Someone emailed me about an assignment I completed for one of my classes at PC: my assignment was to produce a magazine ad; I did one for capital punishment. The person who emailed me was against capital punishment on, I would say, religious grounds. Her argument was that Jesus says not to resist evil but to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-39). Also, that we must forgive men their trespasses and if we do not neither will God forgive us our trespasses (Matthew 6:14-15). She also stated, "Jesus counseled us not to cast the first stone." She concludes with the statements that vengeance belongs to the Lord, and that He will take care of all the evil in the world if we will let Him work in his wisdom and love.
My response to her exactly or almost exactly:
"I certainly believe that we must be good to our enemies and have mercy on those that hate us; just as the Bible says. However, I also believe that justice ought to be done.
I don't think you can say punishing people is wrong because of these verses. (Capital punishment is merely a form of punishment.) In those verses perhaps Jesus is saying we ought not to resist abuse or retaliate against those who hurt us. Keep in mind that there is a difference between punishing a person and hitting someone because they hit you. For example, you have a child and he hits his sister. Do you just comfort the sister and leave her brother unpunished, or do you punish him so that he will learn not to hit his sister. The scripture says, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him quickly." (Proverbs 13:24)
Your statement in the second paragraph, "Jesus counseled us not to cast the first stone." is actually not correct. Jesus actually said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."(John 8:7) In this we see Jesus not actually forbidding to cast stones; later when he is the only one left with her he could not have condemned the woman even if he knew she was guilty because he was only one witness. If we work with what Jesus said, had there been two righteous people in the group that brought this woman she would have been stoned.
Also keep in mind that Jesus made a scourge (basically a whip) and drove the money changers out of the temple. (John 2:15)"
