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The sixth commandment
6.2 Pay life for life
Retributive justice, including the death penalty, is required to restore righteousness and peace to the community and to quell inclinations to take revenge.
Leviticus 24.17
“Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.”
Leviticus 24.21b
“…and whoever kills a person shall be put to death.”
The fact that this sanction existed before the Ten Commandments, and is explicitly continued in the New Testament (Rom. 13:1-5) indicates just how seriously human beings must regard this matter of taking the life of another. The death penalty is an extreme form of justice; however, it is not inhuman, and it need not be cruel. Knowing that the death penalty is in force can have deterrent power in a society; actually exercising the death penalty can, to a certain extent, restore justice in a society where murder has been committed.
In our society a system of appeals guards against the hasty use of the death penalty. Once those have been exhausted, however, we must not flinch to apply, for justice’s sake, that punishment which God Himself commands.
This series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.