My heart raced slightly when I read the AP headline, Virginia Inmate Forcibly Carried to Death Chamber. What would it be like to know that you are going to die, and no amount of resistance on your part will keep the inevitable from happening?
Such was the case with Edward Nathaniel Bell as the door between his cell and the death chamber opened. He planted his feet and thrust back his hips, refusing to move forward. But six burly guards pulled him through and lifted him up on the gurney, where he would receive the lethal injection.
Ten years earlier, Bell was convicted of shooting down and killing a police officer during a foot chase. Bell was supposed to be executed last year, but Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine held off the execution while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a Kentucky case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injections. The court upheld the method in April.
The following month, the court granted Bell a temporary reprieve to consider whether his lawyer did a poor job representing him. The court later dismissed his appeal.
Shortly before his execution, Bell met with four of his five children, his sister, and two women with whom he had children. He didn't request a special last meal because he remained hopeful till the end that he would receive a pardon. So he had a cheese sandwich, just like the rest of the inmates.
A half dozen protesters assembled outside the prison during the execution. Beth Panilaitis, the executive director for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said, "One of the scariest parts of the death penalty is that it's hard to ever be certain. And ending someone's life takes away any opportunity to correct any wrongful conviction."
After being forcibly carried into the death chamber, Bell insisted that he was innocent, saying, "You definitely have the wrong person. The truth will come out one day. This here, killing me, there's no justice about it."
As I read this article, I could only begin to imagine what it would be like to be dragged to one's death. To be forcibly executed. To know that my demise is inevitable, that no matter how much I might resist, I will be overcome. The gavel has fallen, and now my sentence will be carried out.
Yet this is the fate of all who are outside Christ, only their execution is not over in a matter of seconds or even minutes. Theirs is an eternal death. And there is no ten-year-gap between the sentence and the execution. It all happens in one fell swoop. Behold the ominous depiction of this event by the apostle John near the close of God's Book:
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.- Revelation 20:11-15
What Edward Nathaniel Bell experienced was the first death, which is physical. What every person outside of Christ will experience is the second death, which is spiritual. Jesus said, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matt. 10:28).
On Judgment Day, no one will be able to claim his or her innocence. For the God that passes judgement is omniscient; He knows all. "And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account" (Heb. 4:13).
If you are reading this and want to know how you can be saved from God's holy wrath against sin, please click here. If you know that you are saved, let us remember what we have been saved from and that we are ambassadors for Christ whom He has commissioned to share the Good News of salvation. We are God's "rescue team" who are to be out in the world, "pulling [people] out of the fire" (Jude 23).