“According to the Old Testament, a capital sentence is to be carried out only on the testimony of two eye-witnesses to the crime.
According to the New Testament, capital punishment is to be carried out only by those who are without sin.”
I don’t think you should “pit” the OT and the NT against each other.
It is all true, so, how do we reconcile it?
From the beginning, God’s law has told us, a killer of a man shall be put to death. This law is from the earliest parts of Genesis, but repeated throughout Scripture.
Now Jesus did say the woman caught in adultery should be spared. It could have been because it was not being done right; in other words there were not two or three witnesses, the male perpetrator was being let off, I don’t know.
You might therefore say that only correctly administered and adjudicated death penalty cases can be carried out. You also might deduce that the death penalty for adultery is now abrogated. But I don’t think you can logically deduce that the death penalty is suddenly and forever canceled for all crimes. That conclusion is not consistent with the rest of Scripture.
Actually, that's not what I said and that's not what I believe. I have not argued that executing a criminal is the same as murder. It's not.
In fact, in cases where the guilt is certain, I think it would be more just if the death sentence were carried out in a way that is swift, severe and certain.
But I do have serious questions about vesting life-and-death powers in the hands of a State that has millions of times over shown its willingness to shed innocent blood. In Romans, Paul states: "For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."
I question whether a State which "authorizes" abortion-on-demand --- child sacrifice by the tens of millions ---can atill be thought of as "God's servant." For a better assessment of such a State, I would refer you, not to Romans 13, but the Revelation 13: the State as a tool of demons.
I don't know whether it's godly to put life-or-death powers in the hands of "rulers" already chest-deep in innocent blood.
“Now Jesus did say the woman caught in adultery should be spared. It could have been because it was not being done right; in other words there were not two or three witnesses, the male perpetrator was being let off, I don’t know.”
I’ve seen this brought up several times...Adultery is not murder. It is not an analogy that works.