t the New Testament must be the primary standard for Christians. The Old Testament has distinct connections with the New. Christ came to "fulfill" the law and consciously built on Old Testament traditions. So the Old Testament has relevance. Yet Christ came to institute a new order, a new creation. Consequently, the Old Testament must always be subordinate to, and interpreted in light of, the New Testament. Vengeance is a theme in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament does allow the death penalty. However, several qualifications must be kept in mind: 1) Retaliation in the Old Testament was not so much a requirement as a limitation on vengeance. In a society unaccustomed to the rule of law -- as was the case in early Hebrew history -- vengeance must be controlled. An "eye for an eye" was a rule that attempted to make retaliation proportionate to the offense. The law of talion (legal retaliation) moved Hebrew society from unlimited to limited retaliation. Thus "an eye for an eye" was not a command to seek vengeance but a limitation on such retribution. Retribution, like divorce, reflected a concession, not God's highest intent (Deuteronomy 24, Matthew 19:8). 2) The Old Testament death penalty included a number of offenses that our society does not consider capital. Offenses such as adultery were as much capital offenses as murder. To be consistent with the Old Testament use, we would need to apply the death penalty much more broadly than we do today, including for accidental manslaughter and rebellious teenagers without regard to intent or mitigating circumstances (Exodus 21). 3) The Old Testament and the later rabbinical tradition placed many restrictions on the application of the death penalty. An "eye for an eye" was one limitation. A set of rules for accepting substitutions was another. By Jesus' day, most penalties had evolved into some form of restitution. Mosaic law and the later rabbinical tradition established a strict set of ...
