Questions From Readers
● Do the courts of the land have the right to inflict capital punishment on those guilty of murder?—M. W., Washington.
No individual on his own has the right to execute another person because that one has committed a murder. However, we would not say that the community could not do so, acting through its legally constituted courts of law. If a person has been given a fair trial, and irrefutable evidence has been presented that that person is a murderer, then it seems that the community must take some action to protect its citizens. We have always said that jails are not Jehovah’s means of punishment, so we would hardly be consistent in arguing that it would be more in harmony with Jehovah’s law for a murderer to be imprisoned for life than for the murderer to be put to death. Jehovah’s law on the matter was that a murderer should be punished by death, not by imprisonment. If a person is a self-confessed murderer, or has been proved to be such without any shadow of doubt, then the community must take some action against the individual, rather than let him go free to commit further crimes.
At 1 Peter 4:15 the apostle said: “Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a busybody in other people’s matters.” (NW) Then the apostle goes on to show that if we suffer as a Christian we should not feel shame. Peter’s words seem to imply that it was proper for a murderer to suffer for his crime, and we know what the penalty was from God’s standpoint, namely, death, and not imprisonment. Peter does not argue that a murderer should not suffer merely because no man was present to act as an appointed executioner from Jehovah. In Peter’s day the duly constituted authorities of the community were the ones who brought the suffering or punishment upon a murderer, and Peter makes no objection to this practice.
The apostle Paul also seems to take the same position, only he puts it even more clearly. Acts 25:10, 11 (NW) states: “Paul said: ‘I am standing before the judgment seat of Caesar, where I ought to be judged. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also are finding out quite well. If, on the one hand, I am really a wrongdoer and have committed anything deserving of death, I do not beg off from dying; if, on the other hand, none of those things exists of which these men accuse me, no man can hand me over to them as a favor. I appeal to Caesar!’” Please note that here while standing before the judgment seat of Caesar, the duly constituted authority of the community, and not an executioner appointed by Jehovah God, Paul went on record as saying that if he had done anything deserving of death, he would not beg off from dying. This certainly seems to mean that Paul considered the properly constituted civil authorities as having power to inflict the death sentence. Rather than argue that such a human court did not have this power, he seemed to indicate that it did have the power and he would not object to the exercise of that power against him if he had committed anything deserving of death; and certainly a murder is something that makes the one committing it worthy of death, according to Jehovah’s law as well as man’s law.
Hence, there does not seem to be any violation of Scriptural principle in the community’s putting a murderer to death. It even seems a more Scriptural course than committing the murderer for life, to be thereafter fed and clothed and cared for at the expense of the community, and always with the possibility that the murderer may add to his crimes by killing another inmate, or by killing guards in an attempted escape, or by escaping and murdering other persons on the outside. In the nations’ practice of capital punishment there does not seem to be anything that is contradictory to God’s law, and where the law of the land does not conflict with God’s law we do not raise particular objection against it.
● Why was Aaron not punished for making a golden calf for the Israelites to worship?—A. F., California.
Exodus 32:1-6 shows that Aaron did this at the request of the people, and participation in the wrong seemed to be rather general, since it caused Jehovah to say to Moses: “Let me alone, that my anger may blaze against them, and that I may consume them.” Ex 32 Vs. 10, AT) While it is true that Aaron co-operated with the rebellious ones in this idolatry, Ex 32 verse 25 suggests the possibility that the deflection might have been allowed for a purpose: “When Moses saw that the people had become unruly (for Aaron had let them get unruly, to be a derision among their assailants), Moses stood at the gate of the camp, and said, ‘To me, whoever is for the LORD!’ Whereupon all the Levites gathered to him.” (Ex 32 Vss. 25-27, AT) Aaron was a Levite, and we may assume that on this occasion he took his stand with them for Jehovah and against those who withstood Moses on this occasion. About three thousand persons were slain for this idolatry. More were guilty in the matter, since after the three thousand were gone Moses reminded the people that they had sinned greatly. So more persons than just Aaron received of Jehovah’s mercy in this matter. Apparently the nearly three thousand that perished were ringleaders in launching the idolatrous venture and resistant to correction, not humbly repentant or acknowledging wrong and switching their position to Jehovah’s side. They merited no mercy. But Aaron behaved differently, showed he was not in heart sympathy with the idolatry and acted only at the mob’s behest, and stood for Jehovah when Moses brought matters to a showdown.—Ex 32 Vss. 28-35.
● If one has already been baptized, does he need to repeat the baptism after he gets a knowledge of the truth?—R. G., Canada.
Whether a person is to be baptized again or not is determined by his understanding of baptism when he first underwent it. Did he understand the meaning of the symbol of water immersion? Did he fully appreciate that it meant a complete dedication of his life to the Lord, to serve the Lord, to do His will? Had he made such a dedication in his mind and heart and before the Lord prior to the immersion in water, which is a public symbolizing of the previously made dedication? If so, and if the baptism was a complete submersion in water, then there is no necessity for the person to perform the symbol again. The one who does the immersing, the place of immersion, and who are present as spectators, are not the determining factors. It is the proper understanding and appreciation of baptism on the part of the one being immersed that counts. If the person did not have this understanding and appreciation, if he merely viewed baptism as a religious ceremony affiliating him with a certain church, not realizing the meaning or importance of the step and what would be thereafter required of him from a Scriptural standpoint, then when such a person comes to a knowledge of the truth and wishes to dedicate his life to the God of truth as one of His witnesses the person should symbolize this dedication that he has now made with understanding.
● The book What Has Religion Done for Mankind? states on page 211: “Neither let anyone think that the doctrine of purgatory was discovered first by Pope Gregory the Great (595-604 A.D.).” Then on page 274 it states: “Gregory I (A.D. 595-604) was the first to discover ‘purgatory’.” How are these seemingly contradictory statements harmonized?—D. F., New York.
On page 211 it is showing how the Buddhist system taught a doctrine of purgatory many centuries before the organizing of the Roman Catholic system in the fourth century A.D. But on page 274, and the preceding pages, it is showing how various pagan doctrines were incorporated into the Roman Catholic religion. As far as Catholic doctrine is concerned, Pope Gregory the Great did (to use his own language) discover purgatory. He claimed to do so by means of apparitions and visions. He was the first one to introduce it as a “Christian” doctrine, incorporating it into Roman Catholic Church teaching, which was and is apostate Christianity. So the setting supplies a limitation to the scope of the statement on page 274, which is discussing popes and their innovations, whereas on page 211 the statement is more general, unlimited by its setting, and denying Pope Gregory’s claim. Hence when viewed in their proper settings, the statements are not contradictory.