"Free Will" and Evangelism

by Bruce Mills

Most of my Christian friends—other than many of those who attend my church and a few others—are Arminians in their doctrine of salvation. That is to say, they believe that every person has the ability in and of himself to choose to receive Christ as Savior. For the vast majority of them, this viewpoint is based entirely on their own experience in coming to faith in Christ. It is not based on any in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation and the differing viewpoints of James Arminius and John Calvin. For most of them, it is entirely centered on their own human understanding and perspective of salvation, without any effort to understand the critical issues which are involved.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it simply is not found in Scripture. The Bible constantly portrays man as completely dead in sin, enslaved to sin, and totally unable to choose to do anything other than sin. Man is not merely spiritually sick—he is spiritually dead! He is a religious and moral cadaver. Therefore, man rejects the gospel because it is man’s nature to do so.

So then, no one has “free will” as defined by the Arminians, because a person’s will is the extension and invariable expression of his nature. No creature ever acts in violation of its nature and, therefore, every person willingly chooses to reject the gospel because that is the desire of his heart. No one is free to act or choose contrary to his nature any more than an orange tree is free to produce almonds. Thus, no one seeks to come to Jesus because it is not his nature to come. In fact, it is man’s nature, and therefore his will, to flee from Christ.

So why is it that, when confronted with the gospel, a person may choose to believe the message regarding his lost, sinful condition and God’s forgiveness through Christ’s substitutionary atonement, and then come in repentance and faith to believe? It is only because God, in His sovereign grace, grants that person the faith to believe.

I recently read a wonderful quote from George Whitefield, written back in the 18th century, which illustrates what I have been saying. Whitefield wrote:

“Come, ye dead, Christless, unconverted sinners, come and see the place where they laid the body of the deceased Lazarus; behold him laid out, bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths, locked up and stinking in a dark cave, with a great stone placed on top of it. View him again and again; go nearer to him; be not afraid; smell him. Ah! How he stinketh. Stop there now, pause a while; and whilst thou art gazing upon the corpse of Lazarus, give me leave to tell thee with great plainness, but greater love, that this dead, bound, entombed, stinking carcase, is but a faith representation of thy poor soul in its natural state; for, whether thou believest or not, thy spirit which thou bearest about with thee, sepulchered in flesh and blood, is as literally dead to God, and as truly dead in trespasses and sins, as the body of Lazarus was in the cave. Was he bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths? So art thou bound hand and foot with thy corruptions; and as a stone was laid on the sepulcher, so there is a stone of unbelief upon thy stupid heart. Perhaps thou hast lain in this state, not only four days, but many years, stinking in God’s nostrils. And, what is still more effecting, thou art as unable to raise thyself out of this loathsome, dead state, to a life of righteousness and true holiness, as ever Lazarus was to raise himself from the cave in which he lay so long. Thou mayest try the power of thy own boasted free-will, and the force and energy of moral persuasion and rational arguments (which, without all doubt, have their proper place in religion); but all thy efforts, exerted with never so much vigour, will prove quite fruitless and abortive, till that same Jesus, who said ‘Take away the stone’; and cried, ‘Lazarus, come forth’ also quicken you.”

Why do I think this issue is important? Because we must always remember that while it is our responsibility to proclaim salvation, we must never forget that it is God who saves. God uses our evangelistic efforts as the instrument by which He accomplishes His sovereign purposes in bringing some to salvation, but it is His prerogative to bring about results when the gospel is given. If we ever begin to think that our gospel presentation can be so fine-tuned as to become an incontrovertible convincing argument which will cause individuals to see their sin and then, using their own “free will,” choose to believe and generate within themselves the faith and repentance that are necessary for salvation, the result will be that our methods will quickly degenerate into similarity with those of snake oil salesmen.

J. I. Packer puts it this way. He says that if we regard faith and repentance merely as the product of human effort, “we should regard evangelism as an activity involving a battle of the wills between ourselves and those to whom we go, a battle in which victory depends on our firing off a heavy enough barrage of calculated effects. Thus our philosophy of evangelism would become terrifying similar to the philosophy of brainwashing.”

It is only when we recognize God’s sovereignty in every aspect of salvation, from beginning to end, that we can avoid these errors as we share our faith. No decision for Christ is ever the result of a slick, well-articulated gospel presentation, and no rejection of Christ is ever the result of a stumbling, inept presentation of the gospel. Every person who comes to faith in Christ does so because God has chosen that person in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) and then draws that person in time, giving him the gracious gift of faith to believe. Our duty as Christians is to do our best to share the gospel with everyone we can, using the most effective means available to us, but entrusting the results to our sovereign Lord.

Faith Alone!

by Robert Fraire

Recently I was asked about the "contradiction" in the Bible concerning the sufficiency of faith in the realm of salvation. The question went like this. How can you say that salvation is by faith alone when James 2:20 clearly says otherwise? Or put another way: In James 2:20 and 2:24 we read:

20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?

24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Yet Romans 3:28-30 reads

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law ... since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.

Now on the surface these two passages might seem to be in contradiction. So what are we to do? Do we shrug our shoulders and say it is some sort of mystery? NO, we must not do so. It would be a fatal flaw in the Christian faith if it could be successfully argued that the Bible teaches (in the same manner and sense) both salvation by faith apart from works, and salvation by faith requiring works.

If so basic a tenant of Christianity such as salvation is unclear or self contradictory, then what is the Gospel message? Christianity would be irrational. Unfortunately too many Christians are willing to live with this proposition. We too often don't do the work necessary to find out what the Bible really teaches and instead settle for a "blind faith" that says, "I love Jesus and He loves me, so I'll leave the Bible for those theologians."

That is not our calling. God has given us His word in order for us to read it and put its words into practice. Are you willing to state that God either chose to be unclear when he inspired scripture or was unable to be clear? God forbid.

So let us look at what does the Bible teach concerning faith and works. In this post I will lay out a summary of the Biblical view of Saving Faith and Works. Then is latter posts I will explore many other issues that play into this truth.

The bottom line is that Salvation is an act of God. He chose us (Eph 1), He called us (John 6:44), He regenerated us (John 3). It is this regenerated person with a new nature that is able to truly comprehend the truth of his condition and his need for Jesus Christ. This man understands and believes God (faith). At this point it becomes a reality in time that the man's sin were imputed onto the account of Christ and God imputes Christ's righteousness onto the account of the man (2 Cor 5:21). At this point God declares the man justified, he is now irrevocably "saved" and all without any works (or meritorious actions) on his part. Even the faith he exhibited was due to God's work of regeneration. In this way his faith was a gift of God.

Ephesians 2:8,9
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So then what does the passage in James mean? Did James get it wrong. Should the book of James be removed from the Bible as some have suggested in the past? No and No.

Looking at the context of James 2 with give us the picture.

James 2:21-23
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God.

Here James is explaining his terms. He demonstrates that Abraham didn't just profess that he had faith. He, in fact, acted in obedience to God which demonstrated the faith that he already possessed. Abraham would not have been willing to offer Issac on the alter, if his "faith" had been a lie. Those that truly believe in God with act in accordance with that belief. If you claim that you believe in God and then do directly what he commands that you not do then it demonstrates a lock of faith.

In other words in James 2:24 when he makes his conclusion that man is justified by works and not by faith alone. He means that we are justified by True faith. And that faith will in fact lead to us living and doing what God commands. We are not saved be something called "faith" that has no Godly actions associated with it.

This is exactly in harmony with the rest of scripture. Since God has made us new creatures in Him, we act like new creatures that love God and strive to please him.

I pray that you will ponder these truths and not settle for an irrational faith.

Marriage and Divorce

By Bruce Mills

I realize that addressing the subject of marriage and divorce in the limited space of a blog posting is fraught with danger. Volumes have been written on this subject, with countless arguments back and forth regarding whether or not marriage is still a necessary institution, the legitimacy of divorce, and so forth. But still, I think that we as evangelicals need to weigh in on what the Bible has to say about these subjects.

Marriage is being viciously attacked in our society. It is being redefined in ways that no one could ever have imagined 25 years ago. But God’s intention for marriage hasn’t changed since the Garden of Eden.

God created Adam and Eve—not Adam and Edward. He created a couple composed of one man and one woman. In fact, he gives us the Magna Carta of marriage in Gen. 2:24—"For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh."

The Bible does not approve of any other form of marriage—neither polygamy nor homosexual marriage. In fact, God clearly condemned such in Romans 1.

Nor does he approve of couples living together without being married. Over and over in Scripture, God forbids fornication and adultery, but He also gave us an entire book (Song of Solomon) centered on the wonderful blessings of love and sex within marriage.

So Scripture clearly teaches that marriage is sacred beyond what most people imagine, because it is a unique creation of God that serves as a dramatic portrayal of God’s relation to His people, and a display of His glory.

The Bible says that marriage is to be permanent—just as God is continually faithful to us and does not leave us for someone else, He expects us to be faithful to our spouse. In Malachi 2:16, God tells us, “I hate divorce.” And Jesus was explicit about marriage being of divine origin and permanent in nature because in Matt. 19:6, He said, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” He expects that we will honor our commitment and the covenant we make at the time we marry.

At the church in which I serve as an elder, we take marriage and what the Bible has to say about it very seriously. In fact, our church constitution includes this statement:

We believe and teach that the family was the first institution God provided for man (Genesis 2:18-24); that marriage is both a sacred and honorable relationship (Hebrews 13:4; 1 Corinthians 7:2) that is used as a symbol of the union of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:21-23), and that marriage was designed by God to be a permanent relationship of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:18-24), and that any other form of sexual relationship is a sinful perversion of God’s ordained plan for mankind (Genesis 19:5, 13; 26:8-9; Leviticus 18:1-30; Romans 1:26-29; 1 Corinthians 5:1, 6:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8; Hebrews 13:4).

So we want everyone to know, right up front, what our position is on marriage. In addition, every couple who is going to be married in our church is required to go through several weeks (usually 8-10 weeks) of pre-marital counseling.

And we do our best to help preserve marriage in our church. The counselors in our biblical counseling ministry spend many hours providing marriage counseling to couples who are struggling with difficulties in their marriages. I’ve been told that about 70% of all their counseling deals with problems in marriages.

As to the issue of divorce, let me briefly state my position. I believe that it is clear from the Bible that God does, in very limited circumstances, allow for divorce and remarriage. First, Jesus allowed for such in cases in which one of the marriage partners have been unfaithful and committed adultery with someone else (Matt. 5:32). Second, Paul taught that when an unbelieving spouse leaves a believer because he/she doesn’t want to be around the believer any longer, the believer is no longer obligated to remain married to that person and is free to remarry (1 Cor. 7:15).

But let me also say that even though divorce is a legitimate option in those limited circumstances, it is not always the best option. God gave us the book of Hosea in the Old Testament in which He specifically directed the prophet to marry a prostitute who bore children to him, then left him and went back to the practice of prostitution. And God told him to remain married to her and faithful to her and win her back. And the purpose was to demonstrate God’s faithfulness to Israel despite her unfaithfulness to Him. We are called to follow our Lord’s example, and to do so includes following His example of faithfulness even when others have been unfaithful to us. So God does not command divorce, even in circumstances of unfaithfulness, but He does permit it.

So, because divorce under any circumstances other than those that God permits is a sin, it affects membership in the church. If a believer divorces his/her spouse without legitimate biblical grounds, the church he/she attends should exercise church discipline in that situation. Unfortunately, my own church has had to publicly discipline individuals who were divorcing their spouse without biblical grounds for doing such.

If an individual has been divorced since becoming a believer, wise church leaders will require that person to meet with one of the pastors to discuss the reasons for that divorce and his or her spiritual walk in regard to that divorce before allowing them to join the church. If an individual was divorced prior to salvation, such should not be held against that person, but if he/she has remarried, they should be expected to remain faithful to their spouse as commanded by Scripture.

Divorce also affects the potential of a man serving in the leadership of the church. However, contrary to what many teach, I do not believe that Paul’s instruction regarding elders and deacons is an absolute prohibition that all men who have ever been divorced are prevented from serving in those capacities.

In 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, where our English Bibles say “the husband of one wife,” the Greek text literally reads “a one-woman man.” It does not specifically say anything about divorce; rather it speaks to the faithfulness of those men to their wives. Paul is teaching that elders and deacons must be men who are faithful to their wife. Just as all the other attributes of an elder and deacon that are listed in those passages are character qualities rather than specific situations, so too, faithfulness to his wife is to be the character of the man.

Now, I should point out that those character qualities are also expected of a man who is a believer. I believe it is incorrect to expect an unbeliever to meet the standards for godly character that God establishes for believers in the church. They are only applied to the man after he is a believer. You can’t go backward and say, “Well, he was divorced ten years before he became a Christian, and we are going to hold that against him even though he has been a believer for several years now.”

I don’t think you can do that anymore than you can say, “Well, he wasn’t very hospitable or he wasn’t very gentle ten years before he became a Christian, so we’re going to hold that against him now when we consider him for elder or deacon.”

The church at which I serve has occasionally, in the past, had some men in leadership who were divorced prior to becoming a Christian, but at the time they entered into a leadership position, they had been believers for many years and demonstrated their faithfulness to their current wife throughout that time, as well as meeting the other qualifications listed in Scripture.

If a church is going to consider such an man for leadership, both his personal and spiritual lives should be examined very carefully, and if he has been divorced, the leaders should particularly examine the details of that situation. That man’s life as a Christian must be above reproach, so the leaders must make sure there is nothing at all involved with the circumstances of his divorce that will bring reproach on the name of Christ or His church.

There is much more that I could write to expand upon almost every point in this post, but most people would become tired of reading and get lost in all the details. For now, this will have to suffice as an overall summary.

The Neglected Attribute of God

By Bruce Mills

This Sunday, I am going to do something which will never be done in 90 percent of the churches in America—I am going to preach on the wrath of God. This singular attribute has fallen into a state of neglect because it is associated with “fire and brimstone” preaching, which few people desire to hear in this post-modern culture.

Tragically, many—if not most—Christians embrace a user-friendly picture of God, and regard divine wrath as something for which they need to apologize, if not reject altogether. They find the truth of divine vengeance distasteful, as though His retribution is somehow unprofitable for discussion or a blemish on His holy character.

Some consider God’s wrath to be in direct contradiction to His divine love; that is, that it is somehow a violation of His tender mercy. Still others consider it to be an outmoded, antiquated view of God that has become too unsophisticated for modern man. Therefore, they either leave out the message of divine wrath when they attempt to present the gospel, or they alter it in some fashion to try to make it more appealing to man’s “itching ears.”

However, when they offer God’s love without mentioning His wrath, they fail in our attempt to genuinely present His grace to lost and dying people. They compromise the Bible’s clear teaching on divine ven-geance and in so doing, unknowingly hurt their own cause. By downplaying God’s wrath, they inevitably downplay His love. In reality, they have created a god in their own image.

You see, just as a god without love and mercy is not God, a god without wrath is not God.

In the Bible, there is certainly no attempt on God’s part to hide the severity of His fierce anger against sin. Scripture refers more to God’s wrath than to any other attribute, even His love. Those two divine attributes are inextricably linked, and an understanding of His love always requires an understanding of His wrath.

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible presents a consistent picture of a holy God who reserves wrath for sinners, who is angry with the wicked every day, and yet who, at the same time, loves sinners with the strongest, most tender love.

But everywhere you go, if you get into any kind of spiritual conversation about God with people, and you mention God’s wrath, you will be asked, “How can God be wrathful and tenderly loving?” To the human mind, that seems like a contradiction.

But this juxtaposition does not mean that His love negates His holy wrath. Nor does it mean that His grace cancels out the severity of His judgment. Rather, just the opposite is true. His love necessitates His wrath. The God who loves righteousness must equally hate every form of evil, wherever it is found.

Regarding this balance in God’s holy character, Psalm 45:7 says, “You love righteousness and hate wickedness.” God’s wrath is an essential part of His divine nature; a necessary part of His perfect being that fully embraces and magnifies His love. God must punish all forms of evil wherever they are found, or His love would be reduced to mere sentimentality, a shallow emotion that is not love at all.

He is absolutely holy, and a holy God cannot be indifferent toward the sin that violates His unblemished, pure character. He cannot stand idly by and condone that which rebels against His morally pure nature. He must hate sin. He must judge sinners. Otherwise, He would cease to be holy—which is, of course, impossible.

So, don’t neglect the doctrine of the wrath of God. You don’t need to apologize for believing in it. It is taught by Scripture and it is essential to the character of God. You cannot understand the magnitude of God’s grace until you understand His wrath.

If you want a great resource which will further develop your understanding of this attribute of God (as well as many others), I recommend Steve Lawson’s book, Made in Our Image: The Fallacy of the User-Friendly God. Dr. Lawson does a wonderful job of detailing God’s attributes and transcendent glory. I have often referred to and used it in my ministry. It is available from Amazon for $14.99. It is well-worth the investment of your money and time.

Selecting Teachers in the Church

By Bruce Mills

This past Sunday, I finished teaching through the latter portion of Romans 2. In this section of Scripture, Paul is addressing the Jews who prided themselves on their having the Law, but he castigates them for their hypocrisy in disobeying it. One part of this passage which I found particularly interesting is found in verses 21 and 22.

In those verses Paul uses four rhetorical questions by which he takes the Jews to task for thinking they kept the Law when, in reality, not only did their understanding and teaching fall far short of God’s Law, but their obedience to it also fell far short. They were blatant hypocrites.

In theological terms, their preaching reflected orthodoxy (right doctrine), but their lives did not reflect orthopraxy (right practice). They are much like the cop or the judge who takes a bribe, in direct contradiction to the laws they have sworn to uphold and endorse. And because of their greater responsibility, they bring upon themselves greater punishment.

Paul’s first question in verse 21 particularly caught my attention. It is, “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself?” I like the way J. B. Phillips words this question in his paraphrase, because I think it helps us understand Paul’s meaning. He renders it, “But, prepared as you are to instruct others, do you ever teach yourself anything?”

The application of this question to us in the church today goes far beyond Paul’s immediate and primary purpose in addressing the hypocritical Jews of his day. We also need to understand the importance of practicing what we preach, particularly those of us who teach the Scriptures.

Scripture places a higher standard for righteous conduct upon those who teach the Word. Those who teach others are expected to live lives which reflect God’s true righteousness as revealed in the Word. God is very clear about this. James gives this very somber warning in James 3:1—“Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.”

I am tremendously bothered by those churches who will have someone come along who makes a profession for Christ, starts studying his Bible and gains a little knowledge, is all excited about what he is learning and naturally wants to share it with others, so the church sticks him into a teaching position within a year or so of his profession of faith. He really hasn’t had enough time to be grounded in the faith, and to demonstrate through his life both the genuineness of his salvation or the on-going sanctification of the Spirit in changing him into the image of Christ. Yet they will put him into a teaching position simply because he is excited about the Bible and wants to teach others what he knows.

Sometimes the leaders of those churches will even try to justify doing such by saying, “Well, we are very careful. We don’t allow them to teach adults; we just have them teach the children. We use a Sunday School curriculum that they just have to read to them.” In other words, they are willing to entrust the eternal souls of their youngest, most eager learners to someone who barely knows more than those he is teaching with the hope that he will not teach heresy to those children.

But how often have you seen someone who seemed to have come to faith in Christ, but a year or so later, when the trials of life came, they turned and walked away and went back to their old way of life, and thereby demonstrated that they never were genuine believers in the first place?

All that does is create an environment where when you come along and try to witness to an unbeliever who has observed such things, they laugh and say, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen how effective your Jesus is; I knew a guy who claimed to receive Jesus, and he quit his drinking and his carousing, and he was teaching in the church, and a year later, he was back doing the same things again. So don’t tell me about how your Jesus is going to change my life forever. I don’t believe it.”

And even in those cases in which the individual is a true believer, it simply isn’t fair to him or to those he teaches because he really hasn’t had time to be sufficiently grounded in the Word and become knowledgeable of sound doctrine. Even the apostle Paul, after his conversion on the Damascus Road, went away to Arabia and Damascus to learn, meditate, and study the Old Testament for three years. He began to preach in Damascus and they ran him out of town, so then he returned to Jerusalem to spend a couple of weeks with Peter and James, both of whom were the leaders of the church there. So Paul’s formal ministry didn’t really get started well until three years after his conversion.

Now, I’m not saying that three years is a “magic number,” but what I am saying is that we shouldn’t grab new professing believers simply because they are excited about Christ and willing to tell others what they have learned, and throw them into a teaching position. I believe every Christian should be sharing with others what they have learned from Scripture, but not necessarily in a formal sense of being a teacher over a group of other people. Those who are going to set themselves up as teachers of God’s Word need to spend a sufficient amount of time before doing such to learn sound doctrine and demonstrate the reality of that doctrine in their lives, as they live in accordance with it.

This is particularly important when a church or denomination is going to ordain someone to the ministry. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:22, “Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others.” In other words, don’t ordain someone to the ministry too quickly, because when you do, you share responsibility for the sin they commit if it turns out they weren’t truly a faithful servant of God. You need to give plenty of time to make sure they are truly one of God’s chosen voices for Him, and the evidence will be in how they live their lives, not in what they say.

What About Capital Punishment?

By Bruce Mills

The other day, one of the supervisors at my office who is also a follower of Christ flagged me down in the parking lot, saying, “Hey, Bruce, can I see you for a minute? I need to ask you a question.”

I thought he wanted to ask me a question about my job responsibilities, but instead, his question caught me by surprise. He said, “A deputy sheriff friend of mine is looking to get a tattoo of a reference to a Bible verse that talks about law enforcement being ordained by God to carry out His purposes. I gave him Romans 13:4, but I wanted to make sure that I was correct in my understanding. Is Romans 13:4 referring to law enforcement?”

For those of you who don’t know off the top of your head what Romans 13:4 says in regard to the government, it reads, “for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”

I quickly assured my friend that since law enforcement is the arm of government by which justice against evildoers is initiated, Romans 13:4 is certainly an endorsement of that profession. But what interested me was the motive of the man seeking the tattoo. So I asked my friend why the deputy wanted to get such a reference permanently inked into his skin.

He explained that this deputy knew about the sixth of the Ten Commandments which, in the old English language of the King James Version states, “Thou shalt not kill,” and he had come to my friend who he knew was a Christian and wanted to know whether God endorsed the fact that in his role as a law enforcement officer, he might have to take someone’s life. When my friend explained that God did such in Romans 13:4 with the statement, “for it does not bear the sword for nothing,” the deputy decided that he wanted to have that Scripture reference tattooed onto his body as a permanent reminder that what he was doing as his chosen profession was endorsed by God as one of His purposes for mankind. But later on my friend began doubting his understanding of that phrase in the verse, wondering if it was, in fact, an endorsement of the government’s right to take a life.

I then went on to explain a basic overview of that statement to my friend, but I would like to expound upon it further in this post, for anyone who might wonder about the government’s authority to execute criminals for certain crimes. The seeming conflict between “Thou shalt not kill” and what it means to “bear the sword” have created much confusion in the minds of some Christians.

First of all, when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments with the included command, “Thou shalt not kill,” He was not prohibiting any killing by any one at any time. Rather, when that statement is examined in the original Hebrew language, it simply says, “No murder.” Instead of referring to the government’s use of capital punishment for certain crimes, or the justifiable use of deadly force to protect oneself or others, it refers to the crime of murder; that is, the unjustified killing of another person. The translation which has come to us in the old language of the King James Version has unfortunately concealed the true meaning of the commandment, and consequently, caused a great deal of misunderstanding. That statement has nothing whatsoever to do with capital punishment or defending oneself or others.

God is the one who instituted capital punishment all the way back in Gen. 9:6— “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” Because man was created in God’s image, for someone to murder a man is such a heinous offense against the image of God that the person must pay with his own life.

However, some people say, “But that was the Old Testament law. Things are different since Jesus came. He spoke about being gentle and merciful and said we are to be peacemakers. He said we are to turn the other cheek when someone attacks us, so capital punishment is no longer valid for mankind.”

However, when Jesus made those statements in the Sermon on the Mount, He was talking about the individual’s response to mistreatment. He was not speaking of the responsibility of government in terms of maintaining justice and protection for its citizens. But, when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the authorities came to arrest Him, Peter took out his sword to start fighting against them. He even tried to take off the head of the high priest’s servant, but the fellow apparently ducked and Peter got only his ear. Jesus, recognizing that the government authorities were ordained of God, said something very important to Peter. He said, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).

What was He saying? Let me first tell you what He wasn’t saying. He wasn’t saying, “If you fight with a sword, you’re liable to meet somebody who will fight back with a sword and kill you.”

No, Jesus was saying, “You take a life, Peter, and I will affirm the right of this government to take your life.” Jesus was affirming capital punishment as a proper extension of civil authority. He was saying, “Peter, if you use that sword, then I affirm by God-ordained law that you will die by the sword.” He was reminding His disciple that the penalty for his unjustified killing one of Jesus’ enemies would be to perish himself through execution, which the Lord was acknowledging would be justified.

Also, when the apostle Paul stood before the Roman governor Festus and made his appeal to Caesar, he said, “If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die…” (Acts 25:11). In saying that, he was acknowledging that capital punishment was sometimes justified and that he would willingly accept it if he were to be found guilty of a capital crime.

And, as my friend accurately told the deputy sheriff who asked him about whether the Bible endorsed his role as a law enforcement officer in taking a human life when necessary, Romans 13:4 also provides justification for the government’s use of capital punishment or deadly force by the statement “for it does not bear the sword for nothing.”

In biblical times, the Roman government was well-known for its well-developed criminal justice system. It used capital punishment as the punishment for certain crimes deemed to be worthy of death. If the guilty party was not a Roman citizen, crucifixion was often the means by which the offender was executed. However, crucifixion was such a horrible means of death that it was prohibited for use as a means of executing those who were Roman citizens. For Roman citizens, the means of execution was beheading with a sword because it provided instant death rather than the protracted, painful death which came by crucifixion. Thus, the reference in Romans 13:4 to the government “bearing the sword” is referring to capital punishment as a means of punishing evildoers.

So then, both the Old Testament and the New Testament endorse and authorize the government’s use of capital punishment for those guilty of evil deeds deemed worthy of execution. Government’s role is to function as God’s avenging minister to exercise His wrath on those who practice evil.

Now, whether it is a good idea for a law enforcement officer to get Romans 13:4 tattooed onto his skin in order to remind himself that he is acting with God’s authority if he finds himself in a “deadly force” situation is another matter altogether. But that discussion is best left to another time and place.