It’s supposed to be completely random.  Yet while I have been chosen only once in 40 years, my wife is clearly on the short list for both federal and local courts.  Jury duty is for Americans both a civic responsibility and a privilege.  A justice system that depends upon a jury of peers is a great blessing.  And we should all be willing to serve if possible.  

Of course, even if tapped to serve, you may not be selected.   The cases on the docket may be dismissed, continued, delayed, or settled.  Or you may be called and dismissed during the process of voir dire, where jurors are vetted to eliminate those with prejudice or personal bias.  You can be weeded out for all types of reasons.  No one is automatically guaranteed to serve.  You may be excused because of personal knowledge or the defendant or because you have been a victim of crime.  Or perhaps because of your religious or political views.

And especially if the case is a death penalty case, voir dire seeks to impanel a jury that will not only fairly assess the questions of guilt or innocence, but also assess the necessity of imposing the death penalty.  In Arkansas, the death penalty can be imposed, without regard to age, on those found guilty of treason, murder, or capital homicide.  Arkansas currently has 28 prisoners on “death row” some of whom have been awaiting execution for decades.

Debates over the death penalty along with concerns about racial inequity, false conviction, cruel and unusual punishment, and lengthy stays on death row have raged for decades.  Judicial theorists argue that it is ‘certainty not severity’ that discourages recidivism.  And that, statistically, the death penalty provides no deterrent effect on violent crime. 

Furthermore, we have seen cases in which evidence or forensics, not available at the time of the trial, later emerged to exonerate a convicted murderer as he awaited execution.  Finally, our whole system of incarceration is predicated on the theory of “correction.”   Thus, prisons are part of the Department of Corrections.   And execution is clearly at odds with the goal of rehabilitation.

But what if our theories about crime and punishment are founded on faulty assumptions.  What if we have misunderstood both the human condition and the purpose and manner of punishment for crimes against people and property?  Our secular and humanistic culture despises the Biblical teaching about crime and punishment as barbaric and unreasonably cruel and unusual.   But is it? 

The Bible is brutally honest about the human condition and the effects of sin.  That is its major theme.   And the way of redemption is never some false notion of “paying a [penitential] debt to society” through decades of incarceration.  But rather through faith in Christ.  

Biblical sentencing guidelines declare the justness and justice of a Holy God, the absolute necessity and sufficiency of Christ alone to satisfy that justice, and the value of what was destroyed by crimes against people and property.    God created us to live in society.  Certainly, he knows best how law-breaking should be addressed.   Perhaps our real problem in this debate is that we have not settled the question of whether we or God should have final authority.

Do OT civil laws have any continuing relevance? Or are they, like ceremonial laws, abrogated by Christ’s finished work? Are the laws concerning crime and punishment mere relics of the theocracy? Or should they carry authority in modern civil justice?   The Westminster Confession of Faith makes an interesting statement regarding the continuing relevance of the Old Testament civil law.

To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

Westminster Confession of Faith, XIX.4.

But what does ‘general equity’ mean?  While our forms of civil government are not prescribed by scripture, there are principles of government derived from the civil laws in the Old Testament.  So, what does the Old Testament teach us crime and punishment and particularly the death penalty?   To what extent are these laws still applicable?  And how do they inform our civil magistrates to “bear the sword” faithfully and effectively?

Join us as we examine Exodus 21:12-17 and consider what the Old Testament teaches about the application of the death penalty and about civil justice today.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.