishment of the Jesuits in 1540 to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. Within the space of thirty-eight years after the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, or burned alive for heresy. Eighteen thousand more perished during the administration of the Duke of Alva in five and a half years."--Brief Bible Readings, p. 16.

There were Waldensians ( Who in 1487 Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull for their extermination ) , Albigensians ( who Pope Innocent III initiated a 20-year military campaign against ), the Huguenots, etc.

 

[GillDouglas]

I usually come across a bit cold and unsympathetic when discussing this topic, so you'll have to forgive me. A few points I have: Not a single person that has ever died, regardless of the cause, has done so 'out of turn'. When it is ones time, even if it is by death penalty (rightfully deserved or otherwise), it is by God's will. My other point is all this nonsense about killing innocent people is a bit presumptuous. I can only name one innocent man that died by the hands of other men.

As it has already been mentioned, God instituted the death penalty with Noah who was a representative of all of mankind after the flood.