I’m sure I might get a lot of hate for this ...but: I believe the State has the right to execute a criminal but given the current state of our Country I don’t trust the legal system enough to put anyone’s life on the line.
No hate from me.
There are two separate issues here. One is whether the Bible teaches that the state can execute criminals, and the answer is clearly yes. The other is whether we would want our state executing what it calls criminals, which is a political and not a theological issue.
I would trust Donald Trump in DC, and Rick Scott in Tallahassee, to execute criminals as justly as any ruler can. I would not trust Hillary Clinton in DC, or Barack Obama or Kamala Harris or Bernie Sanders or Tim Kaine to execute criminals justly. I do not trust Kim Jong-Un to do anything justly with criminals. But the Bible granted Obama, and grants Trump and Kim, the same authority to execute criminals that it granted Claudius and Nero in the time of Paul.
Our present government does not legally prevent killing the innocent by the hundreds of thousands. In fact, it (still) acts as criminal accomplice.
Our Lord's "argument" against killing the woman caught in adultery was not that she didn't do it, and not even that adultery ought not to be a capital crime. (That's a separate issue). But His argument was that there wasn't anybody there just and blameless enough to carry out the execution.
I do not think our government, as an institution, is grounded in the justice or moral perception necessary to carry out ANY execution.
in most cases i do. especially the cases with overwhelming and irrefutable evidence.