A Facebook friend messaged me the following question: "Where in the Bible does it talk about suicide?"
Below is the answer. Sorry it wouldn't fit in a FB message box.
FROM THE BIBLICAL CASE
STUDIES
The Bible records seven suicides.
1)
Abimelech
In Judges 9:
52-54, Abimelech committed assisted suicide after being mortally wounded by a
woman. Scripture says that Abimelech’s
death was God’s judgment for the treacherous murders of Abimelech’s brothers
(recorded earlier in Judges 9).
2)
Samson
In Judges 16: 25-30, Samson performed what was the ancient equivalent
of a suicide bombing or a suicide mission (depending on your perspective) by
pulling the temple of Dagon down on himself and the entirety Philistine
leadership and nobility. The author of
Hebrews included Samson among the list of great heroes of the faith.
3)
Saul
In 1 Samuel
31: 4, King Saul used his young armor-bearer to commit assisted suicide after his
sons were killed and he was wounded in his last and losing battle.
4)
Saul’s armorbearer
In 1 Samuel
31: 4, Saul’s armor-bearer freaked out over
killing his boss and took his own life.
(According to the National Institutes of Health , at best only
about 24% of teenage suicide is impulse. Most suicides are planned.)
5)
Ahithophel
Ahitophel was
a highly intelligent noble during the 2nd kingship of Israel. He threw his support behind the coup of
Absalom, David’s handsome but psychologically damaged son. When Absalom rejected his advice in favor a
man David had planted among Absalom’s advisor’s. Ahitophel gave up, went home,
put his house in order, and hung himself.
6)
Zimri
In 1 Kings
16, Zimri overthrew the reigning king of
Israel, killed all of the former king’s male relatives, and set himself on the
throne. But after just one week, the
people turned on Zimri. Rather than give
up, Zimri burned the palace down around himself.
7)
Judas
Matthew 27: 3-8. When Judas realized what he’d done, he
returned the money and hung himself.
The Bible states or shows that some of the suicides were the culmination
of Divine judgment for earlier sin (Abimelech and Saul for example). Judas was judged as lost, but for betraying
Jesus not for the way he died. Samson,
though, was considered a Biblical hero.
Point? The Bible does not
treat every suicide the same. The Bible
focuses on the character of the person’s life leading to the suicide rather
than expressing a blanket judgment on the act itself.
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT
Exodus 20:13 “You shall not murder.
To willfully kill yourself is
to deliberately take an innocent human life. Nowhere in the Bible does God endorse the
concept of killing as an act of mercy.
The Bible tells about acts of assisted suicide, but those were always
acts of cowardice at the end of political failures committed by rulers whom God
had rejected. The character of those lives does not fit the
propagandized image of “death with dignity.”
Point? So,
murder, including self-murder, including murder you order against yourself, is
a violation of the 6th
commandment. Suicide is a sin.
FORGIVABLE OR UNFORGIVABLE?
Murder, which includes
self-murder, is a bad, really bad thing.
Murderers as a general
category even make the list of people excluded from Heaven.
Rev 21:8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable,
murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have
their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second
death
Now, before you go, “See! All
suicides go to Hell,” take a closer look
at the rest of that list. Notice that
the last group on the list is liars, specifically “ALL liars,” which is God’s
way of saying, “Yeah, even you little white-lie-this-won’t-hurt-nobody liars.”
Now remember what you told
your boss the last time you were late to work.
Yeah. You’re as equally doomed to eternal Hell for
that lie (He did say “all.”) as the person who killed himself. In
other words, ANYONE who does not have a saving relationship with Jesus at the
time of his/her death is going to go to Hell.
Those who do, won’t.
Revelations 20: 6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first
resurrection. Over such the second death has no power
Revelations 21: 8 and other
verses that reference abominations are particular but partial lists of sins
that send you to Hell. Basically, you
get screwed on any point.
James 2: 10 For whoever shall keep the
whole law, and yet stumble in one point,
he is guilty of all.
Back in the day, Catholic
theologians declared that suicide was an unforgivable sin, because after you
committed suicide you couldn’t run to a priest and confess and get told to say
a bunch of Hail Mary’s.
That declaration followed basic logic, but not Biblical logic.
The Bible does NOT declare
that forgiveness for each single sin requires post-sin confession.
That standard would mean anyone
who forgot to name a sin in confession would be doomed to Hell no matter what
else they did.
We can receive forgiveness of
sin by confessing those sins to God in a spirit of genuine repentance.
1 John 1:9 If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and
purify us from all unrighteousness.
But we can also receive
forgiveness of our sins by an act of Grace, usually provoked by the
intercession of another, more righteous mediator.
For example, in Numbers 14:
19-21, Moses prayed “In accordance with
your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned
them from the time they left Egypt until now."
And The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as you asked…”
For born again Christians, our
Mediator is Jesus Christ. Our intercessor is the Holy Spirit.
1 Tim 2:5 For there is one God and one Mediator
between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
Rom 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our
weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the
Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered.
For those who have truly
trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord, God’s grace delivers forgiveness of sins even
when we have not immediately confessed.
Ephesians 1:7 In
him [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in
accordance with the riches of God's grace
Colossians 1:13-14
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into
the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom
we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
This promise is effective
from the moment of faith even through the future. It has to be or it would not be prophetically
available to us born after Jesus’ days on Earth.
Daniel 9:9 The
Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against
him;
Forgiveness of sin does not
have to be secured through ritual sacrifice or exercise. God can exercise such grace that He forgives
a sin even when that sin has not been personally confessed to God.
Point? God can forgive the sin of suicide if the victim
had a saving relationship with Jesus before they died. Again, the Biblical focus of judgment is on
the character of the life (i.e., the person's relationship with God) that led to the suicide not on the act of suicide
itself.
THE UNFORGIVABLE THING
Jesus Himself said in Mark 3:
28, 29
“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven
the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he
who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to
eternal condemnation
Essentially Jesus said that
you can be forgiven for ANYTHING, INCLUDING SUICIDE. The only one thing in the whole universe that
God won’t apply His grace to forgiving is “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”
Over the centuries, extensive
theological studies have been made to determine the exact meaning of the phrase
“blasphemy against the Holy Spririt.”
They’ve all been a waste of
freakin’ time.
There is no mystery.
In the previous verses (Mark
3: 22; Matthew 12; 24; Luke 11: 15) some of the people, some scribes and Pharisees in particular, accused
Jesus of casting out demons by the power of the devil
Mark 3: 22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem
said, “He has Beelzebub,” and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out
demons.”
Since Jesus was casting out
demons by the power of the Holy Spirit, their accusation was the equivalent of
saying that the Holy Ghost was the devil.
And that is when Jesus
declared that they had crossed a line that He would not forgive them for
crossing.
Mark 3: 29 But he who blasphemes against
the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”—
30 because they SAID, “He
has an unclean spirit.”
But what does that really
mean?
It really means what it
really SAYS.
If you say that the Holy
Spirit is the devil, you are eternally screwed.
Period. No take-backs. Stick a pitchfork in you; you’re done.
How we managed to turn that
into a 2,000 year old theological controversy is a greater mystery to me than
Kim Kardashian’s popularity.
Point? Taking your own life is not (N-O-T “not,”) the same as saying that the Holy
Spirit is Beelzebub; and, therefore, suicide is NOT the unpardonable
sin. God can forgive a suicide.
BUT
Suicide is still a sin. Suicide does not please God. God is not O.K. with it.
Ecclesiastes
7:17 Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should
you die before your time?
Your life is not,
technically, your own. Which means
that the end of your life isn’t yours to decide.
1 Corinthians
3:16-17 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that
God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy
him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
This verse was meant as a
warning against your enemies, but it applies to you if you become your
enemy. If you kill yourself, you
destroy every future chance to do good.
Suicide does not remove past
pain. It prevents future joy.
Job, Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:14-18 ),
Elijah (1 Kings 19:4),
Moses, and even Paul (Philippians
1; 21-23) contemplated ending it all.
But they didn’t commit that sin. They
kept going until God called them home.
However
much a Christian hurts, suicide is not what God wants for him/her.
After a while, after Jeremiah
got up and carried on the ministry, God answered him in Jeremiah 29
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says
the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Suicide kills that hope. It cuts you off from the future God went to
all the trouble to plan for you.
Can you be forgiven for a
suicide? Yes.
Does that make the sin of
suicide all right? Certainly not!
Rom 6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not
under law but under grace? Certainly not!
God forbid that you should do
something that kills all of God’s gifts to you in a single moment because if you stick around, in a moment yet to come God may give you something more spectacular than you ever imagined.
Hope.
Hope.
That is the point.
Anderson T. Graves II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is
pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural
leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Subscribe to my blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
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