In fact throughout the New Testament Acts and epistles, the only examples of capital punishment carried out against church members is by God Himself.
Exactly.
Because God's people were under Roman law, and were prohibited from carrying out executions.
...Just as Christians are today.
There are other examples by Jesus, and beyond the gospels, of the Law being fulfilled not by continuing it, but by Jesus' Atonement making it unnecessary in the face of the New Covenant written in His blood.
But the Law
does continue --- no, we don't sacrifice animals and so forth, as Jesus offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice --- but the Law forms the basis of all Jesus' moral teachings and thus lives on.
When He visits the Samaritan woman at the well, He is going beyond all kinds of Old Covenant Laws. Associating not only with a non-Jew, which is highlighted as a hurdle for Peter himself to overcome in Acts, but an especially despised Samaritan. Not only that, but a serial adulteress. Not only that, but being a man speaking to a woman alone.
These were violations of the social taboos of the day, but they are not violations of the Law.
The sinning woman who crawled to Him in the Pharisee's house and washed his feet with her tears and ointment, was more than likely a prostitute or some other kind of sexual sinner, judging from the Pharisee's indignant reaction.
That is church tradition (Pope Gregory promoted this idea 1400 years ago, and identified the woman as Mary Magdalene), but whether it is true or not, we don't really know.
She could have been a prostitute, or she could have been a drunkard or a thief --- the Pharisees looked down on all sinners.
Even if she was a prostitute, there is no Law which demands that a harlot be put to death, though the Law
does prescibe death for a woman who "
plays the harlot". There is clear recognition in God's eyes of the difference between a woman who offers sex in exchange for money, perhaps out of desperation to feed her family (as may have been the case with Rahab) and a woman who engages in sexual sin for her own carnal gratification.
As for sexual mores, don't forget about Jesus speaking through Paul. Whether it be introducing voluntary chastity as a higher calling than "be fruitful and multiply," for those who have the gift to undertake this (1 Corinthians 7:1-8,) or whether it's Jesus speaking through Paul when He allows women to divorce unbelievers who abandon them (1 Corinthians 7:15.)
That is not what that verse says.
There is no mention of divorce at all in that verse. Paul simply says, "let him/her depart".
Unfortunately most modern Christians cite this verse as licence for a woman to divorce and remarry.
There isn't a verse in Scripture which permits a woman to divorce her husband.
As mentioned in my previous post, the only grounds for divorce given in the New Testament are sexual sins on the wife's part which carry the death penalty in God's Law. God commands such women to be put to death, but since this is not possible with Israel under Roman rule, divorce is permitted.
Not to mention since male adulterers were put to death as well in the Old Testament, if the New Covenant is a fulfillment and completion of the Old Covenant it would make no sense for men to be able to divorce adulterous wives, while women could only sit around twiddling their thumbs while their husbands ran around being unfaithful.
This argument is based on a misunderstanding of what constitutes adultery in Scripture.
Adultery is not simply "cheating". Biblically speaking, adultery is the specific crime where a man (whether single or married) has sex with another man's wife.
In God's scheme of things, woman is subordinate to man: woman was made from man, for man. There is no "gender equality". Thus God permitted a man more than one wife (polygyny) but did not permit a woman more than one husband (polyandry). And so if a married man had sex with an unmarried woman, this was not adultery --- but God would expect him to marry her and to stay married to her until death. But a married woman who had sex with a man other than her husband was in adultery, and God commanded the death penalty for both her and the man.
Also, Matthew 5:31-32 and Matthew 19:8-9 in their full context has nothing to do with execution.
The "full context" of these verses is the debate over divorce between Shammai and Hillel, the two rabbinic giants of the day --- Shammai held that divorce was permissible only for serious transgressions, whereas Hillel took the opposite position, arguing that a man could divorce his wife if, for example, she spoiled the dinner. Given what a burning issue this question had become, it is not surprising that the disciples wanted Jesus to weigh in on this and give a definitive answer.
Jesus went back to Torah, permitting divorce only in the case where the Law called for the execution of the wife.
So, in their full context, these verses have absolutely
everything to do with execution.
Divorce is equated with death.
Exegetically, it's about Jesus restricting divorce, due to the looser Old Covenant Law being abused to divorce wives for any old frivolous reason. In the Old Covenant, men could divorce women for reasons beyond just sexual immorality.
You will not find any verse in the Law giving men permission to divorce women for frivolous reasons.
It was hard-hearted Israel that interpreted a concession given by Moses as
carte blanche to divorce their wives on a whim.
Their situation was the reverse of the situation now, where women initiate the vast majority of divorces, most of them frivolous.
Jesus once again elevated the Law, rather than merely enforce it.
It couldn't be enforced, anyway!
Israel was under Roman rule --- itself a judgement from God for their unfaithfulness --- and so Israel's adulterous wives had to be dealt with via other means.
Jews attempted to execute Jesus for "blasphemy" multiple times, whether by attempting to push Him off a cliff, or pick up stes and attempt to stone Him after His proclamation that He was the I AM before Abraham was (John 8:58.)
These incidents were not judicial executions held in accordance with the Law --- they were the criminal acts of a lynch mob.
However, the longer His ministry and miracles and reputation went on, the more support from the people He gained. Eventually, to the point where the Pharisees were literally afraid to touch Him for fear of repercussions from the crowd (Matthew 21:46; Mark 11:18; Luke 22:2) when initially Jesus had to withdraw from them until it was His time (Matthew 12:14.) Moreover, the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7 (who had not obtained nearly the level of fame of Jesus by that point,) combined with the earlier attempts on Jesus' life, along with the Pharisees' brazen attempt to stir up a public execution of an adulteress in order to entrap Jesus, infers that in carrying out capital punishment, their hands were not so tied when it came to random unknowns that Rome would not care about or overlook for bigger fish to fry. This also possibly explains why in John 8, the man was not drug out along with the adulteress in accordance with the law. It was likely that he was a man of importance who could've drawn even more commotion to the situation than the accusers wanted. This further cements the point that they cared more about finding any way to hook Jesus than they did about truth, justice or holiness.
Yes, I think that's fair comment.
As Jesus observed, these people weren't interested in keeping the Law, but in the outward appearance of keeping the Law.
Thus the Pharisees difficulty in trying to arrest and kill Jesus had less to do with Roman law stopping them, but rather Jesus' fame and the attention such an act might draw from both the populace and Rome itself.
Yes, I think I agree with that, too.
Given all this, I doubt the Hebrews couldn't get away with executing a random cheating wife if they went about it the right way.
If the Romans found out that they were carrying judicial executions out on their own authority, they would certainly ensure that the Hebrews regretted it. And very few of them would have been willing to risk crucifixion. ...Quite understandably.
Paul's exploits after Stephen's death seem to indicate that there were no major repercussions to the executioners in that incident.
Luke doesn't tell us what happened to the mob that stoned Stephen.
And again, this wasn't a judicial execution: Stephen had not transgressed the Law. But the mob who lynched him did.
Moreover, to argue that Hebrews could go around stoning people whenever they wanted is to argue that the occupying power did not enforce their own law.
It's clear that Jesus was more interested in reeling in the ancient Hebrew's rough equivalent of no-fault divorce, rather than merely setting restrictions based on Rome's laws.
This is a false dichotomy: He did both.
Jesus put divorce back on a sound Biblical foundation, allowing it only in cases where the Law demanded the death of the wife (and thereby the annulment of the marriage covenant). It's why His disciples observe that it's better for a man not to marry: should a man happen to pick a wife who makes his life a living Hell, then unless she actually cheats, he's stuck with her for life. The disciples understood Christ's doctrine on marriage and divorce --- even if most of the churches today don't...
