From a Reformed Christian worldview, the death penalty is not a violation of Natural Law; on the contrary, it is an expression of justice grounded in the holy and just character of God.

Natural Law is not something autonomous or separate from the character of God. What is "natural" is not defined by social consensus, but by what God has revealed in His Word and what He has inscribed on the human conscience (Romans 2:14–15). Human life is sacred because man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and that is precisely why murder—the act of violently taking away that image—demands the death penalty.

After the Flood, God clearly established in the covenant with Noah: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God He made man" (Genesis 9:6). This is not a temporary Mosaic law, but a pre-Mosaic moral principle that remains in force. Capital punishment, when applied justly by a legitimate authority, is not personal vengeance, but justice delegated by God to the civil magistrate: “For he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, an avenger to wreak havoc on the wicked” (Romans 13:4).

The modern objection that capital punishment is “state-sanctioned violence” ignores that the authority of the state is not autonomous, but derived from God himself. If the state acts within its moral and legal jurisdiction, its use of the sword is not a contradiction of the right to life, but a defense of it. The right to life is not absolute in the case of the murderer, because he has irremediably broken the moral order. It is not that the state denies the value of life, but rather affirms it by severely punishing the act that most degrades it.