I've often heard of this topic talked about. It's about the death penalty and whether or not it's good thing. Why not? With capital punishment, the world would be down a few more serial killers, and people would be able to sleep a little more soundly at night. Plus, lethal injection isn't a harsh or cruel punishment. Putting dangerous criminals in prison for life is just too expensive, and capital punishment would be the cheaper route. Statistically speaking most serial killers and other criminals do have some sort of mental disorder and most of the time these disorders are very hard, sometimes impossible, to break. So a lot of times we see capital punishment as the easiest, most efficient way to deal with the problem, and it really is. The statistics don't lie, and technically the world would be a better place if serial killers were just gone. The only thing is while we can be pro-death penalty, we must remember that people on death row are not past the point of redemption.
I remember going through the book of Leviticus and reading about all the various laws and how most of the penalties for the law was death. Sometimes we forget that the our sin does demand consequence and that consequence is death. Believe it or not capital punishment in principle is biblical. I'm not someone who can buck the system and demand that capital punishment should be done away with and I'm not saying we fight against it. For one the laws of our country tolerate it. Plus this debate on capital punishment isn't just political argument, it's a deep spiritual issue and it does not only involve human life, but a soul. Instead of focusing on fighting for a person's life, we should fight for their soul. In that maybe we can't save their flesh, we can certainly try, but maybe Jesus can change their heart. If we truly believe in the saving power of Jesus, we have to believe that Jesus doesn't only save liars and selfish people, but we have to believe that He has the power to wipe away the sins of serial killers and rapists.
We must not say that a person on death row is past the point of saving, because that would imply that to ourselves as well. If you look at Paul in the Bible, he was the equivalent to someone who was a terrorist. He purposely hunted down Christians and tortured them and killed them. According to God's divine justice Paul and the rest of us flawed people should pay the price for our sins, in eternal death. However, God transformed him into one of the greatest evangelists who also wrote over half the New Testament. If you look at King David, he was even worse. He took a man's wife, slept with her, and then sent her husband to the front lines to be killed in order that David wouldn't have to deal with the repercussions. The Bible is full of people who have done terrible things, things that us Christians today would deem as "big sins," but we have to believe that the love of Jesus is powerful enough to redeem every sin.
