June 10, 2025 • 9 mins
The conversation explores the complex and often divisive issue of capital punishment from a biblical perspective. The guys acknowledge the spectrum of Christian views, noting that while some support the death penalty as a form of justice, others question its place in a flawed system. Scripture like Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:1–4 is examined, with emphasis on honoring the image of God in every person. They weigh the balance of justice and mercy, discussing the importance of accountability while also considering the value of repentance and the potential for redemption. Ultimately, the conversation encourages Christians to approach this issue with humility, careful study of Scripture, and grace for those who land on different conclusions.
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Learn more about the hosts of this podcast.
Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What does the Bible say about the death penalty?
It's going to be interestingtoday to see where we all land
because, again, we don't reallytalk about these things
beforehand.
It's interesting when you lookat the spectrum right, you'll
see so many people who are fordeath on one hand and obviously
(00:23):
you guys know I'm talking aboutabortion but so against death
when it comes to the deathpenalty.
I mean the Catholic Church is acase in point in that regard.
Liberals are a case in point inthis regard.
Again, I don't want to just sayeveryone who doesn't believe in
the death penalty is liberal ortheologically off.
But you do see that, and Iwould say, especially as it
(00:45):
relates to liberals, it blows mymind, ray, don't you think
they're so against deprivingwomen to murder their babies,
but they're for limiting that?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
They're violently against the death penalty.
They'll kill you if youdisagree with them.
But yeah, they're for abortionwith Pharisaic zeal.
Just got to have that abortionand it's such wickedness.
And when it comes to the deathsentence, they're against it
with just as much violence.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
You positioned rightfully that there's sort of
a conservative, liberal positionin regards to the death penalty
.
But let me take it in-house alittle bit and just recognize
that Christians are.
This is a tertiary issue, asecondary issue that Christians
are divided, unless you're theperson dying, unless you're the
person dying.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You are very clearly on one side, the death penalty.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But throughout church history, pre-liberalism,
augustine had argued against thedeath penalty.
That doesn't mean that weshould be for or against it.
The only point that I'm makinghere is that we, as Christians,
can have charity towards otherChristians who are reading the
scriptures, thinking criticallyand wanting to come to a
(02:02):
biblical conclusion, whoseconvictions are falling on a
different side of the aisle hill.
This is an area in which we needto think charitably about other
Christians.
You are right.
There's liberals that have abackwards view of arguing
against the death penalty, butthat shouldn't take away from
meaningful Christians who arereading the Bibles and
(02:23):
struggling to understand thedevil.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, I'm definitely for the death penalty, but I'm
against it.
And let me tell you why I'm oftwo minds.
Deuteronomy 17, 6,.
Whoever is deserving of deathshall be put to death on the
testimony of two or threewitnesses.
He shall not be put to death onthe testimony of one witness.
And this is why I'm of twominds.
You can see in Scripture wherethere were a lot of false
witnesses, like you've gotJezebel, she got false witnesses
(02:50):
to testify against Naboth andhad him killed.
And Acts 16, verse 13.
Acts 6, verse 13.
Stephen false witnessestestifying against him.
He was put to death.
And with Jesus false witnessesMatthew 26, 59 to 60.
Came and he was put to death,and that's my concern.
I believe in the death penalty,but a lot of people have been
(03:12):
put to death who were innocent.
I took the time to go toWikipedia and it just about made
me cry, so many people havebeen put to death and afterwards
someone came forward and said Idid being put to death and
afterwards someone came forwardand said I did it.
Yep, he didn't do it.
That has happened and and youcan imagine being on death row,
so I'm innocent.
They say everybody says that,everybody says that and it.
Um, it'd be so easy nowadays toset someone up as a scapegoat.
(03:38):
You want someone murdered, soyou set someone up, you, you
drug him, you put him by thebody, you put fingerprints on
the on the gun, go to hiscomputer, you hack into it and
search how to kill somebody.
And so when he wakes up, allthe evidence is against him.
And then you can even bribe thejury, say there's money for you
or we're going to kill yourkids.
And this sort of thing happensnowadays.
(04:00):
So that's why, if there'soverwhelming evidence, I'm for
the death sentence.
I mean absolutely overwhelmingevidence.
We've got a case in New York atthe moment where this guy was
filmed shooting someone and yousee him getting away and then
you see him having the gun madeand you see his manifesto saying
he's going to kill this guy.
And so there's overwhelmingevidence.
But on the other cases I'm justhesitant.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Oh man, you guys this is why I love our conversations
, like you know, we're able tobring out things that we could
look at from a different angle.
I mean, that's such a validpoint.
Ray and Mark, you know we'reoften glib with stuff like this,
or flippant or just kind ofnonchalant about it.
We are talking about people'slives and I think, as Christians
(04:44):
, we have to be careful to notjust you know, oh yeah, I think
this, I think that we need tothink through this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Absolutely.
In a 2000 interview, john Piperwas asked the question about
capital punishment, where hestands, and his response was I
am for capital punishment inprinciple, but how it works out
in practice is a totallydifferent issue.
Right, and Ray gave reallygreat examples of what that
(05:12):
looks like, and I think that theDeuteronomy 17 is a very good
example.
Now here's the thing there'snot always two witnesses, you
know, I mean, who's going to gomurder someone and want there to
be witnesses, so they murdermore people and there's no
eyewitnesses.
How do you deal with that?
Well, we have to trust in asovereign God that they're going
to get it in the end.
Right, we need to be carefulwith that.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
It reminded me of Rachel Denhollander's impact
testimony.
I don't know if you guysremember this or not, but she
was one.
She was the first person, Ithink, to come forward for when
Larry Nassar was sexuallyabusing all of those Olympic
girls underage minors.
I mean, I can't remember thenumber, but it was a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And man her.
Her impact testimony is so, ifyou haven't seen it.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
You should go online and watch it.
She forgave him, right, it willbring you to tears.
Yes, yes and right, um, itbrought it brought me to tears
and I went and read her book.
What is a girl with worth?
It's phenomenal.
But even if you just watch theimpact story, so she stands up,
he is guilty, it's done.
It's just a matter of you know,the judge is going to determine
life or whatever the case.
And all these girls, one by one, came up and how dare you?
And expletives, and you didthis to me and my life has
(06:24):
changed forever and I can't, andyou, understand their pain.
I mean, they want him toreceive the fullness of the
wrath of the court system.
Rachel Denhollander comes upthere and she's like you deserve
the fullness of the wrath ofthe justice system, but also I'm
praying for your salvation.
I want, like he.
She points out like this thiswrath is great, is merciful
(06:46):
compared to the wrath of God and, uh, man, it's just.
It's a prime example offorgiveness without losing sight
of justice.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I really enjoy, uh enjoy this scripture from
James.
Let's deal with the NewTestament a little bit.
Some people can argue well,that's all Old Testament.
But James 2.13, which EZobviously has memorized because
he has a third of the NewTestament books memorized but it
says For judgment is withoutmercy to one who has shown mercy
.
But mercy triumphs overjudgment.
Right, judgment is withoutmercy to one who has shown no
(07:16):
mercy.
And if God has established therulers, the leaders, the judges,
a judicial system, that Godputs kings into place and stuff
like things of that nature, Ithink, because of where we're at
within our judicial system,that it would make sense.
John Calvin, he said theexecution of the law is not
(07:37):
cruelty but mercy to thecommunity.
And that's what I'm talkingabout, that there is a mercy and
a grace to the community bygetting rid of that person who
is a scar to that community.
You can resort to devil'sadvocate, then just put them
away, remove them from a society.
Well, I don't think that onceagain lines up with what we're
(07:59):
seeing here inside the NewTestament.
Sproul, he said capitalpunishment is not simply a
matter of retribution, it is amatter of honoring the sanctity
of life, that we are honoringthe beauty of life by removing
lives that are trying to destroyinnocent human lives.
Yeah, similar to CS Lewis'sargument.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I think, guys, to sum it up, it's crucial that there
is care involved in this.
You do have those clear-cutcases where there's no question,
even the murderer confesses.
I mean, imagine in California amurderer confesses to being a
serial killer and then we stillwon't put him to death.
I mean, there's no fear therethat there could be a mistake.
(08:40):
He's admitting it, we haveforensic evidence that is
unquestionable, and yet theystill won't do it.
And I think that the good pointsthat we've covered are the fact
that this is honoring thedignity and value of that person
.
May the Lord help us tocontinue to examine the
scriptures, to think throughthese things, to talk about them
(09:00):
, to discuss them and again tofall back ultimately on what the
designer of man has said isbest and what should happen.
But let's not be glib, let'snot take these things lightly
and let's show charity as wediscuss these things.
Thank you for tuning in to thisweek's highlights from the
(09:21):
Living Waters podcast.
Friends, we value your time.
So we've created a bite-sizedversion of our podcast for
listeners who want to getequipped, without the jokes and
fellowship.
Be sure to check out the fullepisode every Thursday where we
dive deeper into the topic.
Until then, you can watch thefull podcast episode available
now on livingwaterstv.
What does the Bible say about the death penalty?
It's going to be interestingtoday to see where we all land
because, again, we don't reallytalk about these things
beforehand.
It's interesting when you lookat the spectrum right, you'll
see so many people who are fordeath on one hand and obviously
(00:23):
you guys know I'm talking aboutabortion but so against death
when it comes to the deathpenalty.
I mean the Catholic Church is acase in point in that regard.
Liberals are a case in point inthis regard.
Again, I don't want to just sayeveryone who doesn't believe in
the death penalty is liberal ortheologically off.
But you do see that, and Iwould say, especially as it
(00:45):
relates to liberals, it blows mymind, ray, don't you think
they're so against deprivingwomen to murder their babies,
but they're for limiting that?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
They're violently against the death penalty.
They'll kill you if youdisagree with them.
But yeah, they're for abortionwith Pharisaic zeal.
Just got to have that abortionand it's such wickedness.
And when it comes to the deathsentence, they're against it
with just as much violence.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
You positioned rightfully that there's sort of
a conservative, liberal positionin regards to the death penalty
.
But let me take it in-house alittle bit and just recognize
that Christians are.
This is a tertiary issue, asecondary issue that Christians
are divided, unless you're theperson dying, unless you're the
person dying.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You are very clearly on one side, the death penalty.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But throughout church history, pre-liberalism,
augustine had argued against thedeath penalty.
That doesn't mean that weshould be for or against it.
The only point that I'm makinghere is that we, as Christians,
can have charity towards otherChristians who are reading the
scriptures, thinking criticallyand wanting to come to a
(02:02):
biblical conclusion, whoseconvictions are falling on a
different side of the aisle hill.
This is an area in which we needto think charitably about other
Christians.
You are right.
There's liberals that have abackwards view of arguing
against the death penalty, butthat shouldn't take away from
meaningful Christians who arereading the Bibles and
(02:23):
struggling to understand thedevil.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, I'm definitely for the death penalty, but I'm
against it.
And let me tell you why I'm oftwo minds.
Deuteronomy 17, 6,.
Whoever is deserving of deathshall be put to death on the
testimony of two or threewitnesses.
He shall not be put to death onthe testimony of one witness.
And this is why I'm of twominds.
You can see in Scripture wherethere were a lot of false
witnesses, like you've gotJezebel, she got false witnesses
(02:50):
to testify against Naboth andhad him killed.
And Acts 16, verse 13.
Acts 6, verse 13.
Stephen false witnessestestifying against him.
He was put to death.
And with Jesus false witnessesMatthew 26, 59 to 60.
Came and he was put to death,and that's my concern.
I believe in the death penalty,but a lot of people have been
(03:12):
put to death who were innocent.
I took the time to go toWikipedia and it just about made
me cry, so many people havebeen put to death and afterwards
someone came forward and said Idid being put to death and
afterwards someone came forwardand said I did it.
Yep, he didn't do it.
That has happened and and youcan imagine being on death row,
so I'm innocent.
They say everybody says that,everybody says that and it.
Um, it'd be so easy nowadays toset someone up as a scapegoat.
(03:38):
You want someone murdered, soyou set someone up, you, you
drug him, you put him by thebody, you put fingerprints on
the on the gun, go to hiscomputer, you hack into it and
search how to kill somebody.
And so when he wakes up, allthe evidence is against him.
And then you can even bribe thejury, say there's money for you
or we're going to kill yourkids.
And this sort of thing happensnowadays.
(04:00):
So that's why, if there'soverwhelming evidence, I'm for
the death sentence.
I mean absolutely overwhelmingevidence.
We've got a case in New York atthe moment where this guy was
filmed shooting someone and yousee him getting away and then
you see him having the gun madeand you see his manifesto saying
he's going to kill this guy.
And so there's overwhelmingevidence.
But on the other cases I'm justhesitant.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Oh man, you guys this is why I love our conversations
, like you know, we're able tobring out things that we could
look at from a different angle.
I mean, that's such a validpoint.
Ray and Mark, you know we'reoften glib with stuff like this,
or flippant or just kind ofnonchalant about it.
We are talking about people'slives and I think, as Christians
(04:44):
, we have to be careful to notjust you know, oh yeah, I think
this, I think that we need tothink through this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Absolutely.
In a 2000 interview, john Piperwas asked the question about
capital punishment, where hestands, and his response was I
am for capital punishment inprinciple, but how it works out
in practice is a totallydifferent issue.
Right, and Ray gave reallygreat examples of what that
(05:12):
looks like, and I think that theDeuteronomy 17 is a very good
example.
Now here's the thing there'snot always two witnesses, you
know, I mean, who's going to gomurder someone and want there to
be witnesses, so they murdermore people and there's no
eyewitnesses.
How do you deal with that?
Well, we have to trust in asovereign God that they're going
to get it in the end.
Right, we need to be carefulwith that.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
It reminded me of Rachel Denhollander's impact
testimony.
I don't know if you guysremember this or not, but she
was one.
She was the first person, Ithink, to come forward for when
Larry Nassar was sexuallyabusing all of those Olympic
girls underage minors.
I mean, I can't remember thenumber, but it was a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And man her.
Her impact testimony is so, ifyou haven't seen it.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
You should go online and watch it.
She forgave him, right, it willbring you to tears.
Yes, yes and right, um, itbrought it brought me to tears
and I went and read her book.
What is a girl with worth?
It's phenomenal.
But even if you just watch theimpact story, so she stands up,
he is guilty, it's done.
It's just a matter of you know,the judge is going to determine
life or whatever the case.
And all these girls, one by one, came up and how dare you?
And expletives, and you didthis to me and my life has
(06:24):
changed forever and I can't, andyou, understand their pain.
I mean, they want him toreceive the fullness of the
wrath of the court system.
Rachel Denhollander comes upthere and she's like you deserve
the fullness of the wrath ofthe justice system, but also I'm
praying for your salvation.
I want, like he.
She points out like this thiswrath is great, is merciful
(06:46):
compared to the wrath of God and, uh, man, it's just.
It's a prime example offorgiveness without losing sight
of justice.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I really enjoy, uh enjoy this scripture from
James.
Let's deal with the NewTestament a little bit.
Some people can argue well,that's all Old Testament.
But James 2.13, which EZobviously has memorized because
he has a third of the NewTestament books memorized but it
says For judgment is withoutmercy to one who has shown mercy
.
But mercy triumphs overjudgment.
Right, judgment is withoutmercy to one who has shown no
(07:16):
mercy.
And if God has established therulers, the leaders, the judges,
a judicial system, that Godputs kings into place and stuff
like things of that nature, Ithink, because of where we're at
within our judicial system,that it would make sense.
John Calvin, he said theexecution of the law is not
(07:37):
cruelty but mercy to thecommunity.
And that's what I'm talkingabout, that there is a mercy and
a grace to the community bygetting rid of that person who
is a scar to that community.
You can resort to devil'sadvocate, then just put them
away, remove them from a society.
Well, I don't think that onceagain lines up with what we're
(07:59):
seeing here inside the NewTestament.
Sproul, he said capitalpunishment is not simply a
matter of retribution, it is amatter of honoring the sanctity
of life, that we are honoringthe beauty of life by removing
lives that are trying to destroyinnocent human lives.
Yeah, similar to CS Lewis'sargument.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I think, guys, to sum it up, it's crucial that there
is care involved in this.
You do have those clear-cutcases where there's no question,
even the murderer confesses.
I mean, imagine in California amurderer confesses to being a
serial killer and then we stillwon't put him to death.
I mean, there's no fear therethat there could be a mistake.
(08:40):
He's admitting it, we haveforensic evidence that is
unquestionable, and yet theystill won't do it.
And I think that the good pointsthat we've covered are the fact
that this is honoring thedignity and value of that person
.
May the Lord help us tocontinue to examine the
scriptures, to think throughthese things, to talk about them
(09:00):
, to discuss them and again tofall back ultimately on what the
designer of man has said isbest and what should happen.
But let's not be glib, let'snot take these things lightly
and let's show charity as wediscuss these things.
Thank you for tuning in to thisweek's highlights from the
(09:21):
Living Waters podcast.
Friends, we value your time.
So we've created a bite-sizedversion of our podcast for
listeners who want to getequipped, without the jokes and
fellowship.
Be sure to check out the fullepisode every Thursday where we
dive deeper into the topic.
Until then, you can watch thefull podcast episode available
now on livingwaterstv.
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