In a time of moral confusion and cultural decay, it is more important than ever to return to the foundations of justice. One such foundation is the principle that those who commit heinous acts—especially premeditated murder—should face the ultimate penalty: death. Increasingly, however, this biblical and moral standard is being replaced by sentimentalism masquerading as compassion.
One of the clearest examples of this came when certain political figures—including President Joe Biden—moved to eliminate or resist capital punishment at the federal level. While the leftist Biden administration has consistently advocated against the death penalty, it is revealing that some of the most notorious criminals in modern U.S. history—such as Timothy McVeigh—were still executed under federal law. Others, like Darrell Brooks Jr., whose slaughter of innocents at a Christmas parade shocked the nation, received life sentences in the absence of capital punishment options.
President Biden displayed inconsistency when he commuted the death sentences of 37 heinous criminals from the 40 inmates on federal death row, while failing to commute the sentences of three individuals: Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He decided who deserved mercy and who deserved death, but in the process, he validated the appropriateness of the death penalty in certain cases. The recipients of his mercy committed heinous crimes, too, but that didn’t stop him from commuting their sentences.
This essay will make the case that capital punishment is not immoral—but rather righteous, biblical, and necessary. It will do so by exploring Scripture, philosophical reasoning, real-world examples of unthinkable crimes, and the eternal realities of divine justice.
The Sanctity of Life and the Image of God
The sanctity of life is not a reason to oppose the death penalty—it is the very reason the death penalty exists in biblical law. Genesis 9:6 declares:
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”
This is a pre-Mosaic command, given by God to Noah after the Flood. It establishes that murder is not just a crime against man but a direct offense against the image of God. To destroy that image unjustly is to wage war on God’s creation and authority. Thus, capital punishment upholds the dignity of life by making the penalty for its unlawful destruction the most serious possible.
New Testament Support: Romans 13 and the Moral Role of the State
Some Christians claim that Jesus abolished the principle of retributive justice. But this is a misreading of the New Testament, which consistently affirms the role of the civil magistrate in restraining evil and rewarding good.
Romans 13:3–4 is clear:
“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad… If you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”
The sword here is not metaphorical—it represents the authority to execute justice, including through lethal means. The Apostle Paul affirms that the government acts as God’s servant in executing judgment. Therefore, when the state fails to punish evil or refuses to carry out capital punishment for egregious crimes, it defies God’s design.
Heinous Crimes that Cry Out for Justice
To appreciate the justice of capital punishment, one must look evil in the face. Here are several modern examples where the crimes were so vile, so calculated, and so inhumane that any punishment short of death would be morally insufficient:
Ted Bundy
Bundy raped, tortured, and murdered more than 30 young women in the 1970s. His victims were often lured with fake injuries before being brutally attacked. His crimes were not acts of passion but of calculation and cruelty. He was executed in 1989 after confessing to his crimes and even acknowledging the moral legitimacy of the death penalty in his final interviews.
Timothy McVeigh
In 1995, McVeigh detonated a truck bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people—including 19 children—and injuring hundreds more. He was unrepentant and described the victims as “collateral damage.” He was executed in 2001, and few executions in American history were so universally recognized as necessary.
John Wayne Gacy
Gacy sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered at least 33 boys and young men in the 1970s. He buried many of his victims beneath his suburban home in Illinois. His public persona as a community clown only deepened the grotesqueness of his crimes. Executed in 1994, Gacy’s case remains one of the most horrifying examples of serial murder in American history.
Jeffrey Dahmer
Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. His crimes included necrophilia, cannibalism, and gruesome dismemberment. Though sentenced to life imprisonment and later killed by another inmate, his case highlights why capital punishment is a fitting response to radical evil.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo (The D.C. Snipers)
In 2002, this duo killed ten people in the Washington, D.C. area in a spree that terrorized a nation. Random victims were shot while filling their gas tanks or walking through parking lots. Muhammad was executed in 2009; Malvo, being a minor at the time, was sentenced to life in prison.
Darrell Brooks Jr.
In 2021, Brooks drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six people—including a child—and injuring more than 60 others. He acted with callous disregard for human life. Due to the absence of the death penalty in Wisconsin, he received multiple life sentences. His case is a modern-day argument for reinstating capital punishment in states that have abolished it.
Each of these criminals committed acts so depraved that the moral order itself cried out for justice. To allow such men to live—at public expense, shielded from the consequences they inflicted on others—would be a violation of justice, not an expression of mercy.
Was David an Exception?
Critics often point to King David’s orchestration of Uriah’s death as a reason to oppose the death penalty. But David’s case is unique. He was the anointed king, the recipient of the Davidic covenant, and the forefather of the Messiah (2 Samuel 7). His sin brought grave consequences: the death of his child, chaos within his household, and enduring grief. Psalm 51 is a public confession of deep repentance.
David’s sparing was not a normative act of civil justice—it was an instance of divine forbearance for redemptive purposes. This exception does not negate the principle laid down in Genesis 9 or reaffirmed in Romans 13. In fact, the fact that David feared the consequences of his actions (2 Samuel 12:13–14) affirms the moral weight of his offense.
Eternal Punishment and Divine Holiness
God not only punishes temporally—He punishes eternally. Scripture clearly teaches that those who die in unrepentant sin will face everlasting punishment.
“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:46)
“The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.” (Revelation 14:11)
This truth reveals that God is not squeamish about justice. His holiness demands the punishment of sin. While He offers mercy through Christ, unrepentant sinners face not only physical death but eternal separation from God.
Therefore, if eternal judgment is morally right and God-glorifying—demonstrating His holiness and righteousness—then it is wholly consistent for civil authorities to impose capital punishment on those guilty of the most egregious crimes.
Justice with Time for Repentance
A key element of the biblical view of capital punishment is that it must be justly administered—based on evidence, due process, and moral certainty. Scripture condemns partiality in judgment and forbids condemning the innocent (Deuteronomy 19:15–21; Proverbs 17:15).
Appeals processes, legal representation, and scrutiny of evidence are essential to ensure that the death penalty is not wielded capriciously. But when guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt, the condemned must face the consequences.
That said, capital punishment also grants the convicted time to reflect. Unlike a sudden execution, the modern legal process often gives the criminal years to contemplate his actions and the eternal state of his soul.
This waiting period can lead to repentance. Ted Bundy, for example, gave an interview before his execution confessing his crimes and expressing what appeared to be genuine repentance. Whether he was truly saved is known only to God, but the point is that the death penalty did not deny him the opportunity to consider eternity—it made that reflection urgent.
The Roman Catholic Shift: Trying to Out-Mercy God?
Historically, the Roman Catholic Church supported capital punishment. Thomas Aquinas and many Popes upheld it as consistent with justice and divine law. But recent decades have seen a shift.
In 2018, the Catechism of the Catholic Church was revised to declare capital punishment “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
This contradicts centuries of biblical interpretation and appears to elevate modern humanitarian sentiment above the authority of Scripture. Are we really to believe that our age—rife with abortion, moral relativism, and rampant crime—has greater moral insight than Moses, Paul, Augustine, or Calvin?
Trying to be “nicer than God” is not righteousness—it is rebellion. It treats human emotion as superior to divine decree.
Did Jesus Reject the Death Penalty?
John 8:1–11, the story of the woman caught in adultery, is often cited to argue that Jesus opposed the death penalty. But this interpretation is flawed.
Jesus did not deny the justice of the law. He exposed the hypocrisy of the accusers. Furthermore, adultery was not a capital crime under Roman law, so His response protected both the woman and the broader context of His mission.
Importantly, Jesus never nullified the state’s right to punish. In John 19:11, He said to Pilate:
“You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”
Even Jesus’ own unjust execution at the hands of Rome acknowledged the divine source of civil authority. He did not resist the state’s right to bear the sword—He submitted to it, to fulfill a greater justice on behalf of sinners.
Conclusion: Righteous Justice, Not Vengeance
Capital punishment, when applied rightly, is not vengeance. It is justice. It affirms the value of human life, reflects the holiness of God, and serves as a sobering deterrent to evil. It provides the guilty time to repent and forces society to take sin seriously.
Let us not imagine ourselves wiser or more compassionate than the God who gave us Genesis 9 and Romans 13. Let us not seek to erase justice in the name of false mercy. And let us not forget the victims whose blood still cries out from the ground.
The death penalty, when reserved for the worst of crimes, is not a sign of societal cruelty. It is the last, solemn affirmation that we still believe in right and wrong—and that life, because it is made in the image of God, matters.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
rob@christiannewsjunkie.com
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Dr. Wayne Grudem is the author of a respected systematic theology and a book on Christian ethics. He expresses the biblical basis for capital punishment in this video.
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