The DEATH Penalty and being Christian

Can I be a 100% sold out born again Christian AND also support capital punishment (death penalty)?  I believe the answer is yes.

From a Biblical and moral position, the book of Leviticus allows for the death penalty. There's even an allowance that if your own child curses the name of the parent, you as the parent can stone them to death. Yikes! I think that God was putting that one in knowing how hard that would be and giving humans the opportunity to show mercy.  Yes, but it is also still there.

But the New Testament has put mercy over the law, one would say.  Jesus came as fulfillment of the law, and yes his one sacrifice on the cross eliminates the sacrificial system.  Isn't it interesting that for thousands of years the Jews made sacrifices to God, and then after the Romans destroy the temple there have not been sacrifices since?

But even though we now live under mercy, what are we to do with those who are pure evil.  #Gosnell comes to mind.  Jeffrey Dahmer who ate his victims and stored their body parts in his fridge.

A relative of mine says that we sin when we pass judgement to take the life of another human being with capital punishment.  This relative would quote the do not judge but look at the log in your own eye verse as an example, but I couldn't disagree more!  That verse I believe is not the context of capital punishment level judgments.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were abducted between 2002 to 2004.  Would you sit in a room with all three including their parents AND the daughter that Amanda gave birth to, and argue that Ariel Castro should be shown our love by only locking him away for 20 years?!  Is that not cruel and unusual to the parents?  Because he forced the girls to have miscarriages of their pregnancies that he brought about by his rapes, he may face the death penalty.  He is evil.  Why should these three young women, their families and the Cleveland community know that such a horrid and despicable monster is allowed to live into old age in a prison?  With free meals?  And free medical care?

California is a total joke when it comes to the death penalty.  It is a law on the books.  But because of activist liberal judges, prosecutors know that seeking it does no good since all it means is to put someone away for life.  The people of CA are left without justice.  Murderers have no fear of the judicial system. It has no teeth and causes them no pain.  CA by far has the most death row inmates with 727 as of January 1, 2013.

Texas on the other hand puts it's death row inmates down on a regular basis, and a sense of justice prevails in the Lone Star State.  In fact TX has 7 of 15 remaining scheduled executions that are scheduled for this year. "REMAINING SCHEDULED EXECUTIONS IN 2013"

Some oppose the death penalty on practical grounds, arguing that it is not a deterrent. However, the U.S. Supreme Court had [re-instituted] the death penalty in July of 1976 after having struck down all state death penalty statutes almost exactly four years earlier. During those four years without the death penalty there were about 12,000 more murders as compared to the four years prior to 1972, an increase of 19 percent, and more than 10,000 additional families who had raised a child who then became a murderer. http://www.theologyonline.com/DEATH.HTML

The death penalty works as a deterrent.

It is my understanding that God allows for the death penalty.  It is not the Christian stance to celebrate when such a judgement is rendered on a vile criminal, but we should be sober minded and clear about the nature of evil among us.

The New Testament gives us a clear picture to show mercy where it is appropriate in John 8:7 (Jesus with the woman caught in adultery - where is the man??).  The law would allow stoning, but Jesus knew the hypocrisy of the pharisees and used this moment to teach them a lesson instead.

And the people of America continue to suffer under a liberalized judicial system that thinks we the taxpayer should make murderers comfortable for the rest of their lives, but that a woman should be able to murder her unborn child whenever she feels like it. 

God have mercy on us.

My website sources:
http://www.gotquestions.org/death-penalty.html
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/qas/what-should-be-christian-stand-death-penalty/
http://www.theologyonline.com/DEATH.HTML
http://www.vadp.org/resources/a-christian-perspective-on-the-death-penalty/
http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000986
http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_CapitalPunishment.htm

my bible verse footnotes:

(1) Genesis 9:6
Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image.

(2) Duet 22:25-27
25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

(3) Lev 19:16b
“Do not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is threatened. I am the Lord.

(4) Lev 20:1-5
“Again, you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘Whoever of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, who gives any of his descendants to Molech, he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I will set My face against that man, and will cut him off from his people, because he has given some of his descendants to Molech, to defile My sanctuary and profane My holy name. 4 And if the people of the land should in any way hide their eyes from the man, when he gives some of his descendants to Molech, and they do not kill him,5 then I will set My face against that man and against his family; and I will cut him off from his people, and all who prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry with Molech.

(5) Lev 20:9
‘For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.

(6) Lev 20:10-16 
‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death. 11 The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. 12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed perversion. Their blood shall be upon them. 13 If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. 14 If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you. 15 If a man mates with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. 16 If a woman approaches any animal and mates with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them.

(7) Lev 20:27 
‘A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.’”

(8) Lev 24:14-22
“Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 “Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death. 17 ‘Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. 18 Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, animal for animal. 19 ‘If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him— 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. 21 And whoever kills an animal shall restore it; but whoever kills a man shall be put to death. 22 You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country; for I am the Lord your God.’”

(9) Duet 5:17
Is the 5th commandment "Thou shall not murder," is not a prohibition against capital punishment especially in light of all the other verses noted above.

(10) Psalm 9:16 "Justice"
The Lord is known by his acts of justice; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.

(11) Proverbs 21:15 "Justice"
When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.

(12) Romans 13:4
For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.