I hope that someone catches that I've added one final question on here. Please note the question is relatively unrelated to this earlier issue, though the premise is, to a certain extent, applicable in the sense of how Jesus fulfilled some of these different areas beginners like myself may struggle with. I hope it was ok to do this, I just didn't want to start an altogether new post to address this one oddball issue-

It is clear that Jesus gave us an altogether New Covenant to live by, as was promised in Isaiah 42, Jeremiah 31 (Which coincidently shortly procedes Jere 33:14-18 which must certainly be a promise relating to Jesus), perhaps one area of Zechariah and either Malachi or Micah if I've interpreted such correctly.

Back to the original law, however-when it comes to passages like Deuteronomy 25:11-12, here specifically how is one to interpret in relation to Christ having fulfilled the law?

Clearly there are few Christians I know guided by the Holy Spirit who would do such a thing so perhaps this serves as one of the many examples where God had to mandate certain laws because of the stony hearts of the early Jews?

The other area of interest with this would involve the required punishment. We would not today cut off a woman's hand for this type of violation as Christians. Repentance/guilt would be required in relation to this and all other similar laws, etc, but the punishments, as discussed before, would be voided upon true repentance because of what God and Jesus did for us.

Now, to expand on this, though, what about murder?

A death penalty case was enacted here in my state for the first time in like 100 years last year involving a gentleman that kidnipped and killed a college girl some 4-5 years due to a technicality having been written into the law after President Bush became President. At the time, there was a great debate among Christian groups locally-the Lutherans, Catholics and Methodists generally opposed to such citing issues of childhood neglect/abuse/poverty in the case of the offender, while the mainline EFCA and First Assembly churches stood in support of the death penalty. However, at least in the media, they cited the Old Testament law as the means to justify such.

One of the things I've learned about myself in this experience is how difficult these areas are to understand. In the case of this kidnapping/rape/murder case, one cannot possibly think of something so evil. At the same time, I guess prior to my study, I think it was always a matter of a general inability personally to ever consider supporting things like the death penalty because that's just simply not what the heart has ever attested to.

It is remarkable for me to find that there appears to be no basis for support of the death penalty in the New Testament.

The closest example of support for the death penalty would involve Paul's orders to obey our government and its laws. In this case, however, such would involve the re-implification of such laws that had been removed from state law for 100 years or more.

This is very confusing for me, hopefully one of you will be able to help again. Thank you so much.

Last edited by olpo25; Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:01 PM.