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Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.
Christians care about all injustice, especially injustice against God. – John
Piper [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/425660602280647888/] https://lutherandcalvinbrigade914.blogspot.com/2019/10/christians-care-about-all-suffering-and.html |
Those of us who are Christians in Unit 1012: The VFFDP, believe that our God, Jesus Christ and even Christians will and should not show mercy to the guilty in judicial punishments. Pastor John Piper will explain more in his Q and A.
Should Christian Jurors Show Mercy to
the Guilty?
Episode 1635
June 4, 2021
Interview with
John Piper
Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org
Audio Transcript
Should a Christian juror be quick to acquit in the courtroom?
It’s a question from a young man who wants to know. “Hello, Pastor John!
Recently my nephew, who attends a private Christian university, related to me
an encounter he had with his New Testament professor. This professor held that
even if a Christian juror knew without doubt — based on evidence — that a
defendant was guilty of a crime, the Christian’s duty is to pass along a
verdict of not guilty. As proof, the professor cited Jesus’s response to the
woman who was caught in adultery and was brought before him in John
8:1–11. Since Jesus didn’t convict the guilty woman, neither should we
convict guilty criminals today. That’s a basic summation of the professor’s
argument. How would you respond? I would appreciate your thoughts on what God
expects from Christian jurors. And I’m curious, have you ever served on a jury
yourself?”
Well,
let me just dispense with that first one. No, I haven’t, though I’ve been
called up several times, and they just never got to me. I went to the
courthouse and sat there, and I didn’t even get interviewed.
But
here’s what he’s really asking. What’s behind this question is not so much a
misunderstanding of John 8; rather, it’s an effort to carry through a
consistent pacifism for Christians. That’s what’s going on here, and we need to
probe that. In other words, this professor is advocating for Christians never
to return evil for evil, or eye for an eye, or any kind of punishment or
retribution, but only forgiveness, only release from all consequences for evil
in this world. That’s what’s behind the question. Is that approach to life
taught in the New Testament?
New-Covenant Mercy
Let
me first respond to his use of John
8:1–11. I know that the earliest manuscripts of John don’t have this story.
It
may not be an original story. But for the sake of the argument, I’m just
going to treat it as genuine.
A
woman is caught in adultery. The Pharisees bring her to Jesus and remind him
that this is a capital offense according to Leviticus 20:10.
She should be stoned to death. Jesus pauses, looks down, draws in the ground,
and says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone
at her” (John
8:7).
“The
New Testament teaches that God has put civil government in place to punish
wrongdoers.”
What
Jesus is doing here is setting in motion a massive change in the way the new
people of God — his followers, the church as distinct from ethnic, political,
geographic Israel — will no longer be governed as a national, political,
geographic body politic with civil laws regulating, for example, capital
punishment, the way Israel was. Rather, the church, the new people of God, will
not be a political or ethnic or geographic reality, but it will be governed by
the law of Christ, which introduces significant changes from the law of Moses.
One
of those changes, for example, we see being played out in 1
Corinthians 5:1–13, where there is an example of adultery in the church —
something worse than adultery. And the punishment that the apostle Paul
requires is excommunication, not execution according to the Mosaic law (1 Corinthians
5:2). That change is what Jesus is now setting in motion when he refuses to
participate in the stoning of this woman.
So,
we must ask: When he said that the one without sin should cast the first stone,
was he saying only sinless people can pursue retributive justice? Was he saying
that only sinless people can actually be involved in the punishing of
wrongdoers? Is he saying, “No jurors who follow Christ could ever find anyone
guilty”? Is that what he’s saying? Or is he saying, “I’m about to forgive this
woman, because I have authority on earth to forgive sins (Matthew 9:6),
and fulfill and change the law of Moses (Matthew 5:17;
Romans 10:4).
I am about to transform her with the command to go and sin no more (John 8:11).
So, if you are without sin, and thus in a position like me, go ahead and
contravene my judgment”?
https://themightymenregiment710.blogspot.com/2019/01/sermon-by-john-piper-they-poured-out.html
https://themightymenregiment710.blogspot.com/2019/01/sermon-by-john-piper-they-poured-out.html
What Does Christlike Love Require?
Now,
I think the rest of the New Testament warns us against treating Jesus’s words
about casting the first stone as if they were a teaching that says, “Only
sinless people can exact justice.” The New Testament teaches that God has put
civil government in place to punish wrongdoers.
- The ruler “does
not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who
carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4).
- Governors are
sent by God “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Peter
2:14).
“The mingling of mercy toward our
enemies and the application of justice is not easy.”
Now,
the Christian pacifist, this professor that we’re being asked about, doesn’t deny
that the civil governments can find people guilty of crimes and punish them.
What the Christian pacifist denies is that God’s people, the followers of
Jesus, should participate in that. We are called to bear witness to the kingdom
of Christ by not participating in the kingdom of this world on its terms, with
its standards of retributive justice. That’s consistent pacifism. Our standard
is this:
- “Repay no one
evil for evil” (Romans 12:17).
- “You have heard
that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say
to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the
right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew
5:38–39).
And
so, the Christian pacifist infers that this is the only way to show Christlike
Christian love in this world. This is the only way to bear a clear witness to
Christ.
Retributive Justice in the New Testament
Now
frankly, I have a lot of sympathy with that view. I think all the texts that
support it should probably have a greater effect on our attitudes than they do.
But I can’t go all the way with the Christian pacifist when he tells us that
retributive justice should have no place in the Christian life, because I see
in the New Testament at least five spheres of life where the Bible portrays
proper Christian behavior as including retributive justice — that is, holding
people accountable for wrong behavior and applying painful consequences for it.
1.
Parenting.
Fathers are told in Ephesians 6:4 to bring up their children in the discipline
of the Lord. That word discipline,
we know from Hebrews 12:5–11, includes the application of chastisements
and consequences, painful consequences, for our children. I think a father or a
mother would be sinning if they only turned the other cheek for every act of
disobedience and insolence from their children. Of course, discipline is always
mingled with mercy, but retributive justice is not excluded from parenting.
2.
The marketplace.
Christian employers should pay their employees for the work they do and not
keep paying them indefinitely for work they refuse to do. If Paul could say to
the church, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians
3:10), how much more would he say to employees, “Let those who refuse to
work not be paid”? Withholding a salary from an employee who refuses to work is
a form of retributive justice.
3.
Education.
Teachers should not reward failing students with high grades. They may show
tremendous patience and mercy, but they do not equate sloth with superior
performance. There are consequences for failing to do your work. Retributive
justice belongs in education — always for the Christian, of course, mingled with
patience and mercy.
4.
Government and law
enforcement. We’ve already seen it in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2.
Lawbreaking should be met with appropriate consequences: fines, imprisonment,
or even execution. This is the way God restrains the rivers of evil in the
human heart with common grace — the common grace of retributive justice.
5.
The church.
The church is instructed to perform church discipline, which can include
ostracism or excommunication, which is a horrific consequence for unrepentant
sin, if one takes the Bible seriously.
For
those reasons, I can’t follow the pacifist into the position where retributive
justice has no place in the life of a Christian.
Mingling of Mercy
I
admit very freely that the mingling of mercy toward our enemies and the application
of justice is not easy. We are supposed to love our enemies. We are supposed to
return good for evil.
So,
the upshot for me is that I, we, desperately need the Holy Spirit to guide us:
When should our witness to Christ involve turning the other cheek? And when
should it involve spanking a child or not, letting an employee go or not,
giving the student a C
instead of an A or
not, excommunicating an adulterous Christian or finding some other way to move
them forward for now, and finding a murderer guilty while serving as a
Christian juror?
John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of
desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33
years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books,
including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
and most recently Providence.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-christian-jurors-show-mercy-to-the-guilty
VIDEO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpfca9LSgt4
OTHER LINKS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests
https://lutherandcalvinbrigade914.blogspot.com/2019/10/christians-care-about-all-suffering-and.html
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/more-on-guns-and-self-defense
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/do-you-believe-in-capital-punishment
https://www.dailywire.com/news/7-statistics-show-systemic-racism-doesnt-exist-aaron-bandler
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/myth-racist-cop-9391.html
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/701423
http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2021/04/prayers-for-victims-of-injustice.html
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