Crime and Punishment

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This past week the concern for justice in today's world was seen at the war crimes tribunal in the Hague in the sentencing General Krstic for terrible genocide in Bosnia.

But what is justice when you depart from the Biblical tradition? Justice is a fundamental requirement in the Bible and it is a moral category. However, in the post-Christian modern world many people are saying that you can't make moral statements anymore that are universally binding. People say, "you make up your morality. I make up mine."

So how can we be agreed about justice in today's world? And already there is disagreement. On Friday Harold Pinter, the playwright, claimed in The Guardian that justice is not being done in the Hague. He is arguing that an essential element of justice is impartiality. But at the moment things are lopsided - and mostly against the Serbs. What about Western leaders' and their smart bombs that seemed to miss military targets? He said:

"What they hit were the TV station and the Chinese embassy, old people's homes, hospitals and schools ... That's a criminal act on all sorts of level."

And what about, he also asks, the Muslim KLA who with Western support over the past nine months have been, and still are, responsible for ethnic cleansing in Kosovo?

Or listen to this for confusion over justice. While these judgments have been going on in Holland, this past week in Canada a Human Rights Commission has been damning the Bible - a supreme blasphemy, if ever. It ruled that Bible verses constitute "hate". I quote from the Church of England Newspaper:

"The ruling was in response to a complaint by three homosexuals after a Mr Hugh Owens, in Regina, Saskatoon, placed an advert in 1997 to coincide with Gay Pride Week. The advert quoted Biblical passages together with a "stop" sign imposed over a mathematical equal sign and two stick-figure men holding hands ... Ms Watson [of the board of enquiry] said that while the symbol itself may not have communicated hate, it was the Biblical verses that pushed the advertisement over the line."

As Professor Ian Hunter of the Western Ontario Law School says:

"In human rights circles, the Bible is increasingly regarded as an insidious form of hate literature."

Mr Owens had to pay $4,500 to the gay activists.

We are living in a frightening world that is dominated by a post-Christian irrationalism. With no God, with no absolutes, the only supreme value is the power of individual choice and preference. But in this series on Today's Concerns we are to get back to the bible to see what it has to teach us about these issues. And our subject this morning is justice from the perspective of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. So without more ado, will you please turn to Romans 12.17 - 13.5, our New Testament reading this morning. And my headings are First, CRIME, secondly, PUNISHMENT and thirdly, TODAY.


First, CRIME

Crime is breaking the law. But the criminal is different from the immoral.

The separation of law and morality goes back to Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount where he taught that murder could be in the privacy of the individual heart and that adultery could be in the private look, as well as in public actions. He, of course, assumed that all law must only forbid what is immoral, never what is moral; but he knew that the law was a blunt instrument for forbidding all that is immoral. However, there has been a shift. Today it is still assumed that the law should only be concerned with what is public and not what is private. But the private has come to mean one's private behaviour as distinct from one's public behaviour, not one's private thoughts as distinct from one's public actions. So since the 19th century much behaviour, especially sexual behaviour, is felt no longer to be the concern of the law. That is why now, in most of the West, while it is a criminal offence to steal a man's car it is no longer an offence to steal his wife. That seems clearly disproportionate and so unjust.

What, then, does the Bible teach about the place of the law? It teaches that it has at least three functions. First, it teaches that the law shows men and women they are sinners and failing God's standards. Paul admits in Romans that was true for him especially in the case of "covetousness".

Secondly, the Bible teaches that the law restrains evil in society for the good of everyone. That is what you have here in Romans 13.4, where we are told, the ruler (or the government or the lawmaker) is:

God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

And, thirdly, it teaches that the law instructs believers how they are to live - that is the great message of Psalm 119 - the longest Psalm (we will be looking at next Sunday evening).

So when we talk about crime, law and government and this second aspect of the law - the restraining of evil and the encouraging of good - we are not directly talking about matters of salvation and eternal destiny. We are talking about the here and now. We are talking about God's gracious provision for sinful society. While the law cannot change the heart, as Martin Luther King said, it can restrain the heartless.

But because it is a provision for sinful society, it doesn't mean we can ignore it. Did you notice what Paul said about the governing authorities? Look at 13 verse 1:

there is no authority except that which God has established.

And so you don't miss the point, he repeats it:

The authorities that exist have been established by God.

But Christians can miss this point. As I go around the country I discover there are some Christians who think that we shouldn't be wasting our time discussing these sorts of things - these social questions. We should only talk about salvation. But that is straight forward disobedience. These Roman Christians weren't at liberty to stop reading at chapter 12 verse 21 and skip this chapter 13 and go on to verse 1 of chapter 14. Of course, not. And notice the word Paul uses to refer to the governing authorities. Look at verse 4. The ruler "is God's servant to go you good". And that too is repeated in the same verse so that you don't miss the point, "He is God's servant, an agent of wrath." This word translated servant is the word often translated "deacon" or "minister". And it can refer to a wide range of ministries. So Paul is saying that those who serve the state as legislators, civil servants, magistrates, policemen, social workers, tax officials or whoever are, to quote John Stott, "just as much 'ministers of God' as those who serve the church as pastors, teachers, evangelists or administrators." Have you realized that? But if that is so (and it is so) how important we get things right and we have God's laws and God's will for public life.

But you say, "is Paul here saying that you must cow-tow to every will of the State and obey every law?" Some people have used these verses to justify blatant injustice. Michael Cassidy of African Enterprise tells of a meeting he had in the 1980's with President P.W.Botha. It was when he thought there might be some relaxation of apartheid. He was disappointed. This is how he tells us what happened:

"I was immediately aware on entry to the room that this was not to be the sort of encounter for which I had prayed. The President began by standing to read me part of Romans 13!"

P.W.Botha believed that these verses demanded total support for his Government's policy of apartheid. Of course, he was wrong. The Bible is clear. Yes, the authority of rulers is derived from God. But if they reverse their God-given duty and commend the evil instead of the good, and punish the good instead of the evil, you must resist. You are to submit right up to the point where obedience to the State would be disobeying God. Whenever laws are enacted against God's law, civil disobedience is a Christian duty. When Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill the new-born boys, they refused to obey:

The midwives ... feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live" (Exodus 1.17)

When King Nebuchadnezzar said everyone must fall down and worship his golden image, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to obey. When King Darius said no one should pray to any god or man but himself, Daniel refused to obey. And when the Sanhedrin banned preaching in the name of Jesus, the apostles refused to obey. Peter said, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5.29). To understand the Biblical view of these things, you need to read Revelation 13 as well as Romans 13.

Revelation 13 was probably written at a time later than Romans when the persecution of Christians had begun under the Emperor Domitian. In Revelation 13 the State is pictured as a monster emerging from the sea. It is a persecuting State. It is no longer seen as the servant of God, wielding his authority. It is wielding the devil's authority. And the devil is pictured as a red dragon. The Bible is clear. To be without God's provision of government is terrifying. I experienced that for a few days in the Sudan in the 60's when we had a revolution. However, when government takes over the place of God, and orders what God forbids or forbids what God orders, that is equally frightening. That is when Christians have to disobey - and so should others. Do you know why General Krstic has got 46 years in prison for genocide? Because he obeyed and did not disobey his "governing authorities". You see, the Bible is opposed to both lawless anarchy and totalitarian tyranny. Let's move on.


Secondly, PUNISHMENT

Now the message of the Bible from cover to cover is that the God of the Bible is just and holy. He is not like the gods of the pagans, a god of mere power. He is a righteous God. He is ...

... the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished" (Ex 36.6-7)

So laws themselves need to be just. And non-believers can recognize God's basic law. In Romans 2.14, Paul tells of ...

... Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, [so] they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.

That is natural law. That is why you can appeal to non-Christians over fundamental matters of morality. It rings bells with them. There is a consciousness of what goes with the grain of God's creation. But when you have good and just laws, you don't necessarily have justice. Good laws are necessary but not sufficient for justice. That brings us to punishment itself.

There seems to be an elemental thirst for justice built into human nature or the human psyche. But giving fair judgment is not easy. God had first to teach his people, the people of Israel, that punishment must be limited and the punishment must fit the crime. It must be one and not two eyes "for one eye" and one and not a whole set of teeth "for one tooth". When individuals take the law into their own hands, it tends to be "unfair" and not "measure for measure". You've seen that when people over this past year have taken the law into their own hands and attacked suspected paedophiles. So Jesus teaches that the way ahead for the individual is not through individual revenge, but through love and submission. In Matthew 6.38 - 39 Jesus says:

You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And Paul says in our passage, Romans 12.17:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Then he says (verse 19):

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord.

It is not that there is to be no justice through retaliation and punishment. No! Repayment or punishing evil is forbidden to us not because it is wrong in itself. Evil deserves to be punished and should be. It is forbidden because it is God's prerogative and not ours. Yes, there will be a final day of vengeance and repayment. But in the meantime God has delegated "his wrath" to the State. So in verse 4 of chapter 13, we are told the ruler is "God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." You see, the State alone can legitimately exercise force. Look at verse 4 again, "the ruler does not bear the sword in vain." If you or I exercise force it is violence. But with the State acting as God's agent, it is punishment.

To be just the punishment administered by the State has to be consistent and impartial. It also must not be degrading. Look sometime at Deuteronomy 25.3. But to be just punishment must be proportionate. The punishment must fit the crime. This is the fundamental principle of retribution. You see, punishment by the State cannot only be considered in terms of reformation or deterrence and the protection of society as some seem to think today. To be just punishment must be retributive as well as reformatory and deterrent. Otherwise you justify hanging for sheep-stealing, on the grounds that it deters, as happened in 19th century Britain. Or you can justify a long period in a psychiatric unit for a minor crime, on the grounds that the person will be re-socialized, as happened under Stalin. Or if the punishment is not retributive by being too lenient, the public looses confidence in the courts and you have a return to the justice of the streets, with vigilante groups and the like. That is because the courts have failed to be "God's agent of wrath." That brings us ...


Thirdly, to TODAY.

God created men and women to be in fellowship with himself. Our first parents Adam and Eve decided to go their own way. They set in train rebellion against God for all humanity. God then chose out a special people - the people of Israel. He revealed to them his law and will. And they learnt about God's justice - sometimes in grim ways. But they also learnt after settling in the promised land that God's purposes for perfect justice could never be realised as things were. The enemies needing punishment were not only the Canaanites but themselves and evil spiritual forces behind the Canaanites.

Then Jesus came. He reaffirmed God's love and justice, but he came to suffer the punishment of the world on Calvary. There he was punished for you and me - in our place, for all our sin and rebellion. So by faith you and I can now be in a relationship again with God. Calvary was, in a sense, God's ultimate judgment and punishment brought forward into time. But God's ultimate punishment still awaits, if you reject Christ. Earlier in Romans, in chapter 2 verse 5, Paul says:

because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath [or punishment] against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

But the gospel is that Christ has already born our guilt, if we will only accept what he has done. Romans chapter 3 verses 25-26:

God presented him [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

God is concerned for perfect justice - the celebration of the good and the condemnation of the evil. Justice is part of God's love. Human justice is what the loving man or woman seeks to achieve when they exercise public authority. Divine justice is what our loving heavenly Father seeks to achieve as ruler of all. And this he will do, when Christ returns. Until then for our own good, he provides governments and rulers to be "agents of God's wrath" in the present. In administering punishments for crime and rewarding the good they are God's servants.


I must conclude.

I do so with two questions?

Have you accepted what Christ has done for you in bearing the punishment for your sin?

If so, if the State orders you to do what God forbids or forbids what God orders, what will you do?

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