Should Christian Jurors Show Mercy to the Guilty?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.320 | Well, should a Christian juror be quick to acquit in the courtroom?
00:00:08.640 | It's a question from a young man who wants to know, "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:12.280 | Recently, my nephew, who attends a private Christian university,
00:00:15.640 | related to me an encounter he had with his New Testament professor.
00:00:20.080 | This professor held that even if a Christian juror knew without doubt,
00:00:23.840 | based on the evidence, that a defendant was guilty of a crime,
00:00:27.880 | the Christian's duty is to pass along a verdict of not guilty.
00:00:34.120 | As proof, the professor cited Jesus' response to the woman who was caught in adultery
00:00:38.720 | and was brought before him in John 8, verses 1 to 11.
00:00:41.880 | Since Jesus didn't convict the guilty woman, neither should we convict guilty criminals today."
00:00:47.480 | That's the basic summation of the professor's argument.
00:00:50.440 | How would you respond?
00:00:52.120 | I would appreciate your thoughts on what God expects from Christian jurors.
00:00:56.280 | And I'm curious, have you ever served on a jury yourself?
00:01:00.440 | Well, let me just dispense with that first one.
00:01:02.320 | No, I haven't, though I've been called up several times and they just never got to me.
00:01:07.000 | So I went to the courthouse and sat there and I didn't even get interviewed.
00:01:11.640 | But here's what he's really asking.
00:01:14.040 | What's behind this question is not so much a misunderstanding of John 8,
00:01:19.320 | rather it's an effort to carry through a consistent pacifism for Christians.
00:01:26.440 | That's what's going on here and we need to probe that.
00:01:30.280 | In other words, this professor is advocating for Christians never to return evil for evil,
00:01:39.480 | or eye for an eye, or any kind of punishment or retribution,
00:01:45.000 | but only forgiveness, only release from all consequences for evil in this world.
00:01:51.240 | That's what's behind the question.
00:01:52.680 | Is that approach to life taught in the New Testament?
00:01:56.760 | So let me first respond to his use of John 8, 1 to 11.
00:02:00.520 | And I know that the earliest manuscripts of John don't have this story.
00:02:05.480 | It may not be an original story, but for the sake of the argument,
00:02:09.640 | I'm just going to treat it as genuine.
00:02:11.880 | A woman is caught in adultery.
00:02:14.600 | The Pharisees bring her to Jesus and remind him that this is a capital offense.
00:02:20.840 | Leviticus 20, verse 10.
00:02:22.360 | She should be stoned to death.
00:02:25.000 | Jesus pauses, looks down, draws in the ground, says,
00:02:29.160 | "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
00:02:32.920 | What Jesus is doing here is setting in motion a massive change
00:02:41.560 | in the way the new people of God, his followers, the church,
00:02:45.880 | as distinct from ethnic, political, geographic Israel,
00:02:50.120 | this new people of God will no longer be governed as a national,
00:02:56.520 | political, geographic, body politic with civil laws,
00:03:00.520 | regulating, for example, capital punishment the way Israel was.
00:03:04.440 | Rather, the church, the new people of God,
00:03:08.760 | will not be a political or ethnic or geographic reality,
00:03:13.720 | but it will be governed by the law of Christ,
00:03:17.640 | which introduces significant changes from the law of Moses.
00:03:22.360 | One of those changes, for example, we see being played out in 1 Corinthians 5,
00:03:29.320 | where there is an example of adultery in the church, worse than adultery.
00:03:33.880 | And the punishment that the apostle Paul requires is excommunication,
00:03:41.160 | not execution, according to the Mosaic law.
00:03:45.000 | That change is what Jesus is now setting in motion
00:03:52.040 | when he refuses to participate in the stoning of this woman.
00:03:58.680 | So we must ask, when he said that the one without sin should cast the first stone,
00:04:07.320 | was he saying only sinless people can pursue retributive justice?
00:04:15.960 | Was he saying that only sinless people can actually be involved in the punishing of wrongdoers?
00:04:24.440 | Is he saying no jurors who follow Christ could ever find anyone guilty?
00:04:33.560 | Is that what he's saying?
00:04:36.040 | Or is he saying, "I am about to forgive this woman
00:04:40.280 | because I have authority on earth to forgive sins and fulfill and change the law of Moses.
00:04:47.240 | I am about to transform her with the command to go and sin no more."
00:04:53.640 | So, if you are without sin and thus in a position like me, go ahead and contravene my judgment.
00:05:01.080 | Now, I think the rest of the New Testament warns us against treating Jesus' words about
00:05:08.440 | casting the first stone as if they were a teaching that says only sinless people can exact justice.
00:05:18.440 | The New Testament teaches that God has put civil government in place to punish wrongdoers.
00:05:26.760 | Romans 13.4, "The ruler does not bear the sword in vain. He is the servant of God
00:05:34.920 | and an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."
00:05:41.560 | Or 1 Peter 2.14, "Governors are sent by God to punish those who do evil
00:05:48.040 | and to praise those who do good."
00:05:50.920 | Now, the Christian pacifist, this professor that we're being asked about, doesn't deny
00:05:58.920 | that the civil governments can find people guilty of crimes and punish them.
00:06:06.760 | What the Christian pacifist denies is that God's people, the followers of Jesus,
00:06:11.880 | should participate in that.
00:06:13.560 | We are called to bear witness to the kingdom of Christ by not participating in the kingdom of
00:06:21.080 | this world on its terms, with its standards of retributive justice. That's consistent pacifism.
00:06:27.960 | Our standard is, "Repay no one evil for evil."
00:06:33.080 | You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
00:06:36.760 | I say, "Do you resist no one who is evil? If someone slaps you on the right cheek,
00:06:41.960 | turn to them the other also."
00:06:43.800 | And so the Christian pacifist infers that this is the only way to show Christlike Christian
00:06:51.000 | love in this world. This is the only way to bear a clear witness to Christ.
00:06:56.360 | Now, frankly, I have a lot of sympathy with that view.
00:07:02.600 | I think all the texts that support it should probably have a greater effect on our attitudes
00:07:10.600 | than they do. But I can't go all the way with the Christian pacifist when he tells us that
00:07:18.760 | retributive justice should have no place in the Christian life, because I see in the New Testament
00:07:28.280 | at least five spheres of life where the Bible portrays proper Christian behavior as including
00:07:37.960 | retributive justice, that is, holding people accountable for wrong behavior and applying
00:07:44.280 | painful consequences for it.
00:07:46.520 | For example, parenting.
00:07:49.320 | Fathers are told in Ephesians 6 to bring up their children in the discipline of the Lord.
00:07:56.360 | That word "discipline" we know from Hebrews 12 includes the application of chastisements
00:08:01.240 | and consequences, painful consequences for our children.
00:08:05.240 | I think a father or a mother would be sinning if they only turn the other cheek for every act of
00:08:13.240 | disobedience and insolence from their children.
00:08:16.520 | Of course, discipline is always mingled with mercy, but retributive justice is not excluded
00:08:24.680 | from parenting. Second, the marketplace.
00:08:27.560 | Christian employers should pay their employees for the work they do and not keep paying them
00:08:35.880 | indefinitely for work they refuse to do.
00:08:38.360 | If Paul could say to the church, "If they won't work, let them not eat," 2 Thessalonians 3.10,
00:08:47.640 | how much more would he say to employees, "Let those who refuse to work not be paid,"
00:08:54.440 | withholding a salary from an employee who refuses to work is a form of retributive justice.
00:09:01.320 | Third, education.
00:09:04.120 | Teachers should not reward failing students with high grades.
00:09:07.480 | They may show tremendous patience and mercy, but they do not equate sloth with superior performance.
00:09:14.920 | There are consequences for failing to do your work.
00:09:19.160 | Retributive justice belongs in education, always for the Christian, of course, mingled with
00:09:24.920 | patience and mercy.
00:09:26.360 | Fourth, government, law enforcement.
00:09:29.320 | We've already seen it in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2.
00:09:33.240 | Lawbreaking should meet with appropriate consequences, fines, imprisonment, or even
00:09:40.120 | execution.
00:09:41.320 | This is the way God restrains the rivers of evil in the human heart with common grace.
00:09:48.680 | The common grace of retributive justice.
00:09:51.720 | Finally, the church.
00:09:53.720 | The church is instructed to perform church discipline, which can include ostracism or
00:10:01.720 | excommunication, which is a horrific consequence for unrepentant sin, if one takes the Bible
00:10:10.440 | seriously.
00:10:12.040 | For those reasons, I can't follow the pacifist into the position where retributive justice
00:10:19.320 | has no place in the life of a Christian.
00:10:21.960 | I admit very freely that the mingling of mercy toward our enemies and the application of
00:10:30.920 | justice is not easy.
00:10:32.920 | We are supposed to love our enemies.
00:10:36.200 | We are supposed to return good for evil.
00:10:39.880 | So the upshot for me is that I, we desperately need the Holy Spirit to guide us.
00:10:47.720 | When should our witness to Christ involve turning the other cheek?
00:10:52.600 | And when should it involve spanking a child or not?
00:10:56.760 | Letting an employee go or not?
00:10:59.640 | Giving the student a C instead of an A or not?
00:11:03.800 | Excommunicating an adulterous Christian or finding some other way to move them forward
00:11:10.600 | for now.
00:11:11.160 | And finding a murderer guilty while serving as a Christian juror.
00:11:21.000 | That's really good and careful.
00:11:23.160 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:24.120 | And thank you for joining us today.
00:11:25.400 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast
00:11:29.480 | all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:31.400 | We are going to break for the weekend.
00:11:35.000 | I'm not sure what's up on Monday, but I am your host Tony Rehnke and Lord willing,
00:11:38.760 | we will again see you on Monday with longtime author and pastor John Piper.
00:11:44.040 | Have a great weekend.
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