Yes, a life sentence is a possibility, but a trip to Russia is not a possibility without a pardon.
Oh, and if he should still pay for his past crimes, why not execute him? If he's forgiven, there's a case for no more consequences at all, but if he still has to pay consequences, why would the consequences lessen? I would think it's an all-or-nothing deal.
1st of all: not execute because for me that option is automatically ruled out.
2nd: yes, pay for his past crimes by being kept behind the bars even after his conversion. The
premise being that (especially in a democratic society) you can't just go and release someone who says he's found Christ. For one thing, then you should probably release anyone who says they've found Buddha or Allah, too? And yes, even I want people to be safe on the streets and I don't want to see serious criminals being allowed to run wild. That's what the prisons are for. I am for equal treatment for equal crimes, and I think there should be
extremely weighty reasons for releasing someone before their due time.
But then, one could say that's when "God's ways" come in. This man actually spent a few years in prison
after his conversion. And I haven't read through his biography yet, but something happened and the prseident decided to mete him a pardon, and that is something extremely rare even here. And that president wasn't even the most openly Christian one in world history. But then again, so weren't all the public figures in the Bible that God chose to "use" in some way.
It's very good logic, because that's what the text says. As for the details of their ordination, he obviously believed they had enough authority from God to bear the sword, and that is what decides the issue here.
Because none of those Christians were governing authorities, therefore they had no authority to do this. It is the same reason why Peter and Jude didn't include instructions to take out the false teachers they condemn so vehemently in their letters.
So, then God might have thought something like the following: "Oh Paul, right now I'm glad that your fellow Christians are not in the position of the governing authorities, because if that were the case I would have no choice but let you in their hands and let them do to you what is the right thing in your case. I'm glad that they have a pagan rule in this land right now so that I can actually use you and make you that apostle instead of being executed for persecution of my faithful, which would be my real will, after all".
Hypothetical and arbitrary? I don't think so after all.
If God knew that some day some Christians would be in the position of governing authorities, what kind of weird precedent is it from him to so powerfully use a man who should be executed under a "Christian" regime? (Because that's what many of you here would think, righ? I mean, if a raper should be executed, then maybe a maniac persecuter of a group of people, too? And I really find rape a horrible and outrageous thing...)
Thats fine, However I hope that Myself and others have pointed where the Bible is not.
So, we're on Biblical grounds? True, the Old Testament prescribes death penalty for many things, including adultery and homosexual activity. The question is, why don't you? Where in the Bible has the death penalty for these "lesser" transgressions been explicitly abolished?
Can we just forget about the world's leaders for one second, and everything about it, and just look at the bible. The danger is when we become so proud and worshipful of our own country, we then look at policy first then look gfor ways to try and fit the bible around it.
