Steve Bezner

Teaching Pastor

First Baptist Church

Kaufman, Texas


Ten Thoughts on Jesus and the Death Penalty


  1. Secular arguments against the death penalty: racially charged, innocent people are killed, doesn’t work as a deterrent…has already been viewed as cruel and unusual in the case of underage children and mentally handicapped people. Not too far to imagine that if it’s cruel and unusual for them, then it could be cruel and unusual for these as well.

  2. Typical Christian arguments against ending life prematurely: life is sacred; in end of life issues God is sovereign.

  3. Jesus is the prime example of a capital punishment system gone awry. He was innocent, yet He was killed anyway. If one innocent person has been killed by the system, then the system should be disbanded, particularly when there are other alternatives. See the Pope John Paul II’s comment on this issue.

  4. Capital punishment contributes one step further to the culture of death. Abortion, euthanasia, murder, and the like are all part of that culture, and the death penalty simply exacerbates and continues that cycle. As a Christian, I feel the call to attempt to end that cycle.

  5. Punishment of revenge. In at least one case, the family was personally asked if they wanted to pursue the death penalty. In that moment, the death penalty becomes an act of revenge for personal motives, not an act of some “state.” Given Jesus’ commands in the Sermon on the Mount, we surely cannot embrace any thought of revenge in our punishment.

  6. Jesus has turned “eye for eye” thinking on its head. No longer are we to abide by such thinking. We are instead to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

  7. Justice is not a superior value or a reason to shed blood for a crime. When Jesus died on the cross, the need for the shedding of blood to receive justice ended. Those who cry out for blood essentially say that the death of Jesus was not enough to satisfy the justice of God. God’s justice has been satisfied by the death of Jesus on the cross.

  8. Ending a criminal’s life prematurely sends them directly to Hell. How can Christians, who are supposed to pray and evangelize those toward the gospel of Jesus do such a thing? How can we argue for such a system?

  9. The church is God’s chosen institution. Its values are superior to those of the government. That’s why we oppose abortion. The values of the church supercede those of the government. When Paul wrote Romans 13, he wrote in a world where no Christians were in power. He is contrasting a church ethic with a secular pagan ethic. He would never imagine believers in power executing in the name of peace. If the values of the church conflict with the values of the government, Christians should choose those of the church every time.

  10. There is no area of life that is outside of God’s domain. As a result, Christians have the responsibility to pursue their values wherever they are. A Christian in political power is bound to rule as Jesus would want them to. And Jesus turned revenge on its head.