Death Penalty

"You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it." - Number 35:33

I am not certain what my position is on the death penalty, but this verse is definitely making me think more about the issue. I have always believed the Bible clearly teaches that evil doers, especially murderers, need to be removed from among us. No doubt about it, this pertains to our society: remove evil doers from the general population. It also says the murderers should be put to death. It is easy to argue that in Biblical times, the only way to remove a murderer was to kill him because they didn't have ultra high security Alcatraz-like prisons. In our day and age, we can remove murderers from the population without killing them. If the only purpose here is to remove murderers from among us, then it's difficult to rationalize the death penalty. There are other "earthly" reasons used to support capital punishment, like providing a deterrent to crime, etc., but they also don't get to the heart of the matter.

This verse makes it clear that there is more to killing murderers than removing them from our midst, sending a message to criminals, vengeance, or any other earthly reason. The death penalty was originally instituted by God to atone for the blood that was shed by the murderer. Oh, this raises hundreds of theological questions. Can Christ's blood atone for the land for that blood that was shed? As a non-theocracy, should we try to atone for the blood that was shed?