I'm not ignoring the Cross. A murderer under the penalty of death for his crime can still be saved if led by the Holy Spirit to respond to the Gospel. If I maliciously took the life of another I would fully expect my mortal life to be forfeited.
I'm not asking what you would "expect". The Cross wasn't about what we expect.
My eternal state is beyond the bounds of civil authority.
Who said otherwise? Your eternal state should have you responding eternally minded.
We are not redeemed by civil law any more than we could be redeemed by Moses'.
Nobody is asking for civil redemption. But the Body of Christ needs to act like Christ and not like the world. I hear a lot from Christians complaining about abortion and the culture of death perpetrated upon us by the government. But some kind of way, we manage to give the thumbs up to the culture of death manifested by the government using capital punishment?
There is NOTHING of the love and mercy of the Cross in that.
Jesus came so that we may have LIFE and have it more abundantly. He didn't go to the Cross and extend the ultimate act of love and mercy to us for us to turn around and radiate the feelings of the world, and not show the same love and mercy to our neighbors that He showed us.
REMEMBER THE CROSS!
Jesus took the cross, the method of capital punishment, and transformed it into The Cross, the method of salvation. It is not coincidental that in the face of His own capital punishment that HE showed us that His way is one of love, grace and mercy.
Just as unrighteous as it was for them to use capital punishment to take the life of Jesus is it unrighteous for us to be okay with using it to take the life of another.