CARL F.H. HENRY ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT [PRO DEATH PENALTY QUOTES]

  

Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry

"The rejection of capital punishment is not to be dignified as a ‘higher Christian way’ that enthrones the ethics of Jesus. The argument that Jesus as the incarnation of divine love cancels the appropriateness of capital punishment in the New Testament era has little to commend it. Nowhere does the Bible repudiate capital punishment for premeditated murder; not only is the death penalty for deliberate killing of a fellow human being permitted, but it is approved and encouraged, and for any government that attaches at least as much value to the life of an innocent victim as to a deliberate murderer, it is ethically imperative."

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, Twilight Of A Great Civilization, Crossway, 1988, p 70, 72.

Christians who speak out against capital punishment in deserving cases “. . . tend to subordinate the justice of God to the love of God.  . . .  Peter, by cutting off Malchu’s ear,. . .  was most likely trying to kill the soldier (John 18:10)", prompting " . . . Christ’s statement that those who kill by the sword are subject to die by the sword (Matthew 26:51-52)." This “implicitly recognizes the government’s right to exercise the death penalty."

Dr. Carl F.H.Henry, "A Matter of Life and Death", p 52 Christianity Today, 8/4/95.

Pontius Pilate said to Jesus, "You do not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you, and I have authority to crucify you?" Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over me, unless it had been given you from above."(John 19:10-11). "Jesus reminds Pilate that the implementation of the death penalty is a divinely entrusted responsibility that is to be justly implemented.”

Prof. Carl F.H. Henry, 45th Annual N.A.E. Convention, "Capital Punishment and The Bible". Jesus confirms that the civil authority has the lawful right to execute Jesus, and others, and that this right has been given to that authority by God.

Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry (January 22, 1913 – December 7, 2003) was an American evangelical Christian theologian who served as the first editor-in-chief of the magazine Christianity Today, established to serve as a scholarly voice for evangelical Christianity and a challenge to the liberal Christian Century.