How come nobody ever contacts me to be interviewed for articles like this one on Christians and the death penalty?
The story’s slant is that Christian support for the death penalty is somehow weakening. It’s a decent article, but I want to focus on one paragraph, which I believe is the most important:
“It’s anti-evangelical to kill people,” [John] Whitehead said. “Christianity is redemptive. But you can’t redeem people by extinguishing them.” Whitehead believes opposition to the death penalty will gain momentum in the future. “Young Christians are seeing right away that, hey, the meek and mild Jesus—would he pull the lever? Would he put the hood on and pull the lever? I don’t think so.”
Even if one supports capital punishment, the idea of killing another human being for any reason is not supposed to be pleasant. Whether the subject is murder, manslaughter, or justifiable homicide, the taking of a human life and its subsequent consequences are serious matters. Even if you kill someone who aims to kill you, it’s got to be disturbing to know you’re responsible for ending someone’s life.
I don’t want to get bogged down with death and murder and electric chairs or poison in the veins, or whether it’s biblical or unbiblical to support capital punishment. I want to talk about the Rutherford Institute’s John Whitehead’s “Christianity is redemptive” quote and why I think it’s sad that a Christian doesn’t seem to understand the point of redemption.
By the Blood of the Lamb
Redemption is one of the key components of the Christian faith. To redeem is to buy back or to pay off. Theologically speaking, it means that Christ paid the penalty for my sins, thereby “buying” me back from Satan, releasing me from sin’s chains, and “paying off” my sin debt. I am bought and paid for. Without this redemption, I’d still be under God’s wrath and facing the just punishment that awaited me when I died.
When Christ redeems the sinner, many wonderful things occur. We become a part of the glorious body of Christ, a member of a global community of Christ followers. We are inhabited by the Holy Spirit (the spirit of God), the third “person” in the Godhead who guides us through this earthly journey. The Holy Spirit gives us abilities and an understanding beyond what the natural man is capable of. We also understand biblical truths in a way the unbeliever, in his unrepentant state, cannot.
When we become saved, Christ lives in us and we through him. His redemption of our tattered souls is the greatest gift, and every day I’m astounded by his love and mercy. Indeed, I wish this on all my fellow human beings, even the ones who hate me.
Back to Whitehead. Yes, Christianity is redemptive, but what in the world did he mean when he said, “But you can’t redeem people by extinguishing them”? Who does the redeeming, Mr. Whitehead? You? Me? It is Christ’s work.
Let me digress by saying I’m what some would call a Calvinist. I believe, among other things, that God knew beforehand that man would fall and which men he’d redeem. While he did not predestine anyone to hell, he certainly predestined people to receive his grace and mercy, according to his sovereign will. Before the foundation of the world, he’d chosen an elect group of people, for reasons I don’t understand, to receive his forgiveness. No one knows who the elect are, which is why Christians are commanded to spread the Gospel to all men.
In that regard, Whitehead’s quote makes no sense. For as a Christian, whether a Calvinist or not, he must know that nothing in heaven or on the earth or under the earth can stop God’s will. He saves whomever he wants to save whenever he wants to save them and how he wants to save them. No state and its electric chair can thwart God’s plan. He’s saved plenty of people on death row who’ve gone on to be executed. Those executions in no way diminished or canceled out their salvation. In fact, they are the fortunate ones. They’re with Christ right now.
Redemptive Misunderstanding
This section actually is the whole point of the post. As a writer, I know one should get to the point quickly and early, but I needed to create a foundation for this:
Just because a person facing execution has been saved on death row, it doesn’t mean he should now be released from jail or allowed to live. You see, his soul has been redeemed according to God’s law. But according to man’s law (and God’s law, too!), he is still condemned to die for his crimes. That doesn’t change simply because the “dead man walking” now professes faith.
Christ promises the believer that his sins will be washed away. He never promised to wipe clean the slate of sin’s consequences. If in my unrepentant state I killed someone while driving drunk or had my baby slaughtered in the womb, neither the person I hit with my car nor my dead baby would come back to life once I became a Christian. (The same applies to a drunk-driving Christian, too.) I must live with what I’ve done, but I’ve been forgiven for what I’ve done. See the distinction?
God’s mercy is bountiful; he can lift us from deep despair and make those consequences less painful. And he can use those consequences to his glory. The former drunk may become a counselor in a treatment center or witness to unsaved drunks. The woman who had her child murdered may go on to marry and be blessed with more children and/or work in a crisis pregnancy center, warning women about the consequences of child killing and witnessing to them about Christ’s redemption.
The redeemed man or woman on death row must live with the earthly consequences of his/her murderous acts, but those acts are canceled, so to speak, in God’s eyes.
Karla Faye Tucker was a murderer facing death by poison. She became saved while on death row. While I believe Tucker’s salvation was genuine, I also believed that she should not have been spared death, as some Christians thought. Her death sentence was just punishment for her crimes. But she was spared from a punishment greater and more terrible than anything men could do.
Possible Misunderstanding
OK, time to acknowledge possible errors. I may be reading too much into Whitehead’s brief quote. I know how reporters are. No matter what you say or how much you say, they’ll choose only those quotes that fit the story’s slant. It’s not good or bad; it just is.
When Whitehead said that Christianity was redemptive and that you can’t redeem people by extinguishing them, he may have meant that by executing them for their crimes, they would not be able to live a fully redemptive earthly life. In that context, what he said makes more sense. Then again, the saved death row inmate can do plenty of witnessing and Gospel sharing before he dies. A condemned man can live a redemptive earthly life.
Redeem the Time
This post may help Christians if and when they ever need to respond to someone who believes newly saved death row prisoners should have their sentences commuted because “that’s what Jesus would do.” Let me tell you about Jesus, unbelievers (and some believers!). If you think he was some hippie preacher in earth shoes working in a soup kitchen and practicing folk medicine and flashing the peace sign, you’re in for a rude awakening.
You know what the Son of God is going to do when he returns? Deliver God’s wrath. That’s right, his wrath. No loaves and fish for the hungry or miracle healings for the sick. The unrepentant will be too busy running and trying to hide from God’s righteous anger as it rains down on all who rejected his Son.
But there is a way to avoid all that. Redeem the time. Grace and mercy to you.
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