The Timing of the New Law)

We are almost at the close of this study, and I wanted to address a few loose ends that I noticed while making my edits.

The first loose end comes from my last post, where I explained that after the sacrifice of Jesus, the deserved death penalty for our sins was carried out in him, making it possible for us to receive mercy instead. We see this shift first take place with the woman taken in adultery, whom Jesus chose not to condemn.

This does raise a question, though. If Jesus refrained from condemning the woman taken in adultery, in spite of the fact that he had not yet been put to death for her crime, then why not do the same for all the Israelites under the Law of Moses? It is clear that his atoning sacrifice redeeming mankind was the plan since long before his mortal ministry. Nearly 700 years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah was already prophesying that Jesus would be “wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities,” that “the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed,” (Isaiah 53:5). Even as Isaiah prophesied of the planned sacrifice, why did he have to live in a time where people were still put to death for their own sins?

Admittedly, I do not have a definitive answer to that. I cannot think of a passage that explains exactly why. I only have conjecture. The one thing that does come to mind, though, is that having a body to commit to the ultimate sacrifice might be the key here. When Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan, he was committing body and spirit to his Father’s will, whereas before his earthly ministry he could only commit his spirit. In that baptismal moment, he was formally pledging that his body would fulfill the work God had for it, even to be used to bear the weight of every sin. Again, this is complete conjecture, but perhaps it was that bodily pledge that was necessary before Jesus could defer punishment for the woman. Perhaps he first had to take on the flesh in order to excuse the flesh. If that is not the correct answer, no matter, I trust that in the eternal scheme there is another.

Death Penalties Still Occurred)

Also, I have made the point that the Christian movement did away with death penalties, due to this understanding of Christ’s substituting sacrifice. But I must acknowledge that people were still put to death under Christian nations for sins against God’s law. Massachusetts Bay in the mid 17th century had capital laws for adultery, homosexuality, and blasphemy. England at various times would execute people for all kinds of theft. The Holy Roman Empire even consigned to death those who were rebaptized into other Christian denominations like the Anabaptists.

To this I would make two points. One is that Christian discipleship is a process of improvement, not an immediate and full correction. Looking throughout history, I believe that I see the Christian ideal emerging over time. There have been many un-Christian policies enacted by Christian nations, but when these policies were abolished, it was typically done by explicit appeals to Christian conscience. An example of this is slavery. It was practiced universally, including among Christian nations, who should have known better since they had passages like Galatians 3:28: “there is neither bond nor free, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” But while Christian nations held on to this practice, many among their ranks (Wilberforce, Newton, and the entire Quaker collective to name a few) recognized the discrepancy and advocated against slavery in the name of Christian principle. The application of the death penalty for the above-mentioned sins seems to have followed the same route.

The other point I would make is that we do live in a time where there is a difference between Christian principle and national law. Penalties are not exclusively determined by moral principle. Sometimes penalties are enhanced to curb rampant behaviors and lessened when public sentiment shifts. This raises a question well worth studying: is it appropriate for a government to “crack down” on bad behavior with capital punishments, or in an ideal world would penalties reflect the Christian principle exactly? That question goes beyond the scope of this study and actually leads directly to the third loose end that I need to address.

Just What is the Christian Principle?)

Part of the reason why Christian nations have changed over the years is because not everything is spelled out for us in the scriptures. We have been left to our evolving interpretation of Christian doctrine. The fact is, Jesus never actually said that he was deferring the death penalty for all adulterers. Was that his will, or did he only meant it for select cases?

And if Jesus did mean to generally delay the death penalty for all adulterers, does it follow that he meant that for every mortal sin? Most people would agree that the killing of another person is worse than adultery, did Jesus mean to imply that murderers should also be spared a death penalty?

Or maybe Jesus actually did spell this all out in exhaustive detail. John concludes his gospel by saying that we don’t begin to have an entire record of all that Jesus did: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written,” (John 21:25).

But perhaps Jesus meant for us to derive the unwritten things from the Holy Ghost. He said, “The Holy Ghost, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you,” (John 14:26).

Throughout this study I feel I have given credible explanation as to why God had the death penalty for certain sins, why that was justified, and why Jesus could adjust those penalties without cancelling them. But when we get down to specifics like “so should any sins still be answered by death?” I do not know the answer. I have my leanings and my assumptions, but I am relying on the Holy Ghost to correct me until all things are made plain.