Enough is Enough.
We have over 2 million people incarcerated in this country; maybe it’s time to rethink our prison system from a biblical perspective as a form of punishment for criminals. Biblically, should we even leave the form of punishment for crimes up to the discretion of a judge? God’s word not only proscribes crimes, but also gives us the correct form of punishment for these crimes. Restitution was required from a thief. And capital punishment (not simply prison time) was stipulated for only a handful of crimes which were: murder, kidnapping, rape, sodomy, blaspheming God and parents, and adultery, in some cases. Whether CP is still required for adultery, sodomy, and blasphemy is a different (though, not unrelated) discussion for another time.
Christ said in Matthew 5:17-20, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Now, are Christ’s words here set against the Covenant of Grace? Is our self-righteousness really to exceed that of the Pharisees whom Christ spoke so harshly against? Maybe it’s time to reevaluate the popular Evangelical idea that the OT is a Covenant of Works and the NT is a Covenant of Grace. The Pharisees were wrong because they were the ones who were calling God’s covenant a covenant of works, instead of living it out for what it really was, a Covenant of Grace. Our righteousness can only exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees because it is Christ’s righteousness in us. No one was saved or can be saved by a so-called “Covenant of Works;” not Adam and Eve, or Abraham, or Moses, or David, or any Jews today. When God gave the Israelites the law and the prophets, He wasn’t expecting them to make it to Heaven all by their little lonesome. The shedding of blood and the keeping of the dietary laws were outward signs and seals that they were saved only by the outpouring and inward working of God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus brought a better and perfected form and dispensation of that covenant which no longer requires strict dietary laws and animal sacrifice. Instead, we have Baptism and the taking of the Sacraments as the signs and seals of the covenant, and a more encompassing, perfected outworking of that covenant which affects every area of our lives, families, society, and government. Christ the King is head of that Covenant, and all ruling authorities are subject to Him.
So, when we mete out the correct punishment prescribed by God’s Law for certain crimes we need to remember a few things:
1. We cannot gain one ounce of merit in God’s eyes by being more pharisaical than the Pharisees. — Going above and beyond God’s Law will not gain us God’s approval but God’s wrath.
2. We are unworthy sinners who stand in adoring wonder that God has accepted us only through the righteousness of Christ. That grace is extended even to the worst of sinners– murderers, adulterers, and fornicators for: “such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” — We need to have mercy just as Christ had mercy for us when were unsaved. Yet, God requires that sinners surrender to Him all that they are, all that they think, and all that they have.
3. We know that redemption in Christ redeems the whole man: heart, mind and soul (individual, family, society, and government). We believe in God without reserve and are determined that God shall be God to us, in all our thinking, feeling, willing – in the entire compass of our life activities: intellectual, moral, spiritual – throughout all our individual, social, religious relations. A society which recognizes Christ as King in every area, including law and justice, will always be far freer than humanistic societies which have no transcendent or ultimate standards for their laws and punishments. There is no capital punishment in God’s law for stealing a loaf of bread (restitution, yes); but there was in England in the 1800s, because it was a harsh law not based on God’s merciful law which only requires a punishment fitting to the crime.
Coram Deo!
