The Death Penalty – The Sixth Commandment

The Death Penalty

The Sixth Commandment

He who unjustly takes a life shall justly forfeit his own.

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 inhumane, 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 or injudicious 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.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.