I am 100% against capital punishment. My reasons are:
1.) The justice system is not perfect and innocent people have been executed.
2.) As Christians, Vengeance is not ours our dish out; vengeance belongs to God alone (Romans 12:19).
3.) As Christians, we always want to leave room for forgiveness, reconciliation, and redemption to happen.
We Christians live by love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. You may think someone deserves to die for what they have done, and you may be right. But what the gospel teaches us is that we all have blood on our hands, and we all have fallen short of the glory of God. By showing grace to even the worst of criminals, we are doing the difficult work of God. Scripture says that while were STILL SINNERS--while we were still criminals--Christ died for us.
Romans 5:7-9
"Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Incarceration is a bad enough punishment, and it removes the criminal from society so that he/she cannot harm people anymore. It is simply not our place to kill.
I believe we should forgive but history dictates these individuals will not stop hurting others until
they themselves are dead or locked up. To me, this is a tough question and I see both sides.
Some issues are just too big for man to decide.
It is easy to say forgive when it wasn't your wife or daughter that was raped and/or abused.
On the other hand, the criminal cost about $60,000/year to house. In just 10 years, thats
$600,000. This $600,000 could have been used to help feed thousands of children that died of
starvation during that 10 year period. Multiply this $600,000 by 1 million and you have
60 Billion spent housing criminals that studies have proven only a few will ever change and of
the few that do change, over 60% will commit the crime again.
I do understand the issue of what is a life worth?
But it seems to be a catch 22. We either pay billions to house the criminals that drain our resources
to help those in need or we house the criminals and let thousands die to save the one.
This is a big issue and God may be the only one to decide the outcome. I think forgiveness is to be
tried first. But to let a criminal rape, torture and kill several innocent people on the pretense they
will seek forgiveness when studies prove most never will is a big question. How many innocent
people need to be tortured to death to save this one criminal life?
Some things are too big for man to answer. The sin and evil of man's heart is too vast and deep
for man to judge himself. My only goal would be to protect the innocent from these criminals but
doing so does have its own problems.
I don't think we will know the right answer till we can ask Jesus one day! But on that day, it won't
matter. Justice will have been served by Christ Himself.
