A number of years ago, I heard American conservative political commentator Matt Walsh describe how he had changed his mind on support for the death penalty. Given Walsh’s Catholic faith, this did not particularly surprise me, but over the years I was surprised to see more and more Christians embrace this same change.
Having been raised in a fundamentalist Baptist Church, I had never seriously considered that there might be a biblical case against capital punishment. I struggled to see how Christian thinkers could so easily dismiss what seemed to be clear commands in this regard.
Several years later, I read Preston Sprinkle’s Fight, which, according to the subtitle, is his “Christian case for non-violence.” In the penultimate chapter, in which he addresses questions and objections to what he has written, he asks whether the Bible endorses capital punishment. He doesn’t devote a lot of space to the question, but ultimately concludes that “the church should neither celebrate nor condemn the state’s use of the sword.”
It was with some interest, then, that I recently opened a free copy of Brian Zahnd’s The Wood Between the Worlds, in which he devotes an entire chapter to the question of capital punishment. He shows his cards up front by quoting former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said, “To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.” Zahnd observes that Christ was crucified as an act of capital punishment and concludes “that a practice capable of committing the greatest act of injustice in time and eternity must be abandoned!” He adds, “If the death penalty can go so wrong that it murders God, a Christian conscience can do nothing other than call for its abolition.”
As I read Zahnd’s impassioned plea for abolishing capital punishment, I came away uncompelled. There may well be far better arguments in favour of the penalty’s abolition but, in this post, I want to interact with the case that Zahnd presents.
First, as we see above, Zahnd argues that capital punishment should be abolished because it “can go so wrong,” as we see in Jesus’ wrongful execution. He writes later about “the deeply troubling issue of executing innocent people” and notes that, “since 1973, 187 persons on death row have been released after it was discovered they were innocent of the crime for which they were sentenced to death!”
I do not find the argument compelling that we should dispense with capital punishment because the justice system sometimes (quite often, by the above statistics) gets it wrong. By the same token, should we dispense with all forms of pursuing justice because human justice is fallible? I grant that capital punishment is a far more serious sentence than some others, but I don’t believe that the fallibility of human judges voids God’s instructions.
A far more compelling case stems from the fact that, even though he was crucified under formal Roman law, the early apostles and preachers considered Jesus’ death wicked (Acts 2:23) and murder (Acts 7:52). Christians who support capital punishment are quick to argue that the death penalty, when carried out by legitimate authority, is not murder but justice.We should, however, recognise that Jesus’ crucifixion was “murder” even though it was carried out by legitimate government authority. The question is, was there something unique about Jesus’ death or is every instance of the death penalty murder?
Contextually, Jesus’ crucifixion was murder because he was “the Righteous One” (Acts 7:52). He was utterly innocent, not only of the charge of sedition for which he was ultimately executed but of any sin at all. His death was utterly unjust. A case might be made that wrongful execution is murder, but Paul considered the bearer of the sword of justice to be “the servant of God, and avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). Even if you grant that Paul was merely stating fact, rather than approving, of the executioner’s sword in Rome’s hand, it seems strange that he would refer to the executioner as “the servant of God” if the executioner was guilty of murder.
At the very least, the fact that Jesus was “murdered” under the guide of government authority should give us pause as we think about seemingly hundreds of innocent people on death row. Executing innocent people is, indeed, deeply troubling. The question is, does human fallibility void what appears to be God’s promises in this regard? Or do we consider what is at stake and work harder to ensure that we guard the integrity of the process even as we continue the practice?
Of course, the flip side of the innocent-on-death-row argument is the reality that there are murderers who, having been “rehabilitated,” have returned to society only to murder again. Had the death penalty been implemented, might a life have been saved? Ultimately, this is a pragmatic argument, which does not seriously wrestle with the text of Scripture.
Second, Zahnd turns to the text of Scripture and asks, what about the Old Testament? “Doesn’t a single Bible verse in support of the death penalty constitute scriptural endorsement?” He answers, “No, it’s not that simple.” Preston Sprinkle similarly talks about the “ambiguity” of some of the Old Testament instructions regarding capital punishment, though he admits that “it does seem that God allows humans to carry out the death penalty for murder.” Zahnd argues that Old Testament support for the practice is insufficient because “Christians start their reading of the Bible with Christ, not the Torah.” While he is correct that the Old Testament is not God’s “final revelation,” neither is it revelation that contradicts the New Testament. The New Testament might explicitly revoke an Old Testament command—as when it explicitly revokes the Old Testament dietary requirements (Mark 7:19)—but unless this is explicit, we should be careful of assuming it.
Zahnd assigns Old Testament appeals in support of capital punishment to the practice of “biblical proof texting” and cautions that we can “prove” anything by this method. He offers no meaningful attempt to interpret texts like Genesis 9:6 in any other way than support for the death penalty.
Furthering his appeal, he writes, “The question isn’t whether we can find it in the Bible, but whether we can find it in Christ.” He writes this as if the Bible and what we know of Christ are two different things. This sentiment may well betray Zahnd’s fondness of elevating the Sermon on the Mount above other Scriptures, but, regardless, we might argue that the death penalty can be found in Christ. After all, the same Christ who offers forgiveness to the very people who crucified him also says that, in the day of judgement, “I will declare to [unbelievers], ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:23). And what will this final judgement look like? Paul speaks of this when he writes of “the righteous judgement of God … who considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict” his people. The ultimate judgement will happen
when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
“Eternal destruction” is a divine death penalty, when Christ will consign all who opposed him and his gospel to the second death (Revelation 20:11–15). Jesus preached forgiveness and died to secure forgiveness and eternal life for all who believe in him, but he equally promises to come as the divine executioner at his return to punish, with eternal destruction, those who do not know God or obey his gospel.
Zahnd later appeals to the story of the woman accused of adultery to show that Jesus opposed capital punishment. “When the accusers came under the spell of the satan and turned into a murderous mob, Jesus stood in advocacy with the accused and broke the satanic spell by calling for self-reflection and individual responsibility.” Since Jesus did not support the death penalty for this woman, Christians should likewise reject capital punishment out of hand.
Zahnd overlooks the fact, however, that it would have been impossible for Jesus to support the death penalty in a way consistent with Scripture because, by the time he had finished writing on the ground, no one remained as a supporting witness to accuse the woman. Regardless of the truth of the accusation, capital punishment could not be carried out in the absence of witnesses. Since no one remained to accuse the woman, Jesus could not support the call for execution.
Third, Zahnd appeals to non-Protestant religious groups, who have a deep distaste for the death penalty. He suggests that “the rabbis did not like killing people” and “made it all but impossible to jump through the strict legal requirements needed to warrant and execution.” He writes positively of the Catholic Church, which has openly expressed full opposition to the death penalty. But distaste for something does not necessarily require it’s abolition. God himself takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11) but remains committed to the eternal destruction of those who do not obey the gospel. There is something deeply wrong with anyone who delights in capital punishment, but God’s servants are sometimes called to carry out his commands with deep sadness.
Fourth, Zahnd intimates that the death penalty undermines the image of God in every human being. “The moment we forget that all humans … bear the image of God, we have opened the door for all kinds of atrocities.” This strikes me as a strange argument, since God roots his command for capital punishment in the very fact that humans are image-bearers:“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6). The fact that humans are divine image-bearers supports rather than denies the practice of capital punishment.
While I do not largely find his case compelling, there are at least three aspects of Zahnd’s argument that warrant some further discussion.
First, he claims that Christian support for capital punishment is a uniquely American phenomenon. I am not American, but having been raised in a church whose first pastor was American, and whose third and current pastor is American by birth, I realise that I may well be wearing American blinders. Perhaps I will one day cast off those American blinders and come to unreservedly oppose the practice of capital punishment, but I am not there yet.
Second, he argues that opposition to the death penalty was universal among Christians in the first three centuries. He claims that the early church “only embraced [criminal justice] which could bring restoration to the victim and contribute to the eventual restoration of the criminal.” He cites Augustine, who wrote to a criminal judge to appeal for sparing the lives of two murderers. The victims were Christian, but Augustine appealed, “We do not wish the suffering of the servants of God avenged by the infliction of precisely similar injuries in way of retaliation…. Our desire is rather that justice be satisfied without the taking of their lives or the maiming of their bodies in any part.” Zahnd claims that Augustine’s “opposition to maiming or executing criminals was neither extreme nor unique; it was simply the common view of the early church” and that it was only as the church came to political favour under Constantine and later emperors that support for capital punishment increased. He offers little by way of substantiating this claim, which makes it difficult to assess but, if he is correct, it certainly offers some food for thought.
Third, even though I ultimately come down in support of capital punishment (at least for murder), the fact that Jesus was murdered under official government sanction means that we should be cautious in too quickly celebrating the death penalty, especially when there are questions about the legitimacy of the sentence. The justice system, both in America (where Zahnd lives) and in South Africa (where I live and where capital punishment is not a legal option anyway), appears to be a complete mess. (I speak with some reservation about the American context and base my thoughts purely on the statistics that Zahnd raises about wrongful sentencing to death row.) It is difficult to unreservedly support capital punishment where this is the case. While I find Zahnd’s argumentation theologically less than compelling, I’m not sure I would want a criminal justice system in such a mess to wield the sword.
I think there are good theological and exegetical reasons to support the practice of capital punishment for murder, though it should never be a hasty sentence and never implemented when there is any credible doubt as to the guilt of the person in question.