Introduction
It should be a matter of grave concern to all that the number of violent crimes, and particularly of murders, is increasing yearly. In a recent letter to the Clerk of the Southern Presbytery, the Secretary of State expressed his own deep concern, adding that the reasons for this increase are not known, but that the solution must lie in ‘new social attitudes’ to the problem. The subjoined letter and brief summary of the teaching of Scripture on the subject may be useful in reminding our people of our belief that for cases of deliberate murder, the murderer must forfeit his own life. The sword of civil justice must not be allowed to rust while vile men practice their evil deeds. The extreme penalty must be inflicted on all who break the 6th commandment and rob their fellow-men of the precious gift of life.
Letter
Dear Mr Munro,—Thank you for your reply on behalf of the Secretary of State. While the Presbytery appreciate the Secretary of State’s deep concern over the increase in violent crime and especially murder, we are surprised to read your claim that the reasons for this increase are not known. The Word of God explicitly gives two fundamental reasons for the crime of murder: (1) the innate inclination of men’s hearts by nature towards evil. Christ Himself said: ‘For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, etc. (Mark 7:21); (ii) the removal of restraints and deterrents (see Romans 1:24-32). We suggest therefore that the new social attitudes you mention which society should adopt are: 1. In general, that life is sacred, and must on no account be taken except where it has been forfeited by sin, and only then by the hand of lawfully appointed civil rulers (see Romans 13:1-4). 2. That violent crime, and murder in particular, should be allotted the punishment it deserves, according to the sentence of the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge of all the earth: ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed’ (Gen. 9:6). — Yours faithfully,
John M. Brentnall, Presbytery Clerk.
The Argument from Scripture
It is true that the first murder, that of Abel by his brother Cain, did not receive the death penalty as its due reward. Although, as Calvin says, the ‘shaft of divine vengeance’ transfixed Cain’s whole frame with terror as the intimation of his punishment (Gen. 4:13-14), the murderer did not lose his life, either by the immediate hand of God, or by the delegated authority of men.
We are not to infer, however, from the Lord’s merciful dealings with Cain, that the crime of murder was relieved of its heinousness as a capital offence. Only a few generations later, when human violence reached unprecedented heights, the Judge of all the earth gave vent to His holy hatred of it by sweeping the entire race, except Noah and his family, clean off the face of the earth. Here was divine justice in all its terrible severity — the bodies of the offenders were drowned by the Flood (Matt. 24:39), and their souls were cast into the prison of a lost eternity (1 Pet. 3:19-20).
To reinforce the awful lesson given by His own example, the Lord, on reorganising human society immediately afterwards, issued to Noah as the new head of mankind ‘a statute which has never to this day been repealed’ (Thomas Watson): ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed’ (Gen. 9:6). ‘Here’, comments Oswald Allis, ‘we have the warrant for capital punishment’.
Centuries later, when the Jewish nation was constituted at Sinai, capital punishment for murder was written into its legal code: ‘And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death’ (Lev. 24:17); ‘Moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death’ (Num. 35:31).
That God never ceased to reprobate the sin of murder is clear from His repeated denunciations of it in Israel and Judah. Through David, He threatens that ‘bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days’ (Ps. 55:23). For the innocent blood shed by Manasseh, Judah was to be invaded by Nebuchadnezzar, ‘for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the Lord would not pardon’ (2 Kings 24:4). The Lord’s controversy with Israel, too, was partly on account of her wanton killing, by which ‘blood toucheth blood’ (Hos. 4:2). Dying Zechariah also testified against it, calling for the Lord’s just vengeance upon his murderers (2 Chron. 24:22).
The teaching of Christ also confirms our obligation to punish every violation of the 6th commandment with death. In the parables of the Wicked Husbandmen (Matt. 21:33-41) and the King’s Marriage (Matt. 22:1-7), our Lord plainly links the crime of murder with the death penalty. The slayers of both the king’s servants and the householder’s son were all to be destroyed.
At His arrest in the garden, in the same breath in which He rejects personal defence by the sword (because His kingdom is not of this world), the Divine Redeemer asserts that this ancient symbol of the magistrate’s power is to be exercised in human society (Matt. 26:52). All who take the sword ‘without a just calling’ (John Trapp), by seizing it on private impulse, as Peter had done, must perish by the sword, as wielded by lawful public authority.
Again, towards the close of the canon of Scripture, the Saviour places murderers amongst those who ‘shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death’ (Rev. 21:8). If the One into whose hands all judgment has been committed will consign wilful murderers to a lost eternity, then clearly their crime is worthy of death.
The mind of the inspired apostles is likewise perfectly plain as to the justness of the death penalty for murder. Paul, defending himself against the Jews before the governor Festus, avows his willingness to suffer the extreme penalty if found guilty of a capital offence. ‘For if I be an offender’ he says, ‘or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die’ (Acts 25:11). Nothing could be more explicit.
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans expresses the same conviction: ‘But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he (i.e. the civil magistrate) beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil’ (Rom. 13:4). God, as Supreme Lawgiver and Judge, has delegated the right to punish evil-doers to the civil magistrate. ‘For this purpose, God has put the sword into his hand, and has armed him with legal authority’ (Robert Haldane). Being the instrument of decapitation in ancient societies, the sword here symbolises the magistrate’s right to inflict capital punishment. To fail to exercise this right is a most blameworthy dereliction of duty. Indeed, where multiple murder has been committed, the civil ruler himself becomes guilty of all but the first offence if he fails to execute the murderer.
This crucial verse in Romans proves also that capital punishment is the most effective deterrent to murder: ‘if thou do that which is evil, be afraid’. As Dr Owen observes: ‘Amongst other things, it (i.e. the sword) is peculiarly subservient to’ God’s ‘holy providence, in obstructing the bringing forth of conceived sin’. God fixes the awful prospect of the death sentence on the intending criminal’s heart, ‘and by the dread and terror of it closeth the womb of sin, that it shall not bring forth’. Neither is there a greater deterrent in human society, for ‘all that a man hath will he give for his life’ (Job 2:4).
A similar passage in Peter’s 1st Epistle shows that the apostle of the circumcision was no less certain of the duty of civil rulers to mete out deserved punishment to their criminal subjects (1 Pet. 2:13-14). Both the supreme civil magistrate and those under him are responsible for the punishment of evil-doers. Wilful murderers therefore must be put to death.
The Argument from Natural Justice and Experience
‘Besides these arguments from Scripture, there are others drawn from natural justice. It is a dictate of our moral nature that crime should be punished, that there should be a just proportion between the offence and the penalty, and that death, the highest penalty, is the proper punishment for the greatest of all crimes’ (Charles Hodge). So strong is this instinctive judgment in us that conscience immediately demands vengeance on hearing of cases of atrocious murder. And where rulers have failed to exercise justice in such cases, either individuals or tumultuous assemblies have outrageously taken the law into their own hands. The murderer of President Kennedy was himself murdered for his crime, as were Cardinal Beaton and Archbishop Sharp for theirs.
Experience also teaches us that wherever human life is cheapened, it becomes insecure; and that where murderers escape with impunity or are inadequately punished, new murders are fearfully multiplied. Our own times bear tragic testimony to this truth. The only effective way to preserve life is to take away the life of the murderer.
It is instructive to see the law of natural justice operating in the natives of Melita. When they saw the viper fasten on Paul’s hand, ‘they said among themselves: No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live’ (Acts 28:4). Knowing the viper’s sting to be mortal, ‘they concluded that his crime was that of murder, as the highest known to human laws, and one appropriately punished by the loss of life’ (J. A. Alexander). We need not be surprised at the barbarians’ verdict, for the law of natural justice, when free to testify without the sentimental perversions of a modern false charity, will always accord with the moral law of God (Rom. 2:14-15). Murder is punishable only by death.
Objections
Several objections to capital punishment have been made, some of which deserve our consideration.
First, it is objected that the death penalty itself violates the 6th commandment. This, however, is not so. To kill a murderer is not murder; it is the execution of justice. The word actually used in the 6th commandment means ‘murder’, whereas the word employed in connection with the death sentence signifies ‘to put to death’, as in 2 Sam. 14:32.
Secondly, it is objected that the civil laws of the Mosaic theocracy have now been abrogated under the Gospel dispensation, and indeed that they were never binding on Gentile nations at any time. In reply, it must be remembered that the law protecting human life by the death of the murderer was given by God to Noah, long before the civil code was delivered to Israel. Like the Sabbath ordinance, it was given to all mankind to observe for all time, and not merely to the Jews for a season. Besides, there is not the slightest indication anywhere in Scripture that it has been abolished or superseded.
Thirdly, the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are often invoked to deny capital punishment (see Matt. 5:38-39). Such non-vindictive utterances, however, refer to the personal behaviour of His disciples, not to the principles of civil jurisprudence. Failure to distinguish between teaching governing Christian conduct between man and man, and principles regulating the administration of justice through properly constituted courts, is bound to produce confusion. To apply the injunction ‘Resist not evil’ to society at large without qualification is to dispense with all soldiers, police, magistrates, law courts and prisons, and to fling open the flood gates of restraint to moral anarchy. We have no warrant or right to transfer to the sphere of public justice ethical teaching which belongs solely to the realm of private behaviour.
Lastly, the argument that the innocent are sometimes punished instead of the guilty is urged against the death penalty. To this we reply, that while such miscarriages of justice are a sad comment on the imperfection of all things here in a fallen world, including the best judicial system we know, they do not cancel our obligation to honour the law and execute justice on convicted criminals. In any case, British justice has always inclined towards mercy rather than severity, thereby leaving less room for the erring punishment of the innocent.
Conclusion
‘From the above instances, it is evident that the infliction of the death penalty on the murderer by the civil magistrate is a punishment which is based upon the divine revelation of God’s mind in the Holy Scriptures. The matter is solemn, and dreadful, and serious, and the Government of this country should not be swayed to depart from Holy Writ on this particular matter, or any other matter, by those who have no clear understanding of the Scriptural principles involved. Other arguments, however plausible they may seem in themselves, can only bring forth evil fruits, the inevitable result of departing from the fountain of Divine Wisdom found in the Word of God.’ (Synod Resolution re Capital Punishment, 1962). The rejection of the Scriptural teaching on the crime of murder is thus fraught with awful consequences to those involved. Any nation which tolerates murder by allowing the murderer to live in its midst is guilty before God of that very crime, for He has solemnly stated that ‘the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it’ (Num. 35:33). Capital punishment for murder, therefore, should be retained on the nation’s Statute Book, and executed on all fairly convicted of this awful crime.
J.M.B.