The Death Penalty and Penalty Substitution

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio. Oh, we are going to speak in German today.

Yeah, I have a horrible German accent, but when I listen to German preachers,

I can sometimes figure out what they�re saying as long as I know what the passage is. You mean when they�re reading the

Scripture or when they�re talking? No, when they say words like grace or forgiven or� Or justification. Do they say a

Y there, like other languages? Yeah. I don�t know. I don�t know.

Okay. They probably would, though, because it�s �ja.� I remember it was a German class and this girl says, the teacher asked her a question, and she says, �Ja ?�

We just start laughing. I thought it was like a Holly Selassie class or something, �Ja

Por Vida. We�ve gone from German to Espanol now. We�re going through Christian Liberty.

Oh, I like that. Yeah, well, I figured you might, so� I like that. Yeah, we�re done talking about the confessions.

talking about the law, we've moved on to Christian liberty. Now, off air, you were talking a little bit about death penalties and things like that.

Let's talk some today about death penalties, and I go back to Genesis 1 and 2, and you think about how

God makes man in his image, and man is able to bear that image.

And then He gives, in Genesis 9, after the flood, these words,

Behold, I establish, this is God to Noah and his sons, Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, livestock, every beast of the earth that is with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth,

I will establish my covenant with you that all flesh shall be cut off by the waters of the flood, shall never again there be a flood to destroy it.

But it's fascinating to me, because just before that, He says, this is what I was really after, but I looked at the wrong verse.

It says, verse 5, And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning, from every beast

I will require it, and from man, from his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of a man, whoever sheds the blood of a man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

And so, when you read those verses, what's your take on practical application, implication?

How do you feel about that? What do those verses mean to you, Steve? How do I feel? What do they mean?

Well, I mean, what do they mean to Moses? You know, what do they mean to Noah? The basic, the thrust of it is, if somebody commits murder, then they are to be put to death.

And, you know, I was just telling you off air that a man in Tennessee was put to death here yesterday,

I would venture to say, after waiting 35 years on death row, you know, for all of his appeals and everything else to be run out, 35 years.

And I just thought, okay, that is insane, because he's gotten to live so much life.

And that's just not, that is not justice. Justice delayed is justice denied. And it says something about how we value human life, that we won't take it.

And people say, oh, no. What it really shows, the fact that we've done away with the death penalty is that we're more enlightened.

And we think that human life is valuable. No, you don't. Because if you really understood the heinousness of what has gone on, you would put those people to death because they deserve it.

And Steve, what does it do to other people then who are considering those crimes?

Here's what it does, Ecclesiastes 8 .11, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

And if you want the NIV, when the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the people's hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong.

What does the message say? You know, we did that show in the message, and we did it a couple weeks before Eugene Peterson died.

And then the day that he died, I think that show dropped when we were blasting the message.

Wow. I know. I've got the Jubilee Bible 2000 here. I've read so many marvelous things about, you know,

Eugene Peterson after he died, you know, where people were just testifying about how wonderful he was.

And I'm like, well, his translation of the Bible wasn't so great. So... I know. You know what? It doesn't say it here.

We've got the Jewish Tanakh. We've got the... Oh, here's a new Bible I never knew existed, the

Newhart English Bible. Really? Bob Newhart? The other thing

I find fascinating is you kind of parse out 9 -6, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.

Even there, not just saying, since you're an image bearer, if you take away an image bearer's life, you, an image bearer, will be punished.

But here, you can see the flicker of the state, man, society, the elders.

By man shall his blood be shed. These men who are in charge, they have the ability now to execute people.

It's capital punishment. Not just Romans 13, but this is a flicker of that Romans 13. I know where you're turning.

No. And I wanted to turn to Romans 13 because it's interesting to me, you know, as you were reading, I was like, because it says, you know, it doesn't, the state, the government, well,

I'll just read it. Let every person be subject to governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God.

And those, in other words, that God establishes government, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Therefore, everyone who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed. And those who resist it, or who resist will incur judgment, says something about the movement.

Anyway, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval.

Let me see. Okay. Down to verse 4, be afraid for he does not bear, talking about the government, the agent of government, for he does not bear the sword in vain.

For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

He doesn't carry the sword for nothing. There's a reason that he carries it, and it's to bring out

God's vengeance upon those who do wrong. And so, when we wait 35 years to do that, ultimately,

I think there's a mockery of God involved in that and what he has said. Steve, it's amazing to me that it even happened, because five years goes into 10 and the appeals, and then the new governor, and then the more liberal governor, and then back and forth and all these things, that they even can't do it anymore.

I mean, we do not have the stomach for capital punishment because we…I don't know why…that's a good question.

Why do you think we no longer have the stomach for capital punishment? Is it because, well, we found two out of every hundred

DNA doesn't match, so people have been wrongly convicted and wrongly murdered? Right.

So, there's that. But I think, you know, and I'm going, okay, well, let's not do the death penalty when, you know, it's not only beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond certainty, right, that the person may or may not have done it.

But like I was just reading about a case here earlier, actually, I couldn't even stomach reading it, where a mother primarily, but also the father of this baby, just left this baby in this chair until the baby eventually died.

I mean, we're talking about a long time. And, you know,

I read it, and just even considering it, I just would get more and more viscerally upset because who could do this to a little child, right?

And these kind of things are done, and we ask ourselves, well, where is the justice? And there is no justice if we're not willing, the worst criminals, the worst kind of crimes, when we're not willing to say we know who did it, there's no doubt about who did it.

The jury convicts the person, the person is sentenced to death, and then we go on for years, well, because maybe they were psychologically, you know, incapable of this, that, the other thing, and it goes on for years and years and years.

No, that is not justice. That is, for the little ones who died, for the little ones who suffered, that is not justice.

That is not what they deserve. Steve, when we look at Genesis 6, 7, and 8 with the flood, a worldwide flood, a flood that killed every person,

I think pretty much by capital punishment, this is what these wicked people, remember, every thought and intention of their hearts was only evil continually, and so God could have wiped out everybody,

Noah deserved two, but you've got eight people in that ark, safe and secure, done by the grace of God.

Noah found favor in the eyes of God. Now this God who has executed capital punishment on sinful people,

He now says, you men have the ability to do it, and you must do it when someone murders.

We're not talking about, you know, like you said, there's second degree and third degree, and there's killing people in a war.

We're talking about premeditated murder. You should be killed. Right. And, you know,

I'm all for all the arguments about, well, what about this? What about that? But like I said, when there is no doubt, and I can name crimes that were so heinous and so gruesome and so grotesque that literally there should have been a trial on Friday, a sentencing on Saturday, a hanging, you know, on Saturday afternoon and a burial on Sunday.

I mean, just that fast. And I don't understand how we've so lost the concept of justice in our society.

I mean, justice is just, we hear about social justice and justice for this and justice for that, but at its baseline, what is more basic than I have the right to live, right?

And for somebody to take that away with malice aforethought and then to not be punished for three or four decades, where's the justice in that?

Does California have the death penalty still? Nominally. They just don't. It just hasn't happened.

Right. I think there was somebody maybe executed under Schwarzenegger, but that was the last time. Okay. Now, I don't know the answer to this, but I'm just trying to think backwards, backwardly, retrogressively.

How about this, Steve, for a possibility? People hate the death penalty, and they despise it.

A vast number of people in America, you know, Democrats, liberals, etc., a lot of Republicans too, because does it have anything to do with the only hope for salvation is through the death penalty?

Capital punishment, Jesus dies on behalf of others. And we have the way the state kills the

Lord Jesus, and people cannot stomach the death penalty. How, therefore, could they then stomach salvation through the death penalty, penalty substitution?

Is this a satanic kind of thwarting? I don't know. I mean, that's an interesting theory.

I mean, that they hate that concept so much that salvation is only available through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, that they then hate the death penalty too.

I don't know. I think it's, you know, that it makes them feel better about themselves, because when we talk about the death penalty, it means that we as a society have to approve the putting to death of people.

And so, that's exercising judgment upon them and deciding that their lives are not worth, you know, saving.

So, I think it's more like, you know, not wanting to participate in the death of somebody else.

And here's what I would argue, that by the way, if you are against the death penalty, you are in favor of, or you did participate in the death of someone else.

It's the person that other one killed. That's exactly right, because you're not willing to see them punished. Oh, but, you know, being in prison for the rest of their life and having to think about what they did as punishment, well,

A, no, it's not. It doesn't even come close to what the other person suffered.

I mean, the loss of being able to have kids or whatever the situation was with that other person's life, but leaving that alone and then looking at the relative luxury that they have in prison.

But besides that, actually, every day, two things are true. One is that they've actually gotten away with it because they're not being punished.

But secondly, the guards, the prison guards, every day go in there with people who have nothing to lose, right?

Because they're never getting out of prison, theoretically. They're never getting out of prison. And do you know what those people that are there in prison who have nothing to lose do?

Well, they attack those guards. They throw things at them. They stab them. They do all kinds of things to them.

And you say, well, they get paid a lot of money. No, not enough. Could you get paid enough to get feces thrown on you, to get blood thrown on you, to get urine thrown at you, to get stabbed, to have somebody try to kill you?

I don't think you probably could. Mike Aventroth with Steve Cooley. We are pastors here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

If you want to hear sermons, Sunday school lessons, IBS classes, and other classes, bbcchurch .org.

Jonathan and Linton and Josh have put together a great search engine, and you just type in any subject, death penalty, you can probably find sermons on that.

Baseball, almost anything. Baseball, by the way, for us in Boston, has been very, very good to us.

It's been very, very good. Let's talk about the death penalty a little bit more. 1

Corinthians 1, Paul is talking about the offense of the cross.

And he says in verse 2, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Now, here's the thing, Steve, for many, many years, here's what I thought Paul was saying. When I come to a town,

I already had made the predetermined plan, and I, you know, buttressed myself against any other option.

I knew what I was going to talk about. I was going to talk about Jesus Christ, that is His person, and His crucifixion, that is

His work. Because, Steve, I was wondering why it doesn't say resurrection. You know, Paul talked about the resurrection so much, in Acts they thought he was preaching to God's Jesus and His female consort, the resurrection.

Well, he's not talking about the resurrection here. And of course, Paul later in chapter 15 will make it very clear that the resurrection is essential.

So, why does he say Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Well, you can take a look at that word and, it's chi in the

Greek, K -A -I is how it looks in English, and that could also be translated even. And so, here's what

I think was happening. Of course, he preached the person and work of Jesus. But he said, listen, I'm going to come to you, and I know you

Greeks, you want to have wisdom, I know you Jews want a sign, but I'm going to give you the most repugnant, offensive,

God -ordained method of salvation, and that is Jesus Christ, even the crucified one.

Nobody wants a crucified Messiah, but that's the one that I predetermined to give you.

Well, and I think that's consistent even, you know, with the earlier context. Right, chapter 1.

Where he says, you know, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

Yeah, so I think it's very consistent with what he said there in chapter 1.

Verse 23 of chapter 1, but we preach Christ crucified. See, Jews demand signs,

Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach, ongoing, present tense, Christ crucified.

Now, he could have said Christ resurrected. I mean, that would have been offensive to people, right, the

Greek people, and what about the body, and it's, you know, hule, and it's, you know, it's a tomb and body's bad and soul's good.

But he just goes all the way, because this is what offends both people, the Messiah who's not going to smash

Rome and start a kingdom, the Messiah that's going to first do the cross and then the crown.

It's going to be suffering first, then the glory, and this is the God that I preach to you, and He's crucified.

And I think too often, Steve, we're too close to the crucifixion, and we have it around our neck, and we think about the cross all the time, but that was like the worst form of death penalty they could come up with in those days.

Well, the idea that He would be, that this crucified

Jesus would be the key to salvation, they just hear that, and they go, well, that's just about the stupidest thing

I've ever heard. In fact, I just, you know, I have, sadly, I have some atheist friends, and one of them posted something the other day, and I responded to it, and, you know, all of his atheist friends, one of them actually said, and I had to unplug from the conversation at this point, because one of them actually said that Jesus didn't exist.

And I'm like, okay, now we're just, you know, we're getting to stupid, you know, stupidville here.

Well, then did anybody exist? I mean, how do we know, you know, Caesar existed? There's more verifiable evidence that Jesus, the person, existed than Julius Caesar.

All sorts of historical figures that nobody wants to argue about. And, you know, if you just look at it from a rational perspective, you just say, okay, these men, these 12 apostles, well, take away

Judas, but throw in Paul and Barnabas, and all these men willing to devote their lives and actually give their lives for somebody who never existed.

Wow. That's pretty amazing. Anyway, oh,

I know what I was going to say. If we thought, well, how do you get killed by capital punishment these days?

Does anybody go in the gas chamber anymore? I'm trying to think of the last time. I don't even know.

No, because usually it's by lethal injection, and they don't do hanging.

I think Utah brought back the firing squad. I don't know if they're still doing that. They were doing it several years ago, and I hope that, you know...

But I'm like, what's wrong with hanging when you think about, oh, it's too mean compared to what the guy did?

I know. Well, the other day I was listening to what happens to a body when it's hung, and it's pretty bad.

Some things I can't even talk about on the radio. What about like the electric chair?

Can you imagine being shocked? And when I was in... and I'm not trying to make light of it, but when I was in college, we were poor, and it was 1978, and we had this little contraption you could plug in, and you put a hot dog in between the two, and it makes a connection now, and it just burns the hot dog from the inside out.

And that's what you're doing. You're just frying these people. It's like putting them in a microwave and turning it on, and lethal injection and hanging and all these other things.

Can you imagine if we just thought, well, let's start a religion? And, you know, it'd be a lot easier to say, let's start a religion where you can have as many wives as you want and as much celestial sex as you want.

I can see how people follow that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But let's start this. You know what?

There's going to be this really holy man who never did anything wrong, and he is going to be killed in an electric chair, and he'll come back to life.

And if you just believe in that death by electric chair and then resurrection, you're going to get to go to heaven.

It sounds weird. And there'd be so many problems with that. First of all, you know, all anybody would have to do to blow up your religion is produce the body, right?

I mean, that's step number one. Step number two, you know how hard it is to keep people quiet on a conspiracy?

The more people who know, the more likely it is that somebody is going to blab the truth or leak the truth or something, and it all blows up, right?

Steve, they've got that thing about the lunar module and landing on the moon and how many people were involved in the different steps to get those men around the orbit and some over the years to step on the moon.

And it was something like 40 ,000 people were involved. And how do you keep 40 ,000 blabbing people quiet if it's a conspiracy?

Well, or like the World Trade Center, you know, they say that's a conspiracy, and all the people in the airplane were relocated and everything like that.

And I'm like, okay, but there were even some like semi -famous people and all of a sudden they just, you know, their spouses no longer have a, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And you go, you really believe that hundreds, thousands of people could all keep a secret and nobody ever, you know, their kids and everything, they never told a soul afterwards.

It's lunacy. So getting back to the Bible, you just think, okay, if the Bible says that hundreds of people saw the resurrected

Christ, you ever think that, you know, if it was all a lie, that there wouldn't have been just one who said, well, you know, it was a good story or, you know, when we got done with the peyote, you know, or whatever, you know.

Steve, I think Paul even appeals to that. It says that in 1 Corinthians 15, later in this great book, he said, he appeared,

Jesus did to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. And then now listen to this line, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Hey, listen, you don't believe it? Paul Go ask them. Steve They're walking around. Probably some have made their way to Corinth, some are down in Athens, some stayed in Jerusalem, some are in Rome.

They're still alive. Paul Go ask them. You know, I mean, talk about Jehovah's Witnesses, right? I mean, they're...

Paul It should be Yahweh, but, you know, the point is actual living witnesses.

Steve By the way, if a Jehovah's Witness ever comes to your door and says, the word Trinity is not in the Bible, just tell them the word

Jehovah's not in the Bible, Bible's not in the Bible, no English words in the Bible. Steve The New World Translation is definitely not in the

Bible. Paul Well, after you do that, then you should ask them, do you have any good news for me?

I've done that before. I've been mean, I've been rude, I've preached. I've also said when they've given me law,

I've said, you know, I've tried that, and I just still keep sinning. I can't do it. Do you have any good news for me?

I just, I'm not able to do those things. Steve And they don't get it, because they have no good news whatsoever.

The only good news is in the life, death, resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul And I said that to the lady in front of her daughter, and I said to the daughter, you know what?

No, granddaughter, your grandma's telling you the way to go to hell, and if you don't believe in the real Jesus, who's the

God of the universe who made you, you're going to go to hell, you and your grandma. They left. Steve What? They didn't stick around for more?

Paul Please, pastor, please tell us more about this hell of which you speak. Steve No wonder they don't believe in hell.

I don't think they do, do they? Paul Who wants to believe in hell? Steve I know. Paul All right, Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio.

If you've got an idea for a show, keep it to yourself. We'll do anything, even the death penalty.