Question about Numbers 35:29-30

[MePlus6]

Hi all,

I hope someone can help me. This has been bothering me for years. Quick little story to get to my question, though.

A year or so after I got saved, I went to a local bookstore to buy a KJV of the Bible. I found an inexpensive one in shrink wrap, bought it and took it home. That night, I took it out of the plastic, sat on the couch and just asked in my head what the Bible says about capital punishment. I had the Bible I had purchased earlier in the day in my hand and I picked it up and looked at the side opposite the spine and saw a little notch or bend in the pages (see picture). So I put my finger in the notch and opened it up and there was a straight wrinkle in the right hand page (looked like the page had previously been folded there then unfolded) and the end of the crease stopped at Numbers 35:29 (see pic, although it was difficult to photograph the crease), which is the intro into verse 30 that says capital punishment was supported during the times of the Old Testament.

Now here's my question: as Christians, we live under the new law in the New Testament. This little miracle I witnessed seemed Biblical at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a deception to cause me doubt and make me think that maybe the Jews were right all along and there was a good reason why the Messiah hadn't come as they believe. So was what I experienced biblically sound for Christians or not?

[antitox]

Now here's my question: as Christians, we live under the new law in the New Testament. This little miracle I witnessed seemed Biblical at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a deception to cause me doubt and make me think that maybe the Jews were right all along and there was a good reason why the Messiah hadn't come as they believe. So was what I experienced biblically sound for Christians or not?

I'm not sure I know what the point of your question really is.

Are you asking if capital punishment is no longer required or neccessary?

Or is it whether Jesus has not come yet because of some spiritual effect in our handling of capital punishment?

Or what you experienced .....something about the coincidence with your bible?

[MePlus6]

I guess my question is if capital punishment is supported biblically or not. Obviously it is in the OT. Don't know that I've seen anything about it in the NT.

[antitox]

There were times that Jesus exercised forgiveness in the NT, but the people who claim that that is evidence that cap punishment is no longer valid conflicts with God's nature. He hasn't changed at all since OT days. All that changed were the rites and ablutions associated with purification.

For any leverage in civil control over murder crimes and the like, there has to be a penalty that effectively threatens the murderer's life, else society will have overcrowded prisons with murders that take place within them. And that's exactly what we have.

Cap punishment isn't so much a spiritual act, but a task that has been left to mankind to properly regulate and administer.

If God is willing to allow people to go to hell, then that seems a whole lot more severe than capital punishment to me. But that's another whole discussion in and of itself.

[Howdy]

IMO captal punishment is put in place by the government, so if it is wrong, it is on their head.

[antitox]

Rom 13:1-2) ) "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that have been instituted by God. Thererfore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

Rom 13:4 ) "But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer."

[MePlus6]

I think those Romans verses sums it up then. Thanks antitox!! So my experience wasn't some kind of deception after all. I just needed to come here for a point in the right direction.

[Paidfor]

God gave man the authority to punish with death in Genesis 9:6. It is not the function of the church to maintain civil order. That authority has been given by God to civil governments.

[kcofohio]

If I may add my 2 cents, :wave according to Gen 9:5-6, because God created us in His image, is why He requires the blood of the guilty. We are His creation, for His good pleasure, not ours.
The shedding of innocent blood is very close to God's heart. In Rev. 18, great judgement is given to great city Babylon, for the blood of the prophets, saints, and all that were slain on the earth were found in her.
In this day and age, we must be careful not to buy into the liberal thinking that there is no sanctity in life. We're not evolved pond scum. We are a whosoever.:yeah But we are only a vapor in the wind.
But the person guilty of murder still has a chance to receive Jesus as their saviour. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
I hope this helps some of the question.:)

[MePlus6]

Thanks KCofOhio!!