In Luke 23:39-43 we read of two criminals, both equally guilty, both on a cross next to the Son of God. One hurls insults at Jesus, joining in with the mocking of the other people. It makes you wonder why he did this, he wasn’t exactly in a good situation himself! The other criminal, equally guilty, but he has a completely different reaction. He recognises what is really going on. They are both on a cross, and worthy of condemnation. Jesus is also on a cross, but He is completely innocent.
“Don’t you fear God?” This is a question we should all ask ourselves. If we are Christians we should ask ourselves this from time to time, especially if we are facing difficult circumstances, or are being severely tested. There is nothing like it to enable us to see things in true perspective. Proverbs 1:7 so truly says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The sceptic or the agnostic would also do well to ask themselves this question. Did you really come from nothing with no purpose? Will you really never have to give an account for your life?
The “good” thief asks Jesus to remember him when He comes into His kingdom. What faith! There is Jesus hung on a cross, completely powerless in human terms. Yet this thief recognises that Jesus will “come into His kingdom”! Jesus replies that that very day the man will be with Him in paradise. Whatever the exact nature of heaven and the time between our dying and the return of Christ (if it does not come to pass in our lifetime), we do not need to worry one iota. As far as we are concerned, the day we die we will be with Jesus that very day in paradise.
One final aside on this wonderfully instructive incident. This incident knocks on the head one of the arguments sometimes used against the death penalty, namely that it stops someone having a chance to come to repentance. This man was in the midst of dying, yet he got saved. He came to faith. This is not an argument for the death penalty, but most of the so-called “Christian” arguments against the death penalty really are unbiblical nonsense. There are pragmatic arguments for not having the death penalty, but there are absolutely no moral/biblical arguments for saying that it is completely wrong. But let's stick to the matter in hand. It could be argued that if there is no death penalty for the most serious of crimes, then a criminal is allowed to avoid facing up to the true reality of his or her crimes, and one of the most important steps in salvation is realising our guilt and repenting. Conversely, if there is a death penalty then the criminal is brought face to face with true nature of what they have done. Maybe then, like this criminal, they will repent and believe.
Anyway, maybe that was a digression you weren’t expecting! Let me digress further!
Now I said earlier that “there are absolutely no moral/biblical arguments for saying that it is completely wrong”. Maybe this is a rather bold statement, so let me expand a little. If someone commits a serious crime (murder or multiple murders), then what right do you or I have to forgive them for some crime committed against someone else, and one that involved the taking of life? As the Pharisees rightly asked, who has the right to forgive sins but God? So if we merely imprison a murderer are we seeing justice done? Are we showing proper respect for human life in general and the life (or lives) of the victim(s) in particular?
Does this mean I believe we have to have the death penalty? No, but I see no moral superiority in not having the death penalty. However, there are pragmatic reasons for not having it. The most important, perhaps, is that if we have the death penalty then we have to face up to a very sobering fact: some people will be executed who are innocent. Of course, all sorts of safeguards and checks and balances would be in place, but even so there will inevitably be some, hopefully rare, occasions when it goes wrong. This may happen through human error, it may happen through deliberate evil, it may happen because the court was not aware of certain facts at the time of making the fateful decision. Whatever the reason, it will happen. There is the old saying that “I would rather ten guilty men go free than one innocent man is condemned”. There is some truth in this. If an innocent man is condemned, especially if it involves the death penalty, then severe harm is done to the justice system, not to mention the innocent man himself. I would certainly one guilty murderer went free than one innocent man was condemned to death, even two guilty men. But what about ten? What if some of these go on to murder other innocent people? The point of all this is that the “morality equation” is by no means simple.
There is one further point. Would you or I like to be the executioner? To bring to an end the life of another human being is a terrible thing to do.
So what am I saying in all this? I suppose that there are no simple answers to the question of whether a state should have the death penalty. Currently it is considered “morally superior” not to have the death penalty, but I can see no basis for this. In fact the moral argument would, if anything, seem to be on the other side. Yet this does not mean having the death penalty is definitely the right things to do either. Whatever we do needs to be done with the utmost humility and seriousness.
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