THE EDITOR, Sir:ON SUNDAY, March 12, I read with some concern an article in your newspaper, written by Dr. Orville Taylor, in which he stated that Christians have no biblical foundation for supporting the death penalty.
This, I submit, is entirely wrong. Subsequently, I saw on the 14th instant, the well-balanced letter written by Mr. Arthur R. Phidd, captioned 'Christianity and the Death Penalty'. I felt somewhat relieved.
There are just a few points that I would like to add.
So many people interpret the Lord's handling of the woman taken in the act of adultery recorded in St. John 8:1-11, as being Christ's disapproval of the death penalty. Nothing could be further from the truth. If Christ had opposed the law of Moses which He came to fulfil, He would clearly have been at fault. He could not afford to do this.
This is the very point on which His critics wanted to catch Him. What He did was to cleverly turn the tables on them and they all left.
The woman was free because she had no accusers as is required by Deuteronomy 19:15-20. God does not temper justice with mercy as we so often think. God is a God of absolutes. He is absolutely just and as well, absolutely merciful.
Some people think that God's absolute mercy cancels His absolute justice. If that were to happen, then we would end up without justice and without mercy, but also without God.
So we then begin to play God and reason foolishly about capital punishment being barbaric and dangerous if an innocent person should be wrongly condemned.
GOD COMMANDED PUNISHMENT
Garbage!! If a licensed driver kills an innocent person by accident, do we stop issuing licences or do we try to improve on our drivers before issuing them with licences? If by faulty judgement, we on one occasion hang the wrong person, do we stop hanging or do we improve on our intelligence gathering and witnessing system? May I just remind your readers that it was God who commanded (not suggested) capital punishment from as early as Genesis 9: (1-6) and He gave the reason.
So capital punishment is a principle which goes beyond the introduction of the law of Moses.
When Cain killed Abel in Genesis 4: 8, only one person had been murdered in all the earth. God then said, "the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground." Can you imagine the thunderous noise now going up to the ears of God from this our once beautiful country?
Do you think we will go unpunished for our disobedience to His command? I say conclusively that if God decrees it, then Christianity endorses capital punishment without a doubt.
I am, etc.,
VICTOR McGIBBON
(Pastor and Bible teacher
Olivet Gospel Hall)
43b Waltham Park Rd.
