c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ In New Jersey, on Sept. 22, convicted murderer John Martini is scheduled to be put to death for the kidnapping and murder of Exxon oil executive Irving Flax.

For proponents of the death penalty, Martini’s execution will not come a moment too soon. He has already been sentenced to a total of three life terms for murders committed in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Moreover, as the Times of Trenton noted in a recent editorial, Martini has received”competent legal representation”; he is white, thus nullifying the race issue in this case; and he has thus far refused to permit his lawyers to appeal his case in the federal courts.

In other words, all legal and constitutional issues have been satisfied and Martini, of his own will, is choosing to die. In the eyes of many, that’s good news.

But is it really?

As New Jersey prepares for its first execution in 36 years _ the latest state to join the legal”hit”parade _ there are a number of unanswered issues.

Among them is the question of whether legal execution is biblical.

On its face, the question seems ridiculous in the extreme. After all, we live in an increasingly secular society and invoke the authority of the Bible only when convenient. Thus, for example, to argue, as our culture has done, that it is OK to invoke the authority of Scripture in regard to the death penalty but not abortion is hypocritical.

Yet the fact remains that an understanding of the biblical imprimatur on crime and punishment is of vital importance to the future of our nation.

I have previously argued that the biblical concept of retributive justice was designed to provide sentencing parameters for crimes committed within the Israelite nation. Codified within the Mosaic Law _ and found in the biblical books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy _ the guidelines were designed to assure that a person found guilty of a crime received a punishment equal to the crime.

Hence, in the case of a violent offense, the code was clear:”Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injuredâÂ?¦whoever kills a man must be put to death”(Leviticus 24:20-21).

Curiously, however, the Mosaic Law did not provide for a prison system as we know it. Though prisons were eventually built after the Jewish monarchy was established, the Law, as implemented by divinely appointed judges, had no such provision.

Rather, depending on the nature of the crime, a wrong-doer was either fined, banished or executed, in a manner that was swift, equitable and just. The rationale behind this approach was simple: It was designed to purge the community of sinful influences that threatened to undermine its moral fabric. Yet history proved that even in a theocratic government, where God sovereignly ruled through those appointed by him, justice could still be subverted if the righteous yielded to evil.

For example, godly King David spearheaded a murder plot against one of his military leaders in an attempt to cover up his adulterous affair with the man’s wife. In that case, David’s own life was spared, but a divine curse of death claimed many of his heirs.

Thus, even when the best of men fail, God’s justice is still accomplished.

How comforting this truth should be at a time when our entire criminal justice system has been leavened by human inconsistencies and failures. As the Times of Trenton editorial noted,”The system is riddled with inequities. There is no consistency in it, whether among states or within a state. One jury might vote for death for a convict; another might include the lone holdout that would spare his life. One district attorney might opt to seek the death penalty; another might not. One governor might commute a condemned man’s sentence; another governor might act on a different impulse.” In sum, to use a biblical phrase, both blessing and curse come out of the system’s _ and society’s _ collective mouth.

Such double-mindedness proves us to be unworthy judges over life and death, even in cases like Martini’s, where the guilt of the accused is not in doubt.

In contrast, the Bible is replete with the accounts of murderers whose lives God found worthy of sparing. Included among them were men like David, Moses and the apostle Paul. Indeed, if one were to remove from the Scriptures the writings of murderers, there would be little left in the biblical canon.

Perhaps the best we can do with the John Martinis of the world is to allow them to live, and let God render to them His own judgment.

DEA END RNS