Yes, it's great that you're asking these questions and thinking hard but it's always good to first consult the Bible to see what God has to say. If your views don't line up, guess what? It's not God's views that need to change.
We're not trying to pretend that we're blameless, we're not because God's Truth is offensive to our sinful, fallen natures but God's grace (which he provides) in Christ, clothes us with righteousness. He gives us the Holy Spirit to guide, encourage, support, challenge and help us become more like Him.

While I believe in loving justice and mercy, what right do we have to take another's life? Only God has that right. Otherwise you're going to run the risks of having any complete nutter justify their actions by saying 'God told them to do it'. Don't we already have enough examples of people interpreting the Bible incorrectly and using it to gain power, or at the very least, push their preference in something? I think that if you're a Christian and you view life as sacred, all life should be considered sacred. If you're pro-life that should be in all respects, not just when it concerns unborn babies.

Thank you! You have no idea how fiercely some professing Christians cling to the inconsistencies in their positions on life.

There is a tendency to issue justice not based on justice for its own sake but rather justice that is based on the perceived worthiness of the victim to receive it. One obvious example is that when a blue-eyed blonde goes missing it makes international news, but when a Black teenager is killed people say, "oh, not that again, not another one." When a policeman is killed, people call for the blood of the perpetrator, but when that same man kills his battered wife, people ask, "well, what did she do? He's a model employee and a deacon of the church. Why was she the only one who had a problem with him? And if he really was so awful, why didn't she leave him?" (Note: the correct answer to "why doesn't she just leave him?" is: "why does he beat her?") Justice based on the perceived worthiness of the victim to receive justice is human, but that doesn't make it right. Humans love to rank their crimes and say, "Well, at least I don't do that."

I've been working on something for a while which has made me pick up a few Jewish books to learn more about the culture that Jesus grew up in. One of the ways in which Christians twist Scripture to get something they want is through the modern death penalty. I always felt loathing toward the death penalty but couldn't express it in a way that would stand up to hard-core adherents. Too often Christians who argue about Jewish law do it like this:

"The Old Testament has a death penalty so we should get one too."

"So, you don't have meat and milk at the same meal? You don't wear wool and linen together?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Those don't apply to us."

"How did you pick what is still binding on Christians?"

"Shut up!"

Yeah, that's letting the light shine.

Now, the New Testament tells us about a challenge to the early Church. At first only Jewish believers were Christians. Then Peter and Paul were sent to the houses of Gentiles, after which it became mostly Paul's territory. Some Christians believed that Gentiles had to become Jewish in order to become Christian. Paul's faction won. Gentiles did not have to become Jewish. Acts 15 records James making a gracious concession speech. However the book of Galatians tells us that it didn't end there. Some groups kept insisting that Gentiles had to become Jewish, and that only these groups could help them to do so. It was a power grab and got very ugly. Paul cussed them out real good (using a lot of G-rated curses, no doubt) and repeated that Gentiles did not have to worry about Jewish things. A few years later the people of Judea were attacked, many killed by the Romans. The Church became mostly Gentile, as it is to this day.

This generated yet another problem. Not only are most Christians ignorant of the Jewish roots of the plan of salvation, many Christians seem to take pride in that ignorance. There's a difference between not knowing enough to know what questions to ask, and knowing that one does not want to ask the questions. The New Testament isn't the only Testament that Christians like to grab a verse from and then apply it in whatever way seems good to them regardless of intent or context. The death penalty is one of those stolen verses. Even "an eye for an eye" is a stolen verse. Example:

If one could speak of biblical verses as being vilified, then “an eye for an eye” would be the most vilified verse in the Bible. It is commonly cited to “prove” the existence of an “Old Testament” ethic of vengefulness, and then contrasted with the New Testament’s supposedly higher ethic of forgiveness ….

In actuality, the biblical standard of “an eye for an eye” stood in stark contrast to the legal standards prevailing in the societies that surrounded the ancient Hebrews …. “an eye for an eye” also served to limit vengeance; it did not permit “a life for an eye” or even “two eyes for an eye.” The operative biblical principle was that punishment must be commensurate with the deed, not exceed it ….

In the time of the Talmud, “an eye for an eye” was not carried out literally, and Orthodox Jewish scholars teach that it was never practiced. The Talmud’s rabbis feared that the very process of removing the perpetrator’s eye might kill him as well, and that, of course would be forbidden (Baba Kamma 84a). “An eye for an eye” was therefore understood as requiring monetary compensation equivalent to the value of an eye. The same understanding was applied to almost all the other punishments in the same biblical verse …

--from Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy

As to the death penalty, I've checked Telushkin's Jewish Literacy, George Robinson's Essential Torah, Robinson's Essential Judaism, and even an "ask the online rabbi" column (here). They all say the same thing. Here's the short (!) version:

To get a death penalty verdict in Judaism:

Step 1. The perpetrator (hereinafter referred to as Bad Guy because my fingers hurt) tells a minimum of two eyewitnesses that he intends to do Crime X, where Crime X according to some verse in Torah qualifies for death.

Step 2. The minimum of 2 eyewitnesses have to explain to Bad Guy that Crime X is a death penalty offense and he shouldn't do it.

Step 3. Bad Guy says that he had heard them and understands fully, but he still intends to do Crime X.

Step 4. The minimum of 2 eyewitnesses must see Bad Guy perform Crime X. All of it.

Step 5. Bad Guy is charged with having performed Crime X and goes to trial. Conviction is easy (relatively speaking); sentencing is hard. Bad Guy can get off on the smallest technicality -- and if the eyewitnesses left to get the police (and therefore didn't see it), or stayed (and therefore didn't get the police), or they didn't explain the situation well enough, those are all more than "small" technicalities. If there were less than two eyewitnesses, it is not possible to get a death penalty sentence. The Bad Guy could be standing over the corpse with the weapon in his hand, insisting that he did it, and it doesn't count toward a death penalty. Toward a conviction, yes. The CSI/NCIS/Law & Order evidence-gatherers can testify, yes. That counts toward conviction. But without two eyewitnesses, you can't get a death-penalty sentence.

Step 6-A. Bad Guy is convicted of having done Crime X. (Like we said, that part was the easy part.) Now begins the deliberation for sentencing. But there are steps the court has to take within itself.

Step 6-B. The court must be a sitting Sanhedrin. No lesser judge or court can deliberate on the death-penalty sentence. A Sanhedrin requires a minimum of 23 judges. It must be based in Jerusalem. It draws its authority from a standing and operating Jewish Temple. No Temple, no authority to seat a Sanhedrin. This is why the State of Israel doesn't have a death penalty. They can't seat any judges without a functioning Temple. That's the law (the Law).

Step 6-C. Assuming the trial takes place during First Temple or Second Temple eras, there is a wonderful Catch-22. As Essential Judaism phrases it: "in the legal system of the time, the judges served as both prosecuting and defending attorneys, so if a unanimous decision came down from the court it was considered as if the defendant had not been provided with counsel." So by definition when the court called for death, the sentence had to be thrown out. If Bad Guy's own counsel voted against him, then Bad Guy did not get adequate legal representation.

Step 7. As a result, sentences were commuted to prison.

Now, if a court decided to put someone to death anyway, Judaism had intense debate as to how to do it. The rule was that it could not be a prolonged or cruel death, and it could not disfigure the body. They soon figured out that even stoning disqualifies for both even though "stoning" is the word that's in the Torah. Stoning disfigures and it can take a long time to die. Which is why tossing people from a high place became the recommended way to do it: stoning by way of impact. There was a lot of math to it, though. Too short a drop, the victim was not killed on impact. Too high a drop, the body became strawberry jam and disrespect was done to a person created in the image of the Eternal One. Crucifixion was banned, banned, extremely banned for violating all of these requirements.

(The more I learn about Judaism's approach to the death penalty, the more I understand about Jesus' own trial. The average Gentile already knows about some improper dealings: the trial at night without defenders like Nicodemus & Joseph of Arimathea, for example. But by learning more we get the improprieties of no counsel, of "witnesses! We don't need no stinkin witnesses!" and of the business of farming out the sentencing to the Romans when they had a perfectly good cliff to toss Jesus from.)

(EDIT: Also, when the authorities claimed they "had" to hand Jesus to the Romans because "it is not lawful for us to put a man to death" [John 18:31], that was not quite a sticking point either. As we saw in John 8:59, John 10:31-33, and Luke 4:29, people were willing to kill Jesus regardless of the Romans. The business about "having" to hand him over to Pilate was about Jesus becoming a sacrifice for the people [John 11:50-51].)

The result was that the death penalty was listed in Torah but was put in Torah in a way that made it essentially impossible to implement. About 200 years before Jesus was born, Rabbi Akiva said that a court that put someone to death more often than once every seven years should come under review for being excessively bloodthirsty. So that was the standard of the court in Jesus' day. In the year 1200 or so, the wisdom of Judaism said that a court should be considered excessively bloodthirsty if it put someone to death more often than once every seventy years. At this point Rabbis Rashi and Tarfon stood up and said that if they had been on a Sanhedrin, then no one ever would have been put to death.

Yes, Virginia, there is a death penalty mentioned in Torah. But it was put there to teach the Children of Israel respect for human life. They had come from Egypt where their lives were held cheap, and they had to learn otherwise. So the words "stone so-and-so for doing this-n-that" were in there -- but once the people opened the instructions to figure out how to put it together, they found that they couldn't do it. They did, however, come to appreciate the elegance of the puzzle. In the process, they learned not to take human life, realizing that this was for God alone.

So when Western Christians promote the death penalty on the grounds that “Judaism did it,” they are in error. If they want to do it the way it was done in Torah, they'd have to wait for the Jewish people build a Jewish Temple, wait for a Sanhedrin to be seated, and then surrender the Bad Guy, the eyewitnesses, the evidence, and all sovereignty over the case to the Sanhedrin, and then live with its decision, which would be a prison sentence. Would the "hang-em-high" crowd put away their existing programs of the death penalty and do it the real, actual Biblical way? I'm guessing that won't happen.

When Christians promote the death penalty, they should know that the death penalty as practiced by modern nation-states and cultures has nothing to do with either the Old Testament or with Judaism and cannot be justified by an appeal to either the Old Testament or to Judaism. Rather, the death penalty as practiced by Western cultures is a secular custom of the state as inherited from Greco-Roman mores and customs and modified by English law.

...

Whew! That was a lot of work but it was worth it. (I hope!)

Wagga. We need to remember that we see through the eyes of fallable humanity. It is God who judges, and dispences Grace. If a sinner repents, no matter how foul there sin by "our" standards, God can still forgive.

The Old Maid.
Ok I am not about to question how you came up with all the "qualifiers" for a death penalty under Mosaic Law. Honestly, I can only remember the part about the two, or more witnesses being needed for a guilty verdict.

I admit, I am struggling with this issue myself. I know that God did allow for the death penalty. But I know of too many cases where the law was abused, and an innocent was executed.
Unfortunatly the very sinfulness of man that sends the innocent to the gallows can also twist the law to the point where even known, unrepentent murderers have been released, only to kill again.
Easy answers? I do not think there are any.

This is a modly nudge to remember that politics is a banned subject on NarniaWeb. While religion and philosophy and politics brush shoulders often in debating/discussions, the purpose of this thread is not to ascertain how religion affect our politics, but to discuss religion/philosophy itself. Politics remains a banned subject.

Meanwhile, Minotaur, please read the responses from Warrior, Glenstorm and ThePendragon about the absolute righteousness about how God has decided to run the universe He made. It gives us God's perspective on the matters of justice and holiness. God will not seem nearly so amazing to us, and our love for Him and desire to serve Him will never be truly heartfelt and real, until we see exactly as He wants us to see: our sins, disgusting in His sight, and Himself, all the more glorious and amazing for having died to save His people. We can't get to the Good News without also talking about the bad news. And remember again: the standard is not someone else here on Earth (I'm not as bad as XYZ), but Himself.

Thank you, and thank you to everybody else for replying. I have broken some of the commandments which makes me a sinner. I can understand the reasoning behind that I'm in the same boat as everybody else.

Yes, it's great that you're asking these questions and thinking hard but it's always good to first consult the Bible to see what God has to say. If your views don't line up, guess what? It's not God's views that need to change.

I took your advice, and opened up the Bible to see what God has to say.

"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'." (John 14:6).

"If we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8).

To me, the verses point in a very clear direction - you need to find Jesus, or you're doomed. The thing I really don't like about it is that it leaves no room for the poor individuals through out history who never even heard of Jesus.

When Jesus came down to Earth, he did God's work in a miniscule part of world. North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa were all pretty much left to learn about the Gospel later - Jesus worked exclusively in the Middle East.

It's easy to rationalize the situation today, because missionaries have been able to expose almost all of the world to Christianity. But in the grand scheme of history, Christians are a pretty tight group. All the other thousands of religions out there - many isolated from outside contact - are, according to the Bible, cursed.

"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation." (Romans 10:9-10).

I can understand that the heart is what believes in righteousness. But this verse seems to say that it is only possible to receive salvation by confessing that Jesus is Lord. So all the people who never had this opportunity are just done out of luck, I suppose.

I am well aware that 3 of the Bible verses I quoted are not the words of God himself, but that of humans writing about God later But does that make them more invalid than actual quotes by Jesus? The possibility that some parts of the Bible are more "correct" than others would puzzle me.

Maybe I'm just really bad at interpreting the Bible. If I am, I apologize.

Hi again, Minotaur. This is deep, yet practical and world-changing stuff, isn't it? I'm glad you're taking it seriously and looking for answers in the only sure source of God's truth: the Word.

I'll offer some responses to your responses, going point-by-point, but not to write a rebuttal but just to aid in organization. ...

To me, the verses point in a very clear direction - you need to find Jesus, or you're doomed.

True indeed. Yet lest things sound too "negative," I've heard it said very well, based on other Scriptures, that God does not want fear-filled converts as much as tear-filled converts. Jesus talked much about God's wrath upon sinners, how much we have broken God's Law and how holy He is. But once we see how He was willing to die for His people, to take God's punishment in their place, it makes Him all the more amazing. What love! What glorious care for His creation! What an incredible Savior, worthy of all praise and honor forever and ever!

He has solved the seemingly unsolveable problem: how to love His creatures, yet also maintain His perfect holiness. How much more, then, ought people turn to Him to save them from sin, and long for the greatest joy and delight they could ever find: Himself, and His eternity, forever.

The thing I really don't like about it is that it leaves no room for the poor individuals through out history who never even heard of Jesus.

This does sometimes seem unfair. May I suggest keeping in mind that all are sinners, deserving punishment for breaking God's Law, even if they never heard of Jesus? Moreover, God is perfectly just and holy? His decisions are always good, never unfair. He will not hold people to account for unfair reasons. Any punishment is based on what they have done, and yes, there will be degrees of punishment in Hell.

I base that on Matthew 11: 20-24, in which Jesus condemns sinful, unrepentant cities for not believing Him. And He is clear that some will be punished more than others: "But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you" (verse 22).

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. [...] And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If one's name is not written in the Lamb's book of life, that person is cast into eternal punishment. However, the punishment is based on information in other "books," that is "what they had done."

It's easy to rationalize the situation today, because missionaries have been able to expose almost all of the world to Christianity. But in the grand scheme of history, Christians are a pretty tight group. All the other thousands of religions out there - many isolated from outside contact - are, according to the Bible, cursed.

Very true, yes. Also remember: God is sovereign and knows what He's doing, and you are only responsible for what you know about who you are in comparison with Him, His Word and His truth.

Moreover, how much more vital the need for Christians to understand and embrace the Gospel, and motivated by love for the Christ Who saved us, to tell that Gospel to others, while living according to its truths.

I am well aware that 3 of the Bible verses I quoted are not the words of God himself, but that of humans writing about God later But does that make them more invalid than actual quotes by Jesus

Either way, we're reading the words of people who are recording the words of God -- either attributed directly to Jesus (such as Matthew in his gospel) or truths about Christ and His salvation (such as Paul, in the book of Romans). The "words of Jesus in red" printed in some Bibles can be confusing! But Christians -- for many reasons I shan't go into now -- accept all the Bible as God-breathed, literally God speaking to us, though being awesome enough to use human language and written forms.

I hope that helps clarify a vital truth: the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) aren't somehow "more Scripture" than other books, such as Romans, James or Revelation. It's all the same inspired Word, pointing not only to history, songs, records or theology, but God's Story of redemption.

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I have a question that I wanted to put to the NarniaWeb Bible scholars. Does the Bible actually ever state that the revolt in heaven and Lucifer's fall took place before the events of the Garden of Eden? I was thinking about how he seems to have free rein to just wander into heaven in Job like a really annoying neighbor and thought that it seemed odd that God would allow him to do so if the revolt had already taken place.

Bookie -- doesn't say one way or the other. In fact, the only seeming references in Scripture to how the Devil became the Devil might be in a few passages in Ezekiel, but even those mostly focus on a pagan king of the day, with only a secondary application (if that) to the Devil. Evidently God thought it was more important to reveal Himself and His Gospel to people, rather than emphasize the role of Satan (though he certainly has a role).

However, it would certainly seem the Devil's revolt took place before the temptation in the Garden of Eden, after which the Serpent headed to the Garden to tempt the first humans -- and thereby spite God by "ruining" His creation (though God had this in mind all along) and besmirching His image.

I have good reason to speculate that Satan's fall took place between creation in Genesis 1 and the Fall of Genesis 3. In Genesis 1, it says God created everything from Days 1-6 and he called all of it good. When God calls something good, it means perfection and not a hint of blemish or error. We also know from God's character that he cannot create anything contrary to his character, so Satan was not originally created with a tendency for evil. We know Satan is a created being because only God is uncreated. But in the Garden, the serpent was clearly in opposition to God, which means somewhere in between, Satan fell. But sin didn't enter the equation until Adam and Eve did.

So this leaves us with a few questions. Does sin only apply to humans and not to the fallen angelic host? If Satan became evil before sin entered the equation, what does that mean? I do have good reason to speculate that hell was not created for man when he sinned, but for Satan and his demonic host. It was when man fell that we joined Satan on the path to death. It does leave lots of room for speculation and good thought processes.

Hmm I recall from my studies of the Gap Theory a few years ago that some people believe there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, during which Satan fell and rained on the earth 1,000 years, or something like that. It's been awhile, but you may want to look into the Gap Theory, it's interesting if nothing else.

Gap Theory doesn't gel well with Scripture. The base problem is that Death is an unnatural state in the world, and under no circumstances would God have found it as good when He was creating. GT was an attempt to squeeze some man-made ideas into the Creation story so that it would jive with the world we see around us today, but the problem inherent is that nothing like that will work if one tries to force it into the Creation story. God needs no "help" from us in explaining how things work.

Hello all!

I've not stuck my face around the old forums for quiet a long time, however, I came across some interesting theology that just had to be shared.

It's really the first time I've come across these ideas and I think they really stem from a post-modern worldview. Give me your thoughts on them as I personally think they are heresy (even though that is a pretty ugly word). These ideas seem to form one distorted view of a pluralistic Christianity.

1). There is no hell. The word, "hell" in Greek and Hebrew basically means four things: Sheol, Gehenna, Hades and Tataroo. OT Sheol is grave, also used as a metaphor for despair. NT Gehenna is not hell, it was a garbage dump and is now a garden. Hades is grave like sheol is. Tataroo is debatable because it is only used ONCE and IS from greek Mythology, not scripture. Because of these literal meanings there was never actually a real hell. When you die you either cease to exist (annihilationism) or you go to heaven.

2). God saved all mankind whether they accept Him or not. When Jesus died on the cross He died for *everyone's* sins, so they could be forgiven. 1 Timothy 4:10, "For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers." Continued in point 3.

3). You don't have to believe in God because belief is a "work." Romans 5, Ephesians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15. "As in Adam ALL die, So in Christ shall ALL be made alive." Christ did the work for the immortal soul. Something doesn't become a truth because we believe it. We believe it, because it is true.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure that sums it up. Undermine half the Bible by twisting a few teachings and you've got a perfectly good religion in which God saves everyone and there is no punishment for sin. Oh, in case you were wondering, there is no return of Christ. He already came back and we're in the 1000 year reign. Hence no judgment or rapture, etc. Woop-dee-doo!

Oh wow, Eric! You've brought out the big guns.

1). This is so wrong. Hell exists and it's very real. It was compared with Ghenna and Sheol etc. because that was the imagery that best spoke to the people in those times. They could relate to the horribleness of it all and would likely not want to go there.

2). Bah! God offers his grace to all through Jesus Christ but not all accept his grace. Hence, not all people are saved.

3). Belief in God isn't work but an action. Also, that belief, the ability to believe on Christ is not our own doing but God's, through the Holy Spirit. We can't do anything (good) on our own merit.

Hello everyone! I had another question.

Is there a particular scripture that says human beings have free will? I was wondering because I am working on a book about free-will vs. pre-destination, and it would come in handy.
So is there a scripture, or is free-will just something people theorize we have?

I would also love to hear anything anyone has to say about the free-will/pre-destination issue, as it may help me with my writing to hear some viewpoints I haven't heard yet.

P.S. Dr. Elwin Ransom, your signature made me smile as I came to post this. It was just a coincidence that it happened to be the same subject.

~Riella

Eustace+Jill: I don't think people have free will, in regards to Salvation. I've never seen a verse in the Bible that led me to believe so. And this confirms my beliefs

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."[f] 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

ditto everything W4J