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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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