Should Sinners Be Executed?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom address questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question:  Dear Dave and Tom:  “Why don’t Christians who claim to follow the Bible do the things that it clearly says to do, for example, stone an adulterer, or stone a child that is disrespectful to  his or her parents.  And there are lots of other things that I have found throughout the Bible that Christians don’t do.  Even Jesus didn’t follow the Bible’s instructions by not stoning the woman caught in adultery.  Seems to me there is much inconsistency both in the Bible and in the practice of Christians.”

Tom:

Now Dave, whenever we get to difficult questions like this I immediately defer to you.

Dave:

We probably answer that in not this book but, In Defense of the Faith.

Tom:

But it’s a good question, I think, people think about these things, at least they are thinking.

Dave:

Right.  Well, if we go back and study the Old Testament we find that this God laid down the law as He wanted it to be.  I mean, this is His law, but when it comes to enforcing it—you’re going to take a guy out and the first guy that picks up sticks on the Sabbath, they stoned him.  Well, but [if] you are going to stone people for every little breach of the law, pretty soon they are all stoned, they’re nobody left to throw the stones.  And sacrifices, every time you sin you’ve got to bring a sheep or a goat or something to the tabernacle, you’d run out of sheep.  This was as it ought to be.

Tom:

God’s perfect standard.

Dave:

Right, but God said, look—well, it was for example, you’ll find it in Exodus 33, I think it is where Moses has come down from the mountain.  They have already broken the first commandment, and Moses smashes the tables of stone because you already broke it.  Then God takes him back up and He writes it again.  But anyway, in that chapter, a very instructive chapter, God says, Look—well, Moses is crying out:  God, if your presence doesn’t go with us we’re not going anywhere.  I’m not taking another step because God has said, look, I’ll send an angel.  I’m not going to be with you, I’m can’t be with such a wicked, rebellious people.  Well, Moses says, God, if you’ll go with us we’re finished because wherein shall it be known that we are thy people except that you go with us?  Well, then God makes some adjustments, put the tabernacle out side of the camp first of all.  Anybody that wants to follow me, they can go outside the camp.  And you get that in Hebrews:13:13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
See All...; “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.”  And then, well look, God in his mercy and grace is going to have to kind of —it’s not that His standards have changed, but he’s going to have to deal graciously with these people, he can’t enforce this upon them to the letter because the Bible again says, “The letter killeth, but the spirit gives life.”  So, there are reasons and answers to these questions.  But now, Jesus, why didn’t He stone that woman?  Well, number one, see, they are trying to catch Him.  First of all, it was unlawful for the Jews to stone anyone.

Tom:

The Romans wouldn’t allow it; they were the ones who were in control.

Dave:

Right, that has been taken away about AD 7, and in fact the Messiah had to come before that happened.  So, it would have been violating the law.  Well, but isn’t God’s law higher?  I violated the law when I took things behind the iron curtain.

Tom:

Bible smuggling.

Dave:

Well, I took some other things too, for people that needed them, and God blinded the guard’s eyes.  Well, you were breaking the law.  No, because the scripture very clearly says, when there has been an amazing healing of a man who couldn’t walk from birth, who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple and Peter said:  “Silver and gold have I none.”  Well, didn’t they say you were the first pope?  I don’t think any pope since could say that.  So then gold silver have I none, they applied.  But anyway, “…in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk, and he was healed.”  Now, the Rabbis were upset and they command them you will never again use that name of Jesus, don’t speak the name of Jesus.  By the way, well no, I won’t get off on that.  We’ve got people who won’t use the name, didn’t use the name of Jesus.

Tom:

Yeah, we talked about that a couple of weeks ago.

Dave:

Right.  Then Peter and John said, “You yourselves judge whether it would be right for us to obey man or God.”  So, that’s what we had to say when we took things behind the iron curtain.  Well, the Soviets don’t want us to do this, but we will do it because we are obeying God.  I don’t know how better to explain that.  So, we don’t stone people anymore because we are not under the Roman law but we are under American law, and you don’t take the law into your own hands, capital punishment.  So there are some things from the Old Testament that are no longer applicable to today.

Tom:

Dave, the thing I remember about this is that Abraham, or Abram, I mean, he’s basically a pagan.  He and Sarai, they are to start something new and as they develop as a people group they still had old ideas and so on.  So God’s standard had to be set forth, because they were a separate people, separated unto God for the Messiah to come.  Now as you said, if God would have stuck with the letter of the law, they would all be dead, and the whole point was to point to Christ.  Their salvation was going to come, all of these things were tied, all of these things pointed to Christ, and so on, and that’s where mercy came.

Dave:

So in John’s gospel chapter one John says, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”