First, I know several of you have commented with very good questions regarding the topic of suicide. What I’ve decided to do is post my third and final blog on the topic and then delve into your questions via responses to your comments in the comment section…make sense?
Now, let’s review what we’ve learned so far:
1) God is in charge of life and death
2) Suicide is the most extreme act of UNBELIEF
3) Suicide is NOT the unpardonable sin
Then I wrote the obvious dilemma we face:
There are NO THEOLOGICAL GROUNDS to deny a Christian who commits suicide the effects of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ FOR SINNERS. And yet we CANNOT ENCOURAGE OR CONDONE SUICIDE in principle.
What does a reader do then if he or she is thinking about suicide or know of someone who is seriously contemplating suicide?
For the reader does not consider themselves a Christian and is having suicidal thoughts:
Give God a chance! Bottom line - if you have tried everything but God, try God! I know this might sound foolish in the midst of the despair and hopelessness you must feel to consider ending the life that God has given you, but God says Himself that He is the only source of true hope. God tells us in the Bible that as a Christ-follower you can live by faith that rests on “the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time…” (Titus 1:2) If you don’t yet have a relationship in Jesus then you have been living without a hope that can sustain you through the worst of life’s circumstances! You can start a relationship with Jesus right now – really! One of the best explanations of how to start a relationship with God is found at the following link - http://www.bgea.com/SH_StepsToPeace.asp. I sincerely hope you’ll consider putting your faith in God through His Son, Jesus Christ. You were born into this world for one eternal purpose – to know God personally and enjoy Him forever.
For the reader who is a follower of Christ and is having suicidal thoughts:
You do not own your life! I beg you to understand that you are thinking of killing a life that now belongs to another, namely God. Satan wants you dead, don’t let him win. Tell someone your secret thoughts and tell them NOW! There are other Christ-followers whom you can speak to right now at the Christian Suicide Hotline - - (714) 639-4673 OR 1-800-SUICIDE.
For the reader who knows another person who has talked about committing suicide:
Write down the numbers I wrote above. If there is a very serious and immediate threat call 911. IT IS BETTER TO HAVE THAT PERSON ANGRY AT YOU FOR LIFE than for them to move forward with their plans to end their life.
I know this doesn’t answer some of the specific questions that many of you have left in the comments section. But, I hope this will provide direction for you regardless of your specific circumstances. Please look to the comments in the coming days for my responses to some of your specific questions!
Until then…
Carpe Deum! (Seize God!)
Todd Phillips
www.toddphillips.net
www.frontline.to
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10 comments:
Okay.. this takes us back to Suicide Part 1, and the reference to Terry Schiavo, but it is something that I struggle with as a Christian. I know there has been a great deal of concern, speculation & argument about the decision to take her off of the feeding tubes. My question and dilemma is this.. I have heard many Christians (and people I greatly respect for that matter) argue that it is a sin because "we are playing God" and taking her life. It seems to me, though, that keeping her on the feeding tubes is acting as God! She (and her family members and friends) was unable to feed herself. If it were not for modern medicine, she would have perished. Where do we draw the line with intervention? How do we know whether or not God had already made his decision to take her & we were in fact, playing God by keeping her alive?
Not specifically suicide, but I do struggle with the subject and am hoping for insight.. or maybe others have the same feelings??
I like what you brought up because I have the same issues. As one of several physicians that attend Frontline end of life issues are something that we are constantly faced with. Believe it or not, how to care for a dying patient has been traditionally poorly taught in medical schools and most of my teachers/mentors learned it on their own. I was fortunate to have been part of a trend in medical education that actually acknowledges death as inevitable and that we rarely (only in certain specialties/circumstances) "cure" anyone of long term illnesses. The issue I am faced with and pray about frequently is when I am faced with a patient/family member/friend of family who, despite having terminal/expectant cancer, heart diease, emyphysema, a severe stroke, is bed bound, has only one leg from diabetes, wants to be fully resuscitated, i.e. a "full code" if their heart stops beating. They feel that they are "giving up" and, some have felt, that they would be committing suicide. I have a hard time with that because how do we know when we are not interferring with God's will, but we as humans have invented ways to keep hearts beating, lungs breathing, kidneys working, that may or may not be concordant with God's will for that particularly person? In my opinion, I (we) am also faced with a society perception that death is bad and we must overcome it with medical technology/biological advances and that everyone must die with someone pounding on their chest, breaking their ribs, hooking them up to machines, without any real hope of living. Many times I have been faced the question of what am I resuscitating? a heart, a lung, a kidney? I leave some situations thinking, how far do we have to go (one lung, nonfunctioning kidneys, one leg, bad heart disease, on the ventilator,) before we realize God is saying, enough is enough already?
3 Points:
#1 - For those who don't already know, the unpardonable sin is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, not suicide:
Mat 12:31-32: 31"Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32"Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
For context, read all of Mat 12 (see also Luke 12, Mark 3) - blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in this case seemed to be the sin of attributing the miracles/works of the Holy Spirit to Satan or claiming that the Holy Spirit was an unclean spirit (Mk 3:28-30).
#2 - Consider that someone who commits suicide doesn't necessarily die the moment they commit the act that results in their death. Therefore, they might accept Jesus as their savior, or repent if they're already a believer, split seconds before they actually die. While I do not personally believe that a Christian's repentance is necessary for the preservation of their salvation since I believe the Bible teaches the eternal security of believers or "OSAS" - "once saved, always saved," I make the point since it might give hope to those who do believe that concept.
I personally believe this may have been the case for my father who committed suicide approx 10 years ago. I had prayed with my dad a few months before he died, after he made his first suicide attempt. At this point, his heart was more receptive to the possiblity of accepting Christ because he was so depressed that he was willing to consider almost anything that might help. Since I was sure he wasn't a believer (from what he had told me), I told him to say "Lord, if you're there...," when we prayed. I didn't want him to feel like he absolutely had to be sure that God existed - just to give Him a chance to answer. I was hoping that if I could persuade my dad to call on the name of the Lord in even the most tenuous manner, he'd be saved (Rom 10:13). After my dad died, I did pray to God asking Him to let me know whether he went to heaven or not. I had to know since I had been praying for my dad's salvation for years. The answer I believe I received from God was that my dad did go to heaven. I can only presume that sometime before he died, possibly even in his last few moments of consciousness, my dad accepted Christ (if God truly did answer me and it wasn't wishful thinking on my part).
#3 - Lastly, Ecclesiastes 3:2 states that there is "a time to die;" and 3:3 "A time to kill and a time to heal;" and 3:6 "A time to search and a time to give up as lost." So, it seems that the Bible allows for "a time to die," a time NOT to heal (since there is a time to heal, there must be a time not to heal), and a time to give up on someone recovering in a similar way that we "give up as lost." Obviously, the difficult part is knowing when that time is in unclear cases. One must seek God's will in those cases.
Awesome testimony dareece! Thank you for sharing your personal experience.
I agree with the comments you made, but wanted to comment on the reference to Matthew 12:31 – 12:32. I’ve always believed that “blasphemy of the Holy Ghost” was rejection of Jesus as the Christ. If you go back to Matthew 12:22 where Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees I think you get a good context for this. He is explaining to the Pharisees, who just accused him of being of the devil, that he is who he claims to be and that to reject that is unforgivable (summarizing Matthew 12:28 – 12:37). I think he directly says this in Matthew 12:30 when he says: “He that is not with me is against me”.
We receive the Holy Ghost by the acceptance of Jesus the Christ as our Savior. So to reject Jesus as the Christ is to reject the Holy Ghost, which is why it is unforgivable as it is the only means to heaven.
I’m not pointing out because I think you disagree with that (as I don’t) just want to expound on it and share my opinion.
A couple of points to think about:
1) According to one line in the post, God has "eternal and absolute authority over life and death." I agree. But, the thrust of the argument in point number one assumes that a person who is committing suicide momentarily robs God of that authority. I submit that God's authority over life and death remains both eternal and absolute, and that it is impossible for one of us to take it away from him by any action, including trying to kill ourselves.
2) "Suicide – A fatal act of self-destruction undertaken with conscious intent."
With this, or most any broad definition of suicide, I think a persuasive case can be made that Jesus himself committed suicide.
consider:
1. he died.
2. he pursued death, ordered his friends not to try to prevent his death (no resistance in the garden), and failed to act to save himself.
3. he did it all deliberately, with the certain knowledge that his actions were leading directly to death.
If Jesus' death is considered suicide and Jesus was sinless, then at least some forms of suicide are not sin.
Re: anonymous post above.
"With this, or most any broad definition of suicide, I think a persuasive case can be made that Jesus himself committed suicide."
Friend, you are playing with definitions and distorting the gospel. I think you mean well and I hope this is true. However, you've made a mistake in your comparison of Jesus' death on the cross to suicide. If we assume this definition: "Suicide – A fatal act of self-destruction undertaken with conscious intent." and try to match it up against what Jesus did you'll see that it doesn't fit well. The three pieces of the suicide definition that must match are "fatal act", "self-destruction", and "conscious intent". None of Jesus' direct actions were fatal, only the reactions of others. Jesus was crucified by the Romans. He did not nail himself to the cross. However, Jesus did have conscious intent to enter into this situation. Further, you call the Son of God's sacrifice - the most cruel and undeserved death in all of history - a suicide! You describe his sacrifice which reconciles us to God as suicide. Before going to the cross Jesus says: "I lay down my life for the sheep" - John 10:15. Another example would be a father who sees his son in the path of an oncoming car and rushes from the safety of the sidewalk to push his son out of harm's way only to be crushed by the car. That's exactly what happened on the cross. The Father saw his sheep were in the path of oncoming death and sent his beloved Son among us to stop our death by dying himself (only to be resurrected). I hope that you were only joking or have already been given this truth by God since you have written.
Interesting point. I wonder if Saul's suicide in 1 Chronicles 10 also talks about this, meaning this act, at times, being a form of God's will..."Saul took his own sword and fell on it...Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord; he did not keep the word of the Lord..So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David..."?
Re: Matt
Please don't misunderstand me -- I'm not trying to impugn the deity of Jesus or the importance of his self-sacrifice on the cross. I am asserting that not all forms of suicide (as defined) are inherently sinful. This is apparently where we disagree.
Allow me to illustrate my point with some examples that are a little less sensitive:
*I fumble a grenade that I'm about to throw and it rolls toward my platoon. If I jump on it (a conscious, fatal act of self-destruction) to save my buddies, is that a sin?
*I contract smallpox or some other lethal and highly contagious disease, and I have no way to isolate myself. If I burn myself (a conscious, fatal act of self-destruction) to prevent a pandemic that would result in millions of deaths, is that a sin?
After all, as Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." -- Jesus in John 15:13
My point is that motive (and possibly effect) must be considered when evaluating the evil or good in conscious, fatal acts of self-destruction (suicides).
If there is agreement to this point, then things turn a grayer shade of black and white, because many people who commit suicide genuinely believe that others will be better off once they are gone. So how much benefit is necessary to justify laying down one's own life?
Todd, care to comment on any of this?
-David
Anonymous/David,
I think we only disagree about definitions. In the hypothetical examples I think the first case is not sinful and also not suicide and in the second example it seems to be sinful but not suicide. To explain what I see as the difference between these examples and suicide I suggest a change to the definition of suicide to "a fatal act of self-destruction for primarily personal benefit undertaken with conscious intent". To belabor an old point, the most recent examples fit all three criteria (fatal act, self-destroying, conscious intent) of the old definition where the sacrifice Christ made does not. However, the most recent examples do not fit the new definition because they share a common thread with sacrificing your life - that you die for the sake of another. Further, since I don't think those two examples or others like them are suicide I do think suicide is wrong. Finally you said "If there is agreement to this point, then things turn a grayer shade of black and white, because many people who commit suicide genuinely believe that others will be better off once they are gone." and I do agree that your motive and effect for laying down your life make the act sinful or holy because with sacrificial motive and effect the fatal act of self-destruction is a sacrifice of your life not suicide. I think we're having a disconnect because of the simplicity of the definitions against the complexity of life.
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