Pastor: The Death Penalty Is Not Pro-Life!

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you real

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Christian commentary about the things that matter. Thanks so much for watching, let's get into the video. If you are concerned about woke

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Christianity and its influence on the Church, join the club. It seems that there is at times an ignorance of huge portions of the

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Biblical worldview in this theological camp. If you've noticed a rise in your favorite theologians being critical of woke

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Christianity in the past few years, just know that their criticism for this has only increased in order to combat the ever -increasing unbiblical and destructive doctrines that are coming from that movement.

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Case in point, watch this video of Pastor Leonce Crump of Renovation Church talking about the pro -life issue.

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And before you think that today's video response is niche and obscure, let me remind you that Leonce Crump has done videos with organizations as big as The Gospel Coalition and Desiring God.

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This is a mainstream pastor in Big Eva, and unfortunately, this is a mainstream view. This isn't some obscure doctrine that nobody really believes.

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So, without further ado, let's see what his argument is. Watch this. This is pro -life.

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What does that mean? For most people on the right, it means pro -birth, because if you're pro -life, then you have to care about that black baby once they're out of the womb, too.

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If you're pro -life, I don't know how you can be pro -death penalty, otherwise

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Paul doesn't write the New Testament, because he was a terrorist. So he says that conservative

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Christians are not really pro -life, they're just pro -birth, and they don't really care about the life of a potentially murdered baby once it comes out of the womb.

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Of course, this completely disregards the fact that conservatives consistently give more money to charity than their liberal counterparts do.

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Conservative Christian churches all over the United States are preaching and faithfully spreading the gospel to people and helping their communities in practical ways all the time.

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Many of these people being helped are fully grown adults. But of course, these conservatives simply do not care about others once they're out of the womb, right?

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You see, as it turns out, saying that conservatives are just pro -birth, that inevitably means that they don't care about potentially aborted children once they're born.

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Quite a strong accusation to make, saying that these people don't love others after they're born, right?

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And of course, the definitive proof that they don't care about these post -born humans is that they don't support the welfare state or other unbiblical pagan programs that they see as unhelpful or ineffective.

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In other words, the translation here is, conservative Christians disagree with my solutions about helping people, and therefore they don't actually care about helping people.

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This is a very common narrative in the woke church, which is ironic considering the fact that many of the people in this theological camp are often the very same people who put such a heavy emphasis on understanding dialogue, charitable conversation, and unity.

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Assuming that your opponents don't care about people at all doesn't seem very charitable to me. But all of this is just the prelude to the ultimate statement being made.

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Leonce implies that many conservative Christians don't care about people after they come out of the womb because they are pro -death penalty.

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This argument is absolutely absurd. To compare the right to life that a pre -born child has to the right to life that, for instance, a fully grown adult serial killer has is asinine.

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Clearly, there are significant ethical differences that must be acknowledged here. So let's answer the question posed by Leonce in this video, can someone truly be biblically pro -life and also be in favor of the death penalty?

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The answer to that question is a resounding yes. In fact, I would go so far as to make two controversial statements that really should not be controversial among Christians at all.

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Number one, there is no way to have a consistent biblical worldview and also be pro -choice.

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And number two, there is no way to have a consistent biblical worldview and also be against the death penalty.

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Now let me offer some evidence for each one of these claims. Psalm 139 verse 13 is a verse we talk about a lot on this channel and it says this, quote,

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For you have formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb, end quote.

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According to this passage, God is actively involved in forming a person in the womb. This is part of God's sovereign creative power.

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And to murder the child that he is forming in the womb is an affront to his creative authority. There's no way around that.

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Moreover, Exodus 20 verse 13 says, quote, you shall not murder, end quote. So it is clear that the child in the womb is a distinct human life being formed actively by the

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God of Scripture. And it is also clear that taking a distinct human life unjustly is an immoral and sinful action that is condemned in God's word.

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As I said before, there is absolutely no way that you can be a consistent Christian and also be pro -choice.

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And I think Leonce would agree with this. And if so, I thank God that he does. And I would unify with him on that issue.

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But the statement he offers next seems to directly contradict my second claim, the one about the death penalty.

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Leonce says, and I quote, quote, if you are pro -life, I don't know how you can be pro -death penalty.

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But he continues rooting his argument in the life of the Apostle Paul when he says, quote, otherwise,

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Paul doesn't write the New Testament because he was a terrorist, end quote. If you are a biblical

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Christian, this argument may have stumped you, but it actually isn't as difficult to refute as you may think.

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First off, we've already demonstrated that killing an innocent baby is sinful and wrong and ought to be called what it is, murder.

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The issue of the death penalty, though, is entirely separate because there are different ethical factors at play here.

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So it shouldn't surprise us, then, to find that the Bible offers a completely different answer to the question of the death penalty.

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You see, under Israelite law, which was literally instituted by God himself in the Old Testament, there were several offenses that carried with them the penalty of death as a punishment.

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One such offense, ironically, was that of murder. Exodus 21 verse 12 says, quote, whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death, end quote.

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So according to Leonsa's argument here, God himself is not consistently pro -life. God indicates in his word that he disapproves of abortion and calls it sinful.

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And yet at the very same time, God himself commands the Israelites to institute the death penalty for certain offenses.

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But Hebrews 6, 18 says that, quote, it is impossible for God to lie. So we know that God isn't being inconsistent here.

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So again, to say that the death penalty is inconsistent with Christian ethics is to say that God himself is inconsistent with his own ethical standard.

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That is not something that any Christian should ever say or imply ever, even if it's unintentional. Thankfully, there is grace for Christians even when we say things like this.

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But that does not take away the need to repent when we do say something this unbiblical. And I pray that that will be recognized in this case.

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So it is not unbiblical or ungodly in the slightest to oppose abortion and yet approve of the death penalty.

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Unless, of course, you are ignoring what God's word says about both of these things. But this brings up the inevitable critique.

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Colin, hold your horses, sir. Don't you know that that was the Old Testament? And people who say this would probably echo

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Leonce's argument about Paul not being put to death in the New Testament, despite the fact that he was a murderer and a terrorist, as Leonce accurately said it.

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The people who say this are making a simple yet grievous categorical error. You see, the very same apostle

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Paul, whose life apparently proves the death penalty is bad for Christians in the New Testament, is the same

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Paul who wrote the book of Romans. And in Romans 13, 4, Paul says this, So according to Paul, we should have a healthy fear of the governing authorities.

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And this fear should cause us to act in accordance with the law. Why? Well, because the government bears the sword.

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And what exactly does a sword do? Well, a sword is pretty bad if you want to use it to slap someone on the wrist, but it's really good at killing people.

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So it's pretty clear what the passage means. Not only is the government given the right to punish evildoers with the sword, in other words, kill them, but they are actually given this right by God himself.

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And more than this, as they bear the sword, they are literally called instruments of God's wrath on evildoers.

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This passage undeniably and irrefutably defends the death penalty. There's no way around that.

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But wait a minute. This passage is in the New Testament, not in the Old. And the passage is written by Paul the apostle.

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But according to Leon's Crump, the fact that the apostle Paul is even alive and able to write this is due to the fact that the death penalty is inconsistent with Christian ethics.

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So how does this make any sense? How do we synthesize these things? It's simple. Let's look at the facts here. The Bible defends the death penalty in both the

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Old and New Testaments. Fact. Biblically, Paul did things that would be worthy of the death penalty in both the

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Old and New Testaments by those standards. Fact. Yet, Paul was not killed and lived for many years after these offenses took place and wrote more books of the

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New Testament than anyone else. Also a fact. So how do we synthesize these things, though? Well, let me give a possible answer that stems from a question.

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Biblically, who was supposed to put Paul to death for murdering Christians? According to the passage we read earlier in Romans 13, the governing authorities had that responsibility.

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But the governing authorities did not carry it out. They did not enact justice on Paul for being a serial killer of Christians as they should have.

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So should the Church have executed Paul? No. God never tells the Church to kill anyone. That's not in their sphere of authority.

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That's the government's job. Should Paul have killed himself? No. That would be murdering yet another person.

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Paul has no right to do that. And again, that's not what Paul's job is. It's the government's job. So biblically, the simple reason that Paul was not killed for being a murderous terrorist was that the government is the only institution that God has given that job to and they did not accomplish their job.

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There is no contradiction here whatsoever. We can still affirm all the facts and we don't have to contradict Scripture here in the way that I believe

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Leon's Crump does. The Bible is pro -life. The Bible is also pro -death penalty, with important caveats, of course.

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And the Bible also says that Paul's actions deserve death. Yet God sovereignly allowed

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Paul to stay alive by using the immoral Roman government's failure for his glory. When we see things from this perspective, we can see both

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God's consistent ethical standard and his providential blessing over Paul. So the next time you hear someone say that you cannot be a biblically consistent

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Christian while also supporting the death penalty, go ahead and calmly, rationally, and kindly tell them that they're wrong.

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You can actually only be a biblically consistent Christian if you support the death penalty. Again, there are important caveats with regards to what offenses carry that penalty, but that's not the topic of today's video.

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The fact is, pastors who teach what Leon's Crump is teaching here are unfortunately actually accusing

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God's Word of being inconsistent, although I do believe he does so unintentionally. God's Word is pro -life, and his

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Word is also pro -death penalty. To say that these things are inconsistent is to say that the

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Bible is inconsistent. It is to say that God is inconsistent. And that is quite simply unacceptable and untrue.

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We really shouldn't do that. So stay away from this kind of teaching, and pray that Leon's Crump would recant this unbiblical statement and turn to the truth of God's Word.

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Thank you so much for watching. If you liked that video, please like, comment, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell so that you never miss another one.

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And until next time, fight for truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open. Thank you and God bless.