Murder is an attack on God’s image

Recently, Attorney General Bill Barr announced the federal government will begin executing death row inmates for the first time in over 15 years. This is good news. However, many today would disagree with the death penalty because they believe it violates one of the Ten Commandments –“You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Murder is the shedding of “innocent blood” and throughout the scriptures God is opposed to murder. On the contrary, the death penalty is the shedding of guilty blood.

After the flood and before the establishment of Israel and the Mosaic covenant, God decrees the murderer will pay the price for murder with his own life and man shall carry out the punishment on the murderer. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6). When someone murders another human being, it’s an attack on God, His image and His representative on earth.

In the New Testament, Romans 13 is consistent with Genesis 9. The Apostle Paul teaches that the “governing authorities” are “God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” In this verse God has given civil government the authority to use the “sword” as an instrument to put people to death. The sword does not represent a symbol of government as some might believe. Examples: ^“Then he killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:2). “He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword” (Revelations 13:10). Other examples can be found in Hebrews 11:37, Acts 16:27, Deuteronomy 13:15 and Deuteronomy 20:13.

America’s culture, our laws and government were established based on a Judeo-Christian worldview with the Bible as its source. Joseph Story, “Father of American Jurisprudence” and U.S. Supreme Court Justice had this to say: “One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations.”

If elected to Congress, I would pass legislation to bring swift punishment in the form of the death penalty, which acts as a powerful deterrent for murder. If America would only commit to God’s form of justice, we would have far less murders, as these criminals would know they would be executed swiftly. 

“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11)

In the year of our Lord 2019 –
Sincerely, Tom Hughes
Congressional Candidate Florida District 25