Saturday, October 20, 2007

The Death Penalty and Genesis

Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man."

I was reading Genesis in Time and Space, by F. Schaeffer, and he made a very interesting point in ch. 2. He said that the image of God changes the way we look at the death penalty. The reason we have a Biblical command to kill murderers, is not primarily because they killed another human being. It is because they have silenced the image of God. The image of God in every man is the reason that man has personality. It is the reason that man craves love and communication, and they are the evidence of a personal creator.

When we minimise the necessity of the death penalty, we are actually straying from the Biblical method. Murder is punishable by death. Murder is a defacing of the image of God.

I thought it very profound.

2 comments:

kalipay said...

that book really is good! i'm enjoying it, too. :)

Unknown said...

its hard to argue with a passage like that! :)