PART FIVE: John 3:16 and the Death Penalty

Calvin/Servetus, Jesus/Osama Bin Laden Controversy

            For centuries Arminians have used the Calvin/Servetus controversy against Calvinists, quoting John 3:16 as a primary text proof. Recently I used the same argument against an Arminian who brought up the aforementioned execution. I asked him, Would you put your belief to action by picketing in front of your local churches because Jesus loves Osama Bin Laden, therefore, we, too, should love Osama? He never took up the challenge. Had he done so I am sure his fellow Arminians would have lovingly stoned him.

Few Christians rightly understanding the mind, heart, and purpose of God for mankind. If God is love, and His love is for every human ever born, then obviously, one could reason, it is not an act of love to kill another human being.

If we are to love our enemies, are we not also to love our neighbor as ourselves?

If we are to love our enemies, are not also to love our brothers and sisters in Christ?

If this is the case, are we to love our enemies MORE than we love our neighbors and brothers and sisters in Christ?

Are we to love our enemies at the EXPENSE of our neighbors and fellow Christians?

And of what does love consist? Faith, hope and charity?

Is it charity to allow a known priestly child molester to be transferred to diocese after diocese where he continues to ply his wicked trade? In the eyes of the molester it may be considered charity, but it is no act of charity to the children and community.

Is it charitable to turn a blind eye to evil in the hopes that that evil will not touch you personally or your loved ones?

Is it not easier to let sleeping dogs lie than to deal with the unpleasant task of judgment and punishment?

Do we not reap what we sow?

Could not death be what we reap?

Do we not have laws in place for our protection and safety?

Do not the violators of these laws know full well that there are consequences for their actions; penalties to be paid?

Do you not think Bin Laden or Servetus knew their actions would result in serious consequences? And did they not willingly spit on the just laws which they broke?

Is God mocked?

Was it not God Almighty who purposefully drowned the entire human race consisting of the elderly, lame, infants, even those still in the womb, leaving 8 humans to re-populate the earth?

Does God change?

Was it not the Lord who killed a man and his wife for lying to the Holy Spirit?

Was their crime greater than that of Servetus who blasphemed the Triune God, challenging the authority of the Genevan leadership in the very land in which God's people had consecrated for the express worship of the true God?

Was their crime greater than the killing of 6,000 defenseless, unarmed people in NY?

Does not God have the ultimate power over life and death?

Did not God kill all Egypt's firstborn?

Does not God promise to avenge the blood of His martyrs?

Does God kill those whom He loves?

Was it not Jesus who called Judas a devil, yet added him to the 12?

Was it not at the Last Supper that Jesus bade Judas leave quickly to do his dirty deed?

Did not Jesus know that the next day Judas would hang himself?

Is it love to encourage another to quickly go hang himself?

Did not Jesus remain silent when Pilate asked, What is truth?

Was it love not to give Pilate the Gospel?

Will not Jesus cast many professing Christians in fiery flames on the Last Day, though they plead for mercy, begging to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

Will not Jesus command the ill-dressed wedding guest be bound hand in foot and cast in outer darkness?

Are these acts of love?

Does God torture and punish for eternity those whom He loves?

Or does God change? One day He loves you. The next day He washes His hands of you, consigning you to the Lake of Fire?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, these are no small questions which demand truthful biblical answers.

Does not God say He will show mercy and compassion on whom He wills to show mercy and compassion? Is not this said in the context of salvation - meaning saving grace?

Is not saving grace that which is not owed to man nor deserved by man?

Is not saving grace that which is freely given by God to whom He wills, when He wills, and why He wills?

Does not God have the freedom to withhold as well as to give?

Does not God love those to whom He gives the gift of saving grace?

Does God love those to whom He withholds the gift of saving grace?

Is it not God's right to reward man with justice and not saving grace?

Is it unjust of God to judge some by His righteous standards, while allowing others to escape punishment?

Did not Christ Jesus take the just punishment of God, bearing the sins of many, upon the cross?

If Christ Jesus was punished in the stead of many, satisfying the Father, rising from the grave, is it loving and just to punish again those for whom Christ died?

Does it not repudiate the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ?

Does it not dishonor the finished work of Christ?

Or is the reason there are those who are punished eternally for their sins is because they are those whom God did not love, EVER, and for whose sins Christ's blood did not atone, EVER, because He did not die for them in the first place?

Is it true love to fail to save those whom you claim to love&&&especially if you also claim omniscience and omnipotence, the power to save to the uttermost?

Can anything or anyone separate the Elect from the love of God?

Is not Hell separation from God, proving the absence of God's love?

If God's love is absent, could it have ever have existed for them?

Does God change?