Job 25

Read Job 25

God is glorious. All worship begins with the recognition that when we come into the presence of the Almighty, we have come to One who is far above us. As Bildad offers these very brief but forceful thoughts that conclude the speeches of Job's friends, he begins with the greatness of God. When we speak of the glory of God, what exactly are we talking about? As often as we use the words, “glory,” “glorious,” or “glorified,” we still find ourselves puzzled about what it is that we are actually saying.

Bildad points first to the dominion of God. The Lord is in charge. He rules over all things, seen and unseen. If someone who lived under a powerful monarch were to approach the king, he must do so in fear with a due regard for the power of that royal person, power over the life and death of every one of his subjects. If that majesty had no constitution to which he was subject, no laws that stood above him that he must follow, then he would be able to execute his will according to his mere good pleasure. What glory! Millions have lived under the authority of such human kings over the course of history, yet each of those rulers only had power within the limits of some geographical area. They had no authority over angels, and any rule that they had over men came to them by the decree of God. But God Himself is over everyone in heaven and on earth. He is glorious in His dominion. If anyone rebels against God, he makes war with the one Almighty Sovereign. Only God can say when that war is over, since the offense is against Him. If He determines a way to have peace, then there is peace.

Dominion is not the only element of the glory of God. Those passages in the Scriptures that speak of His glory refer to the perfection of His many attributes, and particularly to the visible brilliance of the One who is Himself unseen. The One who dwells in unapproachable light is the source of Light. In His light we see light. If there is a glory to the sun, or to the moon and the stars, there is a greater glory to the One who made light, and who gives light.

When we consider the glory of God's light we are drawn to extol Him not only for His wisdom, knowledge, and truth, but also for His holiness, righteousness, and goodness. There is a moral glory to God as the very Source of all that is right. His Law is perfect, and it is safe to follow Him.

All this Bildad knows. But there is another important doctrine that Bildad seems to have ignored, which is closely related to the doctrine of the glory of God. This doctrine is that of the image of God. God created mankind in His image. There is some point of connection between the source and the image of the source. The image is not the source, but is like the source. There is something of the glory of God in the image of God. Only mankind is created in the image of God, and the destiny for the image-bearer of God is glorious.

When mankind enjoys full peace with God we will see the full dominion of the Lord over all the earth. We will shine like the brightness of the Lord in the glory of the new creation. We will be perfected in holiness and without any ethical spot or blemish. Bildad is unable to see the reflected glory of God in even a great human being like Job. Perhaps because of this Bildad has no sense that there could be any way that a human being, whom he speaks of as a maggot and a worm, could ever be right before God.

We live after the time of the shadows that existed from the Fall until the coming of the Son of Man. We know that when God, the Almighty King, announces that we have peace with Him, no one should dare to contradict Him. We also know how God has accomplished that peace. He sent His eternal Son to be the perfect image-bearer of the almighty and invisible Sovereign of creation and providence. Though the visible shining glory of Jesus may have been hidden from the eyes of men for a time, He was the perfect display of all the moral righteousness of God, and He has been granted the fullness of dominion over heaven and earth as the God/Man Savior and King. Now He shines in the glory of His heavenly throne at the right hand of the Father. This perfect Image-bearer of the Almighty made the way for our peace with God through the glory of the cross.

Finally, Bildad and his friends miss the glory of the love and mercy of God, that mercy that caused His Son to willingly satisfy the just demands of the Father in order to win for us a glorious destiny as image-bearers of our King. Jesus is our peace. Job, and millions like him, who have seen something of the dominion and fear of God, have now been brought near to the One we are permitted to call our Father. Jesus is the only way for us to be pure in the sight of God. Mankind was created to reflect the glory of God as the image-bearers of the Lord. In Christ our destiny has been secured.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Father, stop the mouth of the fool who would say wicked things in the face of Your righteous servant. Silence the voice of the one who accuses with no knowledge and who adds insult to injury. We know that we are loved by You. We rest in the embrace of our Redeemer despite the troubles that assail us.

Job 24

Read Job 24

God will never consent to be dissected by His creatures. He reveals Himself to us on His own terms.

We understand from His Word that the Lord is eternal, but does this mean that we actually understand what eternity past truly is? How can we think about a past with no beginning? We must simply accept the fact that God is, that He alone is the I AM.

We also need to embrace the concept that God could never ever be guilty of sin. He is the Law-Giver. He will judge others according to His commandments. There is no judging God. The very thought is completely out of place. There is no one above Him who could hold Him accountable in any way.

Yet those who suffer are tempted to question the providence of God. We can easily find fault with the Almighty, though we do not know how a matter ends unless He chooses to tell us. God knows. We look at those who abuse the poor and the powerless and we wonder how God could allow such things.

Some people are unwilling to look at life honestly. Those who observe will soon find out that there is much misery everywhere. Sometimes it comes to us from the actions of personal enemies, but many times we face trouble simply from the forces of nature under the control of Almighty God.

On any day, there are those throughout this world who have no shelter from the elements. They have to find their food wherever they can. When the storms come, where will they take cover?

Of course, there are wicked people who would “snatch the fatherless child from the breast.” How are we to understand that kind of intentional and personal cruelty? But this is life. And no one can bring a charge against God for any of this. He is the potter, and we are the clay. We cannot suppose that we would be a better God than He is. He will not even enter into that kind of debate with us.

Every day, people die. People cry for help, and they hear no answer from heaven. The powerful may continue to abuse the weak, and God does not step in and stop them. Why is that?

Some seem to be in love with the darkness. They imagine that their thoughts and their actions are hidden. They suppose that they will get away with their abuses, and what is worse, they seem to be right. Will God not knock the weapon out of the hand of the murderer? Why does He not stop the adulterer who acts as if God does not exist? Why is the world of darkness allowed to win the day, at least for the moment?

Some will say that God's judgment will swiftly come against the unrighteous for all their evil. Soon their days will be over. But everyone goes to the grave. Where is God's justice? Why would He give even one more moment of life to someone who abuses the poor and has no heart for the widow and the orphan?

The Lord has the power to give life and to take it away. He sees what the wicked do, and yet He extends their lives. When He cuts them off and brings them low, is it any different than what happens to all men? “They are exalted a little while, and then are gone.”

Job speaks about the human condition as one who has observed life and considered certain undeniable facts. He concludes his speech with these words of challenge: “Who will prove me a liar and show that there is nothing in what I say?”

The friends of Job have been willing to bring forward words of speculation. Their guesses have not been for good, but for evil. They have guessed at Job's sin and have ignored his righteousness. Not only have they imagined wickedness in a righteous man, they have been unwilling to admit the truth about openly evil and abusive people, that they continue to sin, and yet they seem to prosper. They die as the righteous die, at least according to all that men can observe.

While there is much truth in Job's words, many hundreds of years after Job's pain was over, another great man came to suffer and die. He came as the great Law-Keeper. Who could credibly accuse Him of any sin? He was innocent. He died the death that we deserve. He has secured our hope. A perfectly righteous man has faced a sinner's death. Now sinners can have eternal life.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Gracious God, grant to us insight from Your Word and from the experience of living in this world. How are we to understand the lives of the wicked? There are so many perplexing facts that fill this fallen world. We see such evil deeds over many decades and we wonder how a person can be allowed to live for even a moment. The wicked are able to live like all others, and then they die like everyone else. There must be something here that we do not see, because what we see does not seem to make sense. There must be a future that our hearts have not yet embraced. Bring about the great fulfillment of Your plans of justice and mercy. We long to see Your glory and goodness with our eyes in the land of the living. Teach us to believe Your promise of a future age of perfect righteousness as a certain fact even now.

Job 23

Read Job 23

We have some sense that Job’s calamities took place sequentially, one right after the other, almost instantaneously. When Job's friends heard of it, they traveled to be with him and stayed with him in silence for seven days. Then Job spoke out of his grief, his friends replied, and this very challenging trial of false insinuations from miserable comforters began. We are not told if all of this happened at once. Could it be that these conversations took place over some lengthier period of time? Job's words at the start of Chapter 23 begin by marking the passage of time. “Today also my complaint is bitter.”

Those who have faced profound loss tell us that there can be some period of spiritual anesthesia during which a person has not yet taken in the full gravity of what has happened to him. After all of the comforters have come and gone, some people report that it is only then that they begin to more fully feel the weight of tragedy. The pain of loss may continue for many months and years and it may seem to them that joy will never again return. For such a person sadness can seem to be all that is left in life.

Grief may often come with physical pain, but in Job's case his grief has been compounded by additional extreme physical maladies that make his life very low. Sorrow alone can make a person feel like he has no energy for living. What if disease is added to that grief? Job says, “My hand is heavy on account of my groaning.” He is like a man who cannot find the strength to move.

With the last speech of Eliphaz insinuation has moved toward direct accusation. Much offense is given, yet Job is not consumed with hatred for his friends. He wants to talk to God. But where can he find the Lord? He would like to enter the throne-room of the Almighty to present his case before God. He would have much to say, he supposes, and he imagines that he might even anticipate what God would answer. Job’s first desire is not to contradict Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar; he wants an audience with God.

What would God do? Job muses: “He would pay attention to me.” He says, “There an upright man could argue with Him.” He does not speak of himself as someone vile before the King of kings, but as one who has been righteous. This may sound like a horrible presumption, and yet it is God who started this book with a similar assessment of Job, spoken in that heavenly court where Job wishes to be. Job has not said that he has attained righteousness apart from the grace of God. That would be presumption. Could it be that this suffering servant is telling the truth, that by the grace of the Almighty, Job is who he is? And he is not what his accusers suggest him to be. Job says that God would acquit him. He does not say how, just that God would acquit him, and that He would acquit him forever. Do you want to be acquitted by God forever?

Yet Job returns to his great problem. Where can he find the living God? He sees His works everywhere, but where is He? Job cannot have a conversation with the works of God. The answers that he needs will not come to him by contemplation. He needs to hear God, and he wants to do this in person, where God could actually be seen.

If this problem of finding God could be solved, Job is confident that when tried by the Almighty, he would come through that test as gold from the furnace. He has kept the commandments of the Lord. Yet this line of thought does not ultimately give Job peace. He contemplates again the great wisdom and sovereignty of God, and he is strangely troubled. There cannot be any mistake in God's ways, can there be? No one can actually change God's mind on a matter like this. He does what He wants to do, and His decree can never be stopped. He is left in dread of the God to whom he must talk face to face, the God he cannot find. Through all of his troubles Job is not yet ready to stop thinking, and he is not finished speaking about the mystery of what has taken place in his life.

When Jesus came, He obeyed the law of God fully. Here was the beloved Son of the Father living perfectly in the fullest pleasure of the Almighty. This Jesus died for us. We hear of His righteousness and His love. His Word is a tremendous aid to those who suffer in His name today. But one day, we shall see Him face to face in a world of eternal light.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Our Father, we want to talk with You. The troubles in our lives seem to overwhelm us. We cannot see behind the veil of this creation. We sincerely desire to keep Your ways. We know that You do what You desire. We have questions for You, O Lord, and we do not know where we will find answers. Thank You for the answer of Your Word. Thank You for the answer of Your Son. Thank You for the answer of the cross.

Job 22

Read Job 22

Job has just finished bringing to the attention of his friends an important question for their consideration. If their simple idea of God's providence is correct, that a suffering man's troubles are a sign of the judgment of God against that man, then what about the wicked? Why do so many of them, and even their children, seem to live and die in peace and prosperity? Job draws attention to the brokenness of this world and asks his friends to consider the facts.

As Eliphaz responds at the beginning of this third cycle of speeches, there is no indication that he has felt the force of Job's words. He may have been listening with his own answer running. He seems to have been more impressed with his own earlier spiritual experience than with the wisdom of Job. Remember that he had a spirit glide by him in the night with this tempting message, “Can a mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?”

Eliphaz begins his third speech with a similar rhetorical thrust, “Can a man be profitable to God?” There is a way to ask a question that anticipates a certain answer. Here a negative response is expected. A mortal man cannot be righteous before God. A man cannot be pure before his Maker. It should be even more obvious, it must seem to Eliphaz, that a man cannot be profitable to God. End of discussion. Except for this: If there is no qualification to these affirmations of the low condition of mankind, then we have lost the gospel.

This is not easy to see at first examination. After all, isn't our understanding of man's total depravity one of the basics of our religion? Yet even a great truth can be taken in an ungodly direction. What do we conclude from the doctrine of total depravity, the doctrine that rightly insists that every quality of man has been tainted by sin? Does that mean that there is no hope for man? Does it mean that man is worthless? Isn't there some way that God has provided for a man to be counted as righteous in His sight? Isn't it also true that God has prepared good works for us, that He will crush Satan under our feet, and that He insists that our labor in His Son is not in vain? This is the mystery of godliness. We are in the Messiah Jesus Christ and He is in us. In Jesus, a man can be right before God, a man can be pure before his Maker, and a man can even be profitable to God, since God can make him to be profitable. Not that God had some inherent need for outside help, yet this is the way that He has chosen to display His glory, through union with man in the person of His Son, and through making man righteous and fruitful for His kingdom.

But Eliphaz has no sense of the mystery of godliness, the mystery of the union between God and man. He also has no sense of the force of Job's argument concerning the prosperity of the wicked that should have caused him to see that his understanding of God's providence was too simple. Missing all of this, Eliphaz, more clearly than before, accuses Job of sin, making up several specific charges such as this one: “You have given no water for the weary to drink,” as well as comprehensive statements of Job's guilt like this one: “There is no end to your iniquities.” This is why Job suffers, according to Eliphaz.

Eliphaz has seized upon the doctrine of human depravity in such a way that causes him to deny human worth. He holds to the transcendence of the Almighty in such a way that seems to deny His imminence. For Eliphaz God is high in the heavens, not close to us as a merciful Father. Even though the divine being fills our homes with good things, He does it from afar.

The solution for Job, according to Eliphaz, is the same that has been pressed upon the suffering servant of the Lord in prior speeches: Repent. Agree with God. Everything will work out. God will hear your prayers. Light will shine on your ways. Then you will be someone.

When our Lord came to save us as the singular answer to the mystery of godliness, even His disciples and admirers did not seem to hear His greatest wisdom. Though the great man Nicodemus came to Him by night with a heart of respect, referring to Jesus as a prophet sent by God and noting His miracles, he had no sense of what Jesus was doing. He did not understand about spiritual rebirth. To appreciate the reality of regeneration, it is necessary to accept the fact of human depravity, for we are dead in our trespasses and sins. But we also need to appreciate some other truths: the love of God, His power, and His eternal purpose to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

If you want to start with one Christian truth, choose the cross. The cross of Christ is a storehouse of all the truth of God. In His death, which His disciples found so difficult to understand, He displays the great mystery of godliness. He has taken our depravity, and we have been granted His righteousness. Without this mystery, the human problem admits no real solution. Without the fact of the cross and the companion fact of our Lord's resurrection, Jesus' instruction that we must be born again from above would remain a strange idea that we could never fathom.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Great God, we know that You do not need us. Yet You have created us for Your purposes and You will be glorified through our lives. Even the wrath of our enemies will praise You. You are in charge of birth and death. All of the years in between these two events are also within Your sovereign power. We commit ourselves to the care of the weak, for You save the lowly. You who provide for the poor, please have abundant mercy upon us through Your Son Jesus Christ.

Job 21

Read Job 21

Job's friends would do well to listen to his words and consider them. His teaching is true, but they are unable to receive it. The presentation of truth is sometimes more complex than the teaching of error. Job’s friends have a very simple point to make. Though they have not yet accused Job as plainly as they might, their point is still clear: A suffering man's troubles are a sign of the judgment of God against that man. Though others may have considered Job to be wise and righteous, it is evident that God does not see it that way. Why else would He give the man such horrific losses? It must be because of the man's secret sins. Therefore, a suffering man should repent. This is their simple idea.

This understanding of the providence of God is not correct. Job's words tell a more complex story. He approaches this question of suffering from a different angle. His friends have presumed to suggest sin where they have no proof. What about the lives of those who display their wickedness openly in a way that is obvious to all? Do they regularly have their lives fall apart in the manner that Job has experienced? What does the evidence show?

Job urges this reasoning upon his friends, claiming that his words would be their comfort. Even though a false view of trials might seem comforting to those who are not in the midst of sorrow, it will not serve them well when an evil day touches them. The truth will be more comforting, though it might not seem to bring any hope when it is first considered. The truth begins with God, looks at the fact of Job's righteousness that was known to all, and then wonders at the Lord's providence. It does not deny the sovereignty of God or Job's exemplary character. The truth waits upon the Lord, knowing that there is much that has not yet been revealed, and that even the revealed things may not yet be fully understood by us. The truth does not deny Job's honest lament. It turns ever toward the Lord, though a man may not be able to comprehend what he sees with his own eyes.

Job speaks mostly about the wicked in this chapter instead of the righteous. The friends of Job should readily see his point when they investigate the clear facts in the case of those who are known to be unrighteous. The wicked live. Sometimes they live a long time. They may have many children, and those children may live long and healthy lives. They may have many possessions and seem to be very happy and self-satisfied. They do not appear to be troubled that something is missing in their lives. They seem to have everything.

Not only are the wicked often happy in life, they may even be a picture of peace in death. They go to the grave in peace, as far as anyone can observe. They may have not wanted anything to do with God or God's ways. They may have actually spoken against God or denied His power and His love. Why are people in that situation allowed by God to have prosperity? This story occurs all the time if we are willing to be honest with the evidence. We may think that the trouble that the wicked deserve will ultimately be visited upon their children, but there are many children of wicked people that appear to be doing very well. Even if God does visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him, isn't it the case that some people who are concerned only with themselves will not be troubled by the difficulties that their descendants face?

Surely God knows what is right, but as men honestly observe the wicked, does it make sense to us to see them and their children doing so well? No matter how we may evaluate the life of any man and no matter how appropriate or inappropriate we may consider the patience and mercy of God in any one case, isn't it still the fact that all people go to the grave? How can we make sense of that? There is something that just does not add up according to human observation and sanctified reasoning. This is a key insight, one that will bring us comfort as we rest upon the Lord who knows.

The fact is that Job's comforters bring no comfort. Though their simple view of life may appeal to those who do not know any better, all that anyone would have to do to have second thoughts about this theory is to talk to people who know that the righteous often suffer deeply while the wicked live easy and happy lives. If they would think about that, then they could come to Job's conclusion that something in all of this is just not right, and that their teachings on suffering are just empty notions.

What is somewhat surprising is that the discovery of the brokenness of this world could actually yield comfort to the one who is willing to ascribe the greatest power, wisdom, and glory to Almighty God. God knows that the righteous suffer, and He knows that the wicked often live at ease. He knows that things don't add up. He knows what we also should be able to embrace, that there must be something more. It is this something more, this better ending befitting such a great God, which caused Him to enter into our pain so fully in the person of His Son. The death and resurrection of Jesus and the renewal of the earth is the more complicated divine answer that finally satisfies our souls. Those who think that everybody receives what they deserve have oversimplified the data to tell a story that simply is not true. God's plan of suffering and grace is a much better story, and it does bring glory to God and true comfort to people who deal with the real facts of life.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Lord God, not every event that happens in Your providence is easily understood by us. Some men who are very wicked live unusually long lives. They may have many descendants, and people mourn their loss when they die. A righteous man may die in the prime of His youth and no one knows what to say. Who can fathom the loss of the unborn child? There is so much that we do not understand. One man dies with such a wonderful life story of achievement and joy. Another has been witness to so many horrors. They both go to the grave. We are given no answer to these facts. They cause us to wonder about You. Yet You are the everlasting God, and You are worthy of our full and everlasting trust. We believe in You. We know that You are in control. Help us, O Lord.

Job 20

Read Job 20

Something that we readily recognize as most extraordinary has taken place in the previous chapter. In the face of groundless accusations against him, Job brought forth a wonderful prophetic utterance concerning the coming resurrection of the dead. The opening question as Zophar begins his second speech is this: Will Job's friends recognize that they have heard a word from heaven through Job's lips? Will they value Job's great solution to the problem of humanity and to the fallen condition of this creation?

Zophar does not seem to have heard any of the glory of resurrection in Job's powerful oracle of truth. He has heard a message, but he has not received it well. He says, “I hear censure that insults me.” Job's friends needed correction, and God himself would have a word about them at the end of the book, but if they could have listened to Job and received the truth that he proclaimed, they could have received not only correction, but also a deep and blessed hope.

In order to hear the hope, a person must listen beyond the correction. Those who are well don't need a doctor, and some who are convinced that any correction is too much to bear will miss the joy that comes from the healing touch of the best physician. When a person refuses to acknowledge the disease, there is no point in talking about a cure. But pretending that one does not have cancer is not the same as being cancer-free. These “comforters” had a serious disease, but they were deeply offended by Job's rejection of their wisdom and could not rightly hear what he was saying.

When someone needs to hear correction but feels offended, he may not only miss out on the benefit of the word of reproof, he also may continue to listen to and pursue the lies of his own heart, lies which take him further and faster in a wrong direction. Zophar was persuaded that out of his own impeccable understanding, a spirit was bringing answers to him that needed to be expressed. Informed by this inner light, he presumed to continue to instruct this great man Job.

What were his insights, his wondrous thoughts of old? The rejoicing of the wicked is brief, and though he seems to have prosperity, it will only be for a moment. Can anyone miss the fact that he refers Job as wicked and godless? If that is not blunt enough, Zophar reminds Job that the wicked man will perish like his own excrement. He will be forgotten like a bad dream. When he dies, there will be nothing to pass on to his children. They will be forced to beg from the poor, for the bones of their father will lie down in the dust.

What else does Zophar have to say? He speaks about the evil of the wicked man and his destruction. Why doesn't he plainly identify Job as the wicked man? But then what evidence does he have of any wickedness beyond the man's suffering? This is not wisdom. It is evil presumption and is made far worse by the fact that it follows one of the most astounding revelations in the Bible about the life to come.

But Zophar is insulted. He will not listen, and he must share more of his supposed spiritual brilliance. Evil may be hidden deep within a man, like food within the stomach that has gone bad, and it will come out again. This is how Zophar makes sense of Job's troubles. They are the vomit that has finally come from the hidden evils within this surprisingly wicked man. Is this what you are tempted to think of your own suffering, rather than remembering the love of God, and considering how he may have entrusted you with a special opportunity that of necessity included your present pain?

These thinly-veiled accusations simply do not fit this situation. Job has not “crushed and abandoned the poor,” so why are such words spoken to his face? Yet Zophar continues his colorful rhetoric. Job, if Job is the horrible man he is talking about, is just a wicked imposter like so many hypocrites, and thus he has become a target of God's holy anger. God hates him for his evil ways, and that is why the Lord's sword has come against him. For Zophar it is as simple as that. No fancy talk of Job about knowing that his Redeemer lives will turn Zophar away from his self-appointed spiritual task of reminding Job that the wicked will quickly perish.

Our Savior lived a brief life. He was cut off from the land of the living. Many would think of Him as being cursed by God, presumably for some secret faults. They thought for certain that God would deliver Jesus from the horror of the cross if God really delighted in Him. Yet He was wounded for our transgressions. The answer to the dilemma of the suffering of Jesus is not discovered by presuming that our Lord had his own secret sin and that He was hated by God. To get to the truth about Jesus, we need to hear the prophetic Word that informs us about the love of the Father for His sinless Son, and of the salvation that has come to us through the wounds of our perfect Substitute. To hear this word we need to first hear the truth of our own sin. But if we are too offended by the correction that comes to us from God to listen to Jesus and His ambassadors, then we will miss the good news of the dying love of our righteous Redeemer, who has sent forth His Word for our salvation and encouragement.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Father God, despite every trial and even every suggestion of Satan, You are with us. You bless us in so many different ways. Every gift that we have is surely from Your grace. Every kindness comes to us not by our merit, but because of the wonderful righteousness of Jesus Christ. All of us face the trouble of a death that seems to be approaching us. Yet we have hope because of Jesus Christ, for He has conquered sin and death for us.

Job 19

Read Job 19

Job's friends thought that they were bringing him great wisdom from God. The suffering servant of the Lord did not receive their words in that way. He said that these men were tormenting him. He even doubled his count of the times that they had spoken here. We have heard five speeches from them at this point in the book, but Job referred to “ten times” that they had cast reproach upon him. This was a heavy burden for this good man to face. How many others have had to face unjust accusations in a time of great loss? Only the Lord knows. Yet it is in this chapter, during this time of intense suffering and provocation, that the Lord's servant finds a sudden expression of his resurrection hope.

This is what you and I need. It is a good thing for us to have an accurate assessment of our own sadness and of the hopelessness of life under the sun. But we must have something much better alongside such honest medicine. Tears alone cannot bring the healing and restoration for which we long. In a world under a sentence of death, there is only one thing that can make us full of happiness—the resurrection from the dead. Yet how could we ever believe in something like this when we have never seen it with our eyes? How could we believe in a coming resurrection when we are overwhelmed by the providence of God?

God must speak. He must speak to us, and this speech must find a hearing and ready ear. Our spirit within us must testify to the truth of the prophetic word that comes from the mouth of the Lord's servant and is processed by the ear of His holy ones. In the case of Job, all of this seems to happen within the one man who has suffered such deep affliction. A spirit of prophecy must well up within him so that he becomes the prophetic agent who brings forth the Word. Then his own ears must gladly take in what his mouth has spoken, and his own spirit must resonate with this message that has come to him from the Lord.

This is what happens at the center of these three cycles of speeches and responses, and the result is an amazing statement of faith in the resurrection of the dead at a time when there may well have been no written Word of God yet revealed for any man on earth to consult. No one can say when the book of Job was written, but many experts tell us that it may have been very early indeed, perhaps among the earliest words of written Scripture.

The first twenty-two verses of this important chapter are the heartfelt lament of a man who recounts his sad condition. Job is alone, and the words of his friends have only further wounded him. He is despised by everyone and is in terrible pain. The final words of his lament are a cry for mercy to his friends. “Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!” He believes that God has surely pursued him as one pursues an enemy, but he would plead with these friends to look at him and to realize that his weary flesh cannot take their continual assaults.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, or out of the depths of his own prophetic soul, springs forth an amazing word from heaven, and Job himself seems to know it. He wants these words of hope to be written forever. These words are so right, so true, that they simply must not be allowed to drift away into the mist of this fading world. These words must hold. They must stand. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” This is the word of truth, the truth of our deepest longings. Though our hearts may faint within us, death cannot be the last message for the Lord's beloved flock. There must be a resurrection.

Our hearts are greatly encouraged by these verses. What a revelation! Yet far beyond this word is the revelation of the incarnate Word of God, the only Redeemer of God's elect. Jesus has purchased us with His blood. His death was required, but there had to be life beyond the grave if the words of Job were to prove true. Job had insisted that he, in his flesh, would see God, and that the Redeemer would not only die, but that He would live and stand upon a renewed earth.

This is the antidote to the report of death all around us and within us. This is the river of life for which we have the greatest need in our grief and disappointment. It must not only be spoken by the Lord's servant, it must be heard by the Lord's people. Their spirits must rise up at the preaching of it, so that they might receive the testimony of the Holy Spirit that they too are sons of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. It is fine to know of sadness and sin. It is good to be honest about our assessment of the troubles of this world. But we need something more than brutal honesty. We need a full measure of resurrection truth. Without the certain fact of the life to come, surely nothing makes any sense, for our God does not take the human race through centuries of sadness only to end this tale of woe with a pathetic whimper.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Glorious Lord, in the day of our greatest trial there is no helpful answer that comes to us from foolish men. Our suffering is real and we do not understand what has happened to us. We seem to have no help from anyone. There is no mercy. You have touched us in discipline, and we do not understand. Yet we know that our Redeemer lives. We know that we will see Him in a great day of resurrection. We cling to this hope, for our best days are clearly not in this life.

Job 18

Read Job 18

People have only so much patience, even when they are trying to make extra efforts to show self-control. An insult from a person whom they have reason to despise is a hard thing to take. It is very tempting in the heat of self-pity to return evil for what surely feels like evil. The friends of Job feel insulted by the great man. It is Bildad's turn to speak, and he has something to say to Job.

“Why are we stupid in your sight?” Loving mothers don't like to be thought of as cold-hearted people. Successful entrepreneurs don't like to have to shut down their own struggling enterprises. And intelligent and accomplished teachers don't like to have their wisdom treated as stupidity by those to whom they have been speaking. When these things happen, a person just might lash back at the people he was trying to serve. Bildad apparently thought that Eliphaz, Zophar, and he had made some important points, diagnosing Job's secret problem, and suggesting a way back into the good graces of God. Job has responded by saying to them, “I shall not find a wise man among you.” That's too much for Bildad to take, so he points to Job's wounds and mocks him: “You who tear yourself in anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you?”

Job admittedly looks ridiculous. He has been scraping at his sores with a piece of broken pottery. No doubt he would bear the scars of this experience for the rest of his life. Now they are perhaps his shame. One day they would rightly be thought of as badges of glory, for he would be the man who was brought low for some unknown reason, who was then met directly by God, and was declared to be righteous in the midst of those who had lost their patience with him.

This is not how Bildad thought that Job's story would end when he spoke his indignant mind to God's suffering servant in Job 18. He was convinced that Job's troubles would be incurable unless Job would humbly listen to the godly advice of his friends and would repent of his secret sins.

Yet Job had showed no signs of the listening ear and repentant humility for which they were looking. Therefore, it would appear that he would only move from current disaster to final doom. Like all the wicked, his light would eventually go out, a victim of his own secret and evil schemes. Bildad expresses this expectation of a horrible end with very colorful language. Job's heel is caught in a trap. Calamity consumes his skin. He is like a man dragged from his tent by a vicious beast in the night, who is then taken to some cruel master for his final condemnation. Job will have nothing left at all, and people will not even want to remember him lest they seem to be in league with a man who was so obviously cursed. He will have no survivors and no future generations. The community that once honored him will be afraid to invoke his memory, lest they catch his horrible guilt by association.

Bildad closes his second speech with suggestions of two sweeping accusations against Job. Though he does not say directly, “Job, I am talking about you,” there can be little doubt that he means to connect all these remarks about a wicked man to his earlier words, “You who tear yourself in your anger.” His two charges against his friend in the final verse of the chapter are these: Job, you are unrighteous, and Job, you do not know God.

Of course, these charges were false. Job was the most righteous man of his day, and his knowledge of God was far above that of his neighbors and friends. But Bildad was insulted. Those who think of themselves as more righteous than they really are can only take so much. When they are stung painfully enough by a remark that hits them at their point of presumed identity and excellence, they will eventually reveal what is on their minds.

Why did Jesus have to die? From the vantage point of the lawless hands that were raised against Him, He had to die because He had fatally provoked them. His evil had to be publicly exposed. He had to be put to shame as an example for others who would presume to speak against the traditions of the elders, and to publicly teach against leaders who firmly held to their righteous superiority in those traditions. But there is a bigger and better story here which must be granted the final word. From the standpoint of Almighty God, Jesus had to die as the perfectly righteous Man, the one who knew the Father from before all time. He had to die in order to satisfy the demands of the Lord's justice against us. He had to die to procure our redemption with His spotless blood. He was the only Man who could do this. The cross was once His shame, but now His wounds are eternal reminders of His glory and our forgiveness. This story of God's love has now become our good news. We have received this Word with hope, and we worship God through Jesus the Messiah.

Prayer from A Book of Prayers

Lord God, will we be miserable comforters who can only think and speak of ourselves? Will we keep on correcting those who seem to have no light of life left in their eyes? What can we say about death? Is it time to speak about sin and misery? Is there a word of hope that will be useful, or should we say nothing? Is it time to smile? Is it time to cry? Restrain us from making brash accusations against those that You have blessed in former days. You can make a man recover from a difficult time of loss. Teach us the blessedness of waiting. Teach us the wisdom that comes from loving.

On Capital Punishment - Prepared by Elder Dave Herrod

Capital Punishment

Should the government take the life of a person who has been convicted of certain crimes? State statutes define the crimes for which capital punishment is specified, but the primary question is whether governments should have the right to carry out capital punishment at all. This was the issue recently addressed by the legislature of New Hampshire.

1. Background

On April 17, 2014 the New Hampshire Senate voted 12-12 on a bill to repeal the death penalty. The Senate then voted to table the bill, meaning it could be brought up for reconsideration later in the legislative session. The bill had overwhelmingly passed the House, and Governor Maggie Hassan indicated she would have signed the bill if it passed the Senate. In 2000 legislators voted to repeal the death penalty, but then-governor Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the bill. In 2009, the House also passed a repeal bill. New Hampshire has not had an execution since 1939.

The current capital sentencing statute in New Hampshire was enacted in 1977. It provides for the death penalty in cases of “capital murder” where a person knowingly causes the death of:

• A law enforcement officer or a judicial officer acting in the line of duty or when the death is caused as a consequence of or in retaliation for such person’s actions in the line of duty;
• “Another”¹ before, after, or while engaged in the commission of or while attempting to commit kidnapping;
• Another by criminally soliciting a person to cause said death or after having been criminally solicited by another for his personal pecuniary gain;
• Another after being sentenced to life imprisonment without parole;
• Another before, after, or while engaged in the commission of, or while attempting to commit aggravated felonious sexual assault;
• Another before, after, or while engaged in the commission of, or while attempting to commit certain defined drug offenses.

In 2012 New Hampshire state representative Phil Greazzo, who simultaneously proposed a broad expansion of the death penalty to include any intentional murder, also offered an alternative bill to abolish the death penalty entirely because he felt the 1977 statute was “so unfair”.  He said he would rather have lawmakers do away with the punishment altogether than maintain the status quo, which restricts the death penalty to certain murders, such as killing a law enforcement officer.  Greazzo pointed out the inconsistencies of the current statute saying, “If I hire someone to commit a murder for me, that would bring the death penalty.  If I did it myself, there's no death penalty.”  In proposing both the expansion and repeal bills, Greazzo said he intended that lawmakers consider a full range of possibilities for improving the current law.  

On November 6, 2013 the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued a lengthy ruling upholding the conviction and death sentence of Michael Addison, the state's only death row inmate. Addison was convicted in Superior Court of the capital murder of Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs and sentenced to death. The case is the first death-penalty appeal to be decided by the New Hampshire Supreme Court in decades. The court in affirming Addison’s conviction addressed and rejected twenty-two issues raised by the defendant:

• Trial issues - venue, peremptory challenges and challenges for cause to prospective jurors, prior crimes evidence under New Hampshire Rules of Evidence 404(b), and the jury instruction on reasonable doubt.
• Sentencing - the defendant's custodial statement, victim impact evidence, evidence of conditions of confinement, evidence of and jury instruction on mode of execution, prior crimes evidence, and closing argument.
• Constitutional and statutory issues - the constitutionality of the capital punishment statute, the narrowing function of the statutory aggravating factors, the statutory burdens of proof, the inapplicability of the rules of evidence, the impact of race in capital sentencing, the process of "death qualifying" the jury, the non-statutory aggravating factors' compliance with certain constitutional requirements, and the defendant’s post-verdict request for discovery.

The opinion said additional briefing and oral argument would be required before deciding "whether the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant."

2. Relevant biblical teaching

The rights and duties of civil government²

In the early history of the human race God brought a massive flood on the earth, destroying all human beings except the eight who were rescued in the ark: Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. When the flood ended, Noah and his family came out of the ark and started human society all over again. At that point God gave instructions regarding the life they were about to begin including the following passage:

Genesis 9:1-6

9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ² The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. ³ Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. ⁴ But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. ⁵ And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

⁶ “Whoever sheds the blood of man,
    by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image.

The verb “shed” in verse 9 is translated from the Hebrew verb “shaphak”, which means “pour out, shed, pour, cast and gush out” and, although used this way in other verses3, arguably could mean injury not causing death. However, the use of the verb to describe both the wrong (“sheds the blood of man”) and the penalty (“by man shall his blood be shed”) makes it clear, as justice would require, that if the wrong is the wrongful taking of human life (murder as we understand it) the punishment is the taking of the life of the murderer.

It is also clear that the execution of the murderer is not going to be carried out directly by God, but by a human agent to whom God has given dominion over the earth (“I give you everything.”)v . This action is therefore not some human invention, but is instituted to carry out God's own requirement of justice for the intentional, unjustified taking of a human life.

The reason God gives for this ultimate punishment is the immense value of human life: "for God made man in his own image". To murder a human being is to murder someone who is more like God and any other creature on earth so that the murder of another human being is in a sense an attack against God himself for it is an attack against God’s representative on earth.

This passage comes long before the establishment of the nation of Israel or the giving of the laws of the Mosaic covenant and is therefore not limited to the nation of Israel or to a specific period of time (although later passages in the Old Testament show that God did institute the death penalty for the crime of murder in Israel⁴). The covenant with Noah applies to all human beings on earth for all generations:

Genesis 9:16-17: ¹⁶ When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” ¹⁷ God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Romans 13:1-7 is the first of two primary New Testament passages that teach about civil government:

Romans 13:1-7: Submission to the Authorities 13 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. ² Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. ³ For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, ⁴ for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he 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. ⁵ Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ⁶ For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. ⁷ Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

First, Paul says that the civil government is to be “God’s servant” and “bears the sword” for this reason (not “in vain”) in the case of wrongdoing. Whether the “sword” is explicitly the instrument by which people are put to death⁵ or a symbol of governmental authority, the next sentence makes it clear that Paul’s understanding of the role of the civil government ("the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer") is consistent with the teaching of Genesis 9 that where God requires a reckoning for wrongdoing (“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”) this reckoning will be carried out through human agents, specifically civil government.

The second primary New Testament passage on civil government is 1 Peter 2:13-14:

1 Peter 2:13-14: Submission to Authority ¹³ Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, ¹⁴ or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

Peter is also teaching that God has instituted civil government (“sent by him”) to bring God's punishment to the wrongdoer. In the case of murder, consistent with Genesis 9:5-6, that punishment is death.

God clearly gives to civil government the right and the responsibility to carry out capital punishment for the crime of murder in carrying out God’s justice. As to whether other crimes are worthy of capital punishment the Bible does not give explicit instruction⁶, although a good rule could be a determination of the extent to which their consequences and the evil they involve are sufficiently near to murder.

Forgiveness

Many people seem to think that if a loved one has been murdered they should forgive the murderer and never seek that the wrongdoer be punished by the civil government. However, that is not the solution Paul gives in Romans 12:19. He doesn't say that we are to forgive everyone who has done wrong to us and not seek to be avenged but rather he tells us to give up any desire to seek revenge ourselves and instead give it over to the civil government as he says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God."

Leaving the civil government to carry out justice frees the believer to do good, even to those who have wronged him. As Paul says, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him: if he is thirsty, give him something to drink"⁷. In that way they will "overcome evil with good"⁸, and that good comes not only through giving food and water but also through the justice system of the civil government, which is "God's servant for your good".

A rightful desire for God's vengeance to come through government is not "satisfying revenge" and therefore inconsistent with forgiveness but is satisfying God's requirement of justice and reflects the appropriate desire for God's justice in human hearts:

Revelation 6:9-10: ⁹ When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. ¹⁰ They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

These souls, now completely free from sin, are crying out for God to avenge their murders and to take vengeance on those who have murdered them, and it is exactly this action of committing judgment into the hands of God that allows us to give up the desire to seek it for ourselves thereby freeing us to continue to show acts of personal mercy even as Jesus did:

Luke 23:34: ³⁴ And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”And they cast lots to divide his garments.

1 Peter 2:23: ²³ When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

People may think that chastity is the most unpopular Christian doctrine, but C.S. Lewis thinks forgiveness may be even more unpopular particularly as Christians are called to forgive their enemies. Although everyone probably agrees with forgiveness as a virtue in the abstract, when they have something particularly egregious to forgive they resist not because they think the virtue is too difficult but because, in the circumstances, they think it hateful and contemptible to forgive really bad behavior.

Christians pray for forgiveness as they forgive the sins of others, and Lewis believes they are not offered forgiveness on any other terms. Forgiveness is a choice we make through a decision of our will, motivated by obedience to God and his command to forgive. We forgive by faith, out of obedience. Since forgiveness often goes against our inclination or even our reason, we must forgive by faith, whether we feel like it or not. We must trust God to do the work in us that needs to be done so that the forgiveness will be complete. God completes the work in his time. We must continue to forgive (our job), by faith, until the work of forgiveness (the Lord's job), is done in our hearts.

And, if we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, we need a better understanding of how we love ourselves. Since we don’t love ourselves because we think we are “nice” or because we enjoy our own company, it is a relief to understand we need not have these feelings for our enemies. Also if we continue to love ourselves despite our bad actions we begin to understand what it means to “hate the sin but not the sinner”. The idea is that we should be sorry that another has sinned and hope for some “cure” in the future. But Lewis says:

“Loving your enemy certainly does not mean not punishing him any more than loving myself means I ought not subject myself to punishment. The commandment is a prohibition against murder, not against killing. All killing is not murder any more than all sexual activity is adultery. The real point of Christian morality for a creature who will live forever is the evolution of the soul. A Christian may kill if necessary, but he must not hate or enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it.

We love ourselves simply because it is our self, and we should love others in the same way. Fortunately God has given us the perfect example, because that is how he loves us.”⁹

We will know the work of forgiveness is complete when we experience the freedom that comes as a result. We are the ones who suffer most when we choose not to forgive. As we forgive, God sets our hearts free from the anger, bitterness, resentment and hurt that previously imprisoned us.

3. Objections to capital punishment from the Bible¹⁰

Exodus 20:13

The instruction in Exodus 20:13, "You shall not murder," does not prohibit the death penalty on the basis that civil government should not "murder" a criminal. Murder is commonly defined as ‘the intentional, unjustified killing of a human being.” As noted above, capital punishment administered by the civil government is entirely justified biblically by Genesis 9:1-6, Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-14.

Some Bible translations¹¹ use the word “kill” rather than “murder” in Exodus 20:13 leading some to say the Bible therefore contains a general prohibition against all “killing.” Rather than argue about whether the Hebrew verb used in Exodus 20:13 refers to what we would call murder in a criminal sense today or refers to judicial execution¹², we know God commanded that the death penalty be carried out in the laws He gave in the Mosaic covenant¹³. It would not be logical to conclude that in one book of the Bible God generally prohibited what He specifically commanded in another.

Matthew 5:38-39

Matthew 5:38-39: Retaliation ³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ 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.

In this verse Jesus is speaking to individual persons and instructing them in their relationships with other individuals and is similar to Romans 12:19 where Paul prohibits personal vengeance. Jesus is not talking about the responsibility of governments or telling governments how they should act with respect to the punishment of crimes.

Matthew 22:39

Matthew 22:39: ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The real question here is whether it is possible to love one's neighbor, in obedience to this command, and at the same time support the action of the civil government in putting him to death for murder. This objection seeks to contrast Jesus’ command here with Old Testament commands about the death penalty, but Jesus is actually quoting from the Old Testament:

Leviticus 19:18: ¹⁸ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

In the same context of God's instruction quoted by Jesus He also commanded the death penalty for certain crimes¹⁴, so that God clearly commanded both love for one's neighbor and the death penalty, for example, for people who put their children to death in sacrificing to idols.

Matthew 26:52

When Jesus is being arrested, Peter drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, but Jesus told Peter to put his sword back into its place and said, “For all those who take the sword will perish by the sword." This verse cannot fairly be taken as a command to people serving as agents of government ignoring who Peter was and what his role was when this incident took place. Jesus was not saying that no soldier or policeman should ever have weapons. He was telling his disciple Peter not to attempt to resist those who were arresting Jesus. (It's also interesting that Peter who had been traveling with Jesus regularly for three years was carrying a sword as many people did at that time for self-defense. Jesus never taught that it was wrong to carry a sword for self-defense and seems to have approved swords for this very purpose¹⁵.) In addition, Jesus did not tell Peter to give the sword away or throw it away but to put its put it back in its place. It was apparently right for Peter to carry the sword, just not to use it to prevent Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, so that, "all who take the sword will perish by the sword" must mean that those who take up the sword in an attempt to prevent the work of advancing the kingdom of God will not succeed. If Jesus’ followers had attempted to forcibly overthrow the Roman government as a means of advancing their view of how the kingdom of God should proceed, Jesus is telling them they would fail and "perish by the sword."

John 8:2-11

The Old Testament commands the death penalty for the crime of adultery¹⁶, but in John 8:2-11 there is a story of a woman caught in adultery where Jesus says, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw stones at her.” There are several reasons this passage does not support an argument against the death penalty for murder. First, even if the text is used to argue against the death penalty for adultery, it is not a story about a murderer and therefore doesn’t address the use of the death penalty for that crime. Second, the Roman government prohibited anyone from carrying out the death penalty except the Roman officials themselves, and here Jesus was not allowing himself to be drawn into a situation where the Jewish leaders might use his words to sanction the death penalty for this woman in contravention of Roman law or, if he said the woman should be released, to appear to be condoning adultery. Finally, the entire story¹⁷ is in a passage of doubtful biblical origin.

God’s actions

Another argument against the death penalty is that God's own actions show that murderers should not be put to death, because God himself spared Cane after he murdered Abel¹⁸ and spared the life of King David when David caused the death of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah¹⁹. This argument conflates the responsibility of civil government with the freedom of God. Of course God can pardon some people until the day of final judgment and execute immediate judgment on others. We see in other passages that God executed immediate judgment that ended people’s lives as with the fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah²⁰, the flood²¹, Korah, Dathan and Abirim²², Nadab and Abihu²³ or Uzzah²⁴.

A "whole life ethic"

Some opponents of the death penalty have argued that Christians should apply a "whole life ethic," in which they oppose all intentional taking of human life including abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and war. Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago stated, "The spectrum of life cuts across the issues of genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modern warfare and care of the terminally ill." Pope John Paul II also advocated this position.

A position does not become more meaningful by giving it a label ("whole life ethic"). The fact that genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modern warfare and care of the terminally ill all involve “life” does not make them the same logically or biblically. This kind of thinking can be used to support almost any position.

All these arguments suffer from the same weakness. It is not sound biblical interpretation to attempt to argue from "implications" in passages that do not speak explicitly about a subject in order to use them to deny the teaching of those passages that address the subject directly. We need a “whole Bible ethic” faithful to the teaching of the entire Bible on any subject.

4. Statements in favor of repeal of capital punishment in New Hampshire

Senator Bob Odell, one of two Republicans who voted in favor of repeal, had previously supported the death penalty, but said he could not explain an execution to his grandchildren.

Boston Globe

• Death-penalty prosecutions are expensive.
• Verdicts often reflect racial bias.
• There’s little evidence that executions actually deter violent crime.
• A state with a libertarian heritage like New Hampshire’s should regard with deep suspicion a punishment that can only make sense if the government has the right suspect 100 percent of the time.
• In response to the argument that prosecutors need the death penalty as a bargaining tool, the editors said, "[T]hat’s among the weakest of reasons to keep the death penalty, because it could serve to coerce an innocent or less culpable defendant into taking a plea bargain just to avoid the possibility of death."

Joseph Nadeau and John Broderick (two former justices of the New Hampshire Supreme Court)

• The death penalty lacks a deterrent effect, saying, "New Hampshire has not executed anyone for three quarters of a century. Yet, it registered the second lowest murder rate in the nation every year of this century."
• Murder rates are higher in “heavy-use” death penalty states than is states without the death penalty.
• The decision to seek the death penalty is often "random" and "easily influenced by public opinion, political pressure and media attention."
• The sentence of life without parole is an appropriate alternative, protecting society and punishing the offender.
• "Abolishing the death penalty will not compromise public safety, but it may replace rage with reason, retribution with self-respect, and enrich the character of our people as a whole.”

Criminal Justice Committee Chair Laura Pantelakos:

• Racial inequities in the system led her to change her vote, citing different outcomes in recent cases for a black and a white defendant.
• Pantelakos, who has a grandson about to become a police officer, asked, “Why is a police officer’s life more valuable than an engineer’s?”

Representative Dennis Fields:

• Fields said he was swayed by the families of murder victims who testified they did not want another life taken in their names. He added, “I do not want to take another life; I’m not God.”

House Majority Leader Stephen Shurtleff:

• Shurtleff said, “I would like to think with age comes wisdom. So today I will be voting for repeal.”
• He added after the vote, “It really is a barbaric practice and the time is now to put it aside, and I think to give somebody life imprisonment so they can think every day about what they’ve done is more of a punishment than ending their life.”

Republican Representative Robbie Parsons:

• Parsons, who voted to expand the death penalty in the past, ultimately found the inequities in the system unacceptable and voted for repeal.

Representative Renny Cushing:

• The sponsor of the bill, said, “I view them now as the voice of experience, and how our thinking has changed in New Hampshire and the rest of the country.”

John Breckenridge (former partner of the police officer murdered by the only inmate currently on death row in New Hampshire – Michael Addison):

• "Given the Catholic view on the sanctity of life and our modern prison system and the means we have to protect society, it became clear to me that as a Catholic I could not justify the very pre-meditated act of executing someone who – for all the evil of his crime and all the permanent hurt he caused others – still lives in the possibility of spiritual redemption. That’s where my journey brought me. Do I want to visit Michael Addison or invite him into my home? I do not. Do I occasionally pray for him and his family? I do."

Bernice King (the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.):

• "I can’t accept the judgment that killers need to be killed, a practice that merely perpetuates the cycle of violence."
• King called the death penalty "unworthy of a civilized society," and warned that "retribution cannot light the way to the genuine healing that we need in the wake of heinous acts of violence."
• King pointed to the number of people freed from death row after being exonerated as "evidence that mistakes can and do get made in a justice system run by fallible human beings."
• King invoked her father's message of nonviolence, quoting from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “'Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.'"

The Concord Monitor of New Hampshire:

• The paper contrasted the case of Michael Addison, the state's only death row inmate, to that of John Brooks, who was convicted of hiring three hit-men to kill a handyman, whom Brooks believed had stolen from him. Brooks received a sentence of life without parole. The Monitor noted, "Brooks was rich and white; Addison was poor and black.... Addison’s victim had the full force of New Hampshire law enforcement watching every twist and turn of the case; Brooks’s victim was little known and quickly forgotten. Different lawyers, different juries, different cases. But it’s difficult not to step back and wonder about the fairness of it all."
• "New Hampshire hasn’t used its death penalty in more than 70 years. We will be a better, fairer, more humane state without it."

1 As used in this section … the meaning of “another” does not include a foetus [sic].

2 Politics According to the Bible, Wayne Grudem

3 Genesis 37:22, 1 Kings 2:31 and Ezekiel 22:4

4 Numbers 35:16-34

5 Deuteronomy 13:15, Deuteronomy 20:13, Acts 12:2, Acts 16:27, Hebrews 11:37 and Revelation 13:10

6 The laws in the Mosaic covenant in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy were intended for the people of Israel at that particular time in history. There is no suggestion in the rest of the Bible that those uses of the death penalty should be applied to civil governments today.

7 Romans 12:20

8 Romans 12:21

9 Mere Christianity, Book Three Christian Behavior, Chapter 7 Forgiveness

10 Politics According to the Bible, Wayne Grudem

11 American Standard Version, King James Version and Revised Standard Version

12 Numbers 35:16: 16  “But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death.

13 Numbers 35:16 -21 and Numbers 35:30-34

14 Leviticus 20:2: ² “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. Leviticus 20:10: Punishments for Sexual Immorality ¹⁰ “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

15 Luke 22:38

16 Deuteronomy 22:23-24

17 John 7:53-8:11

18 Genesis 4:8-16

19 2 Samuel 12:13

20 Genesis 19:24-29

21 Genesis 6-9

22 Numbers 16:31-33

23 Leviticus 10:1-2

24 2 Samuel 6:7