Introduction:
A new missionary recruit went to Venezuela for the first time. He was struggling with language and didn’t understand a whole lot of what was going on around him. His first Sunday there, he intending to visit a local church, but he got lost on his way there. Eventually he found the place, but arrived late, the church already packed. As usually happens, the only pew left was in the front row.
He sat down there, but didn’t want make a fool of himself, so he decided it would be best to pick someone to imitate. He chose to follow the man sitting next to him. As they sang, the man clapped his hands, so the missionary recruit clapped, too. When the man stood up to pray, the missionary recruit stood up, too. When man held the cup and bread for Lord’s Supper, he too held the cup and bread. During the preaching, the recruit didn’t understand a thing. He just sat there and tried to look exactly like the man sitting next to him in the front pew.
Later, he realized the preacher was giving announcements. People clapped, and he looked to see if the man was clapping.He was, so the recruit clapped, too. Then the preacher said some words he didn’t understand at all, and he saw the man next to him stand up. So, of course, he stood up too.
Suddenly a hush fell over the entire congregation. A few people even gasped. The missionary recruit looked around and saw that nobody else was standing, so, he sat down. After the service ended, the preacher stood at the door shaking hands with the people as they left. When the missionary recruit stretched out his hand to the preacher, the preacher said, in English, “I take it you don’t speak Spanish.”
The recruit answered, “No, I don’t. Is it that obvious?”
“Well, yes,” said the preacher. “Especially when I announced that the Acosta family had a newborn baby boy and asked if the proud father would please stand up.”
This is a vivid example of why we need to be careful who we follow in life. People will mislead us (either intentionally or unintentionally), so we need to be careful who we look to as our example, whose rules we live our lives by, who we believe, who we look to as the source of real and ultimate truth.
That’s the reason we’ve been looking at the Ten Commandments the last several weeks. As Christians, we know we’re not saved by keeping the commandments and law that we find in Old Testament. Those are a part of the Old Covenant people had with God. We’re saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed to cancel out our sins. However, we also realize the value of God’s commandments originally given to the Israelites.
Proverbs 27:12 reads: “A sensible man watches for problems ahead and prepares to meet them. The simpleton never looks, and suffers the consequences.” God’s commandments are wisdom for us; they lead us in living worthwhile lives that glorify God. By following them, we’re looking ahead. We’re being sensible. That’s why we study them and follow them.
A third-grade teacher was once teaching the Ten Commandments to her class in school. This was back when they could still teach them in school. She was discussing the commandment regarding honoring one’s father and mother. Then she asked, “Is there any command regarding brothers and sisters?”
One young girl raised her hand and said, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Today, we’re looking at the Sixth Commandment: “You shall not murder.” Now, you might be saying to yourself, No problem, I’ve never murdered anyone and cannot imagine a situation arising when I would. I’ve got this commandment licked. However, as you might have guessed, it’s not really all that simple—there’s a whole lot more to it than that.
Human life has value. In a day and age when one can hardly watch TV for a half-hour without hearing some politician spout on about how much he allegedly cares for the children of America, it is difficult to grasp just how cheap and little-appreciated human life has been at times in history. We have to remember that when this commandment was given, people of that day and age regularly sacrificed other people—sometimes even their own children—to their idols, their false gods. That is something that is unthinkable for us today. We cannot comprehend such a thing happening.
Also, the Israelites had recently been released from slavery in Egypt. Think about it for a bit: a culture that can justify to itself enslaving millions of people obviously doesn’t value human life very highly at all. The infant-mortality rate had to have been incredibly high. Medical practices were very primitive, or maybe even nonexistent. Nowadays, people have relatively few children; but back then they had as many as they were able to have. They didn’t know how many would survive past infancy.
Food was much harder to come by than it is for us. Cities had walls around them to protect the people from raiders and invaders. Warfare was common. Certainly it did not happen on the scale we see it today—not as many were killed—but it must have much more widespread than it is now. Likely it touched nearly everyone at some point in their lives. There were very few centralized governments that were powerful enough to provide the security and infrastructure that are necessary for general prosperity. Simply put, life was cheap. Human beings were usually viewed by the powerful as a renewable resource, like wood, coal, or other valuables. That’s a picture of the world back then—as well as in many places and in many times since then.
Into this world God introduces the idea that human life has a built-in value; that people are worth something other than what they produce, the work they do, or the offspring they bear’ indeed, that people have value even if they do none of these things. God commands his people: “Do not murder.” And murder is really more accurate than the word kill found in the King James Version. The Hebrew verb here carries with it the ideas of premeditation and the intention to end a life. So, despite what some say, this is not a blanket prohibition against all killing. It is a forceful ban on the unjust taking of human life.
It is interesting to note that in the text, God does not say why it is wrong, He just says, “Don’t do it.” However, we can glean his reasoning for this from the rest of the Bible. It teaches us that human life is to be seen as a gift from God. We are made in his image. It is like God has given a part of himself to each of us. Every person contains a “divine spark” at the core of his or her being that makes us unique in our essence. We’re of a different category altogether than animals.
When we first told our oldest daughter that we might be moving to Oregon, she said, “Okay,” and immediately began to think about the implications. She hadn’t thought for very long when she asked us, “Are we taking Dinah?” Now, Dinah is our dog. She wanted to know for sure whether or not Dinah was making the move with us. Notice she didn’t ask if we were taking her sister. She knew we wouldn’t leave a person behind, but she also realized that a dog, no matter how beloved, is not on the same level as a person. I’m sorry if that offends you dog lovers, but Scripture teaches us that human beings are unique in all of creation. God has given us life with a purpose. We are not accidents, but beings, fashioned specially by our Creator.
However, that’s not a very popular idea in the world we live in. We live in an age of hyper-individualism, where what I want is the only thing that should matter. The widely held view is that “It’s my life; I’ll do with it as I please. How dare someone—anyone—try to curtail my freedom! I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it!”
However, God, in his Word, is telling us, “That’s wrong. You’re off-track in that thinking, and that attitude ultimately leads to a life full of more trouble than you can imagine.” You see, our lives not our own, but are given to us by God.
Human life is literally being devalued. It would be nice to think that the devaluing of human life is in our past, or found only in the most primitive, backward parts of the world. However, that’s just not true, sadly. Just fifty-some years ago Nazi Germany put into practice the belief that certain people—Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, mentally retarded, and so on—didn’t have this divine spark within them, and they sought to eliminate them from the gene pool. Today, we have ethnic cleansing, tribal warfare, people taking other’s lives because of their religions, and despotic regimes treating people worse than farm animals. We violate the spirit of this commandment all the time. And it isn’t just the Red Chinese, the Skinheads, or the Serbians who are guilty of this.
Let’s take two contemporary hot-button issues—abortion and capital punishment—for example. A friend once marveled to me that anyone could be “pro-life” as well as for the death penalty at the same time. They saw a big conflict there. “How can a person be both?”
I said there really was no conflict. When a fertilized egg begins to divide, God’s gift of life has been given. There is purpose behind it, a divine spark is present in those cells. There is divinely placed potential that is meant to be given a chance to live and to glorify God. So, to arbitrarily cut that life short is to rob God’s gift from that baby.
On the other hand, when an adult in his right mind murders another person, he has done irreparable harm to that person. The murderer has robbed someone else of God’s gift of life. There is really no worse thing that can be done to a person by another. So, when the government—not an individual seeking revenge, but a legitimate government—determines that someone should be put to death for a murder they committed, that government is really valuing life very highly. They are saying to the murderer, “What you’ve done is so heinous, so vile, that we cannot minimize it, whitewash it, nor sweep it under the rug. Murder demands justice.” To do any less is to cheapen the life of the murder victim. If someone’s child is murdered and the state refuses to punish that murderer in this way, then they are saying that the murderer’s life is more valuable than the life of the child he murdered.
Many places in the Old Testament, God explicitly states that certain crimes require capital punishment. The Apostle Paul, in Romans 13, tells us that the government is charged by God with the punishment of wrongdoers, and he includes capital punishment in that mandate (“bearing the sword”). There is no conflict, at least in my mind and my understanding of Scripture, in being both pro-life and an advocate of the appropriate use of the death penalty.
As long as we’re in dangerous waters, we might as well get in deep, so what about suicide? If we don’t buy the world’s lie that our lives are completely our own to do with as we please, then where should we stand on this issue?
Regarding suicide, I believe it is fairly easy to discern the Bible’s teaching. Suicide is best described as “self-murder.” If we believe that life is a gift from God, then we accept that certain strings are attached to that gift, namely that we cannot give it back to God before he is ready to take it. When it comes right down to it, suicide is really a selfish attempt at taking an easy way out. I knew of a man who one Saturday went out and hung himself in his garage, leaving three small children and his wife behind to deal with the aftermath. In reality, that is a gutless, thoughtless, and selfish choice. The whole idea of suicide rails against the biblical notion of stewardship—that everything we have is God’s and we’re merely entrusted with it for a time to use it for his purposes.
Traditionally, suicide has been viewed as the one unforgivable sin. However, I don’t believe that Scripture teaches this. First of all, those who commit suicide are not in their right mind at the time. They are, I firmly believe, mentally ill. They are in a dark hole that they cannot see a way out of. Therefore, since they are not completely sane, they cannot be held eternally accountable for their actions.
Also, the fact is that we all rely on God’s grace to cover our sins, so why would one particular sin, committed in a time of unspeakable despair and pain, nullify that grace? It wouldn’t, and to suggest such a thing is to belittle Christ’s sacrifice for us. In one way, the only difference between suicide and any other sin is that with suicide, there is no chance to cool down to see where we went wrong, and to repent of that sin. It’s irreversible. However, as far as condemnation goes, it’s no worse than any other sin, including those that you and I commit and repent of regularly.
I realize that each of these issues could be an entire message; but let’s talk bit about euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, which is really just a variation on the same theme.
In any other state in the country, this wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue. I read in the New York Times just this past week that in Oregon, about fifteen people have taken advantage of the physician-assisted suicide law since it was passed the other year. This has been in the news lately because some in Congress are trying to circumvent that state law. And while I believe there is a good point to be made regarding states’ rights here, that doesn’t really figure into our discussion this morning.
The thinking behind physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia is that sometimes people are suffering so much that it is better to end it than to let that horrible suffering continue. After all, we put down horses when they are suffering and we put dogs and cats to sleep when they are sick and hurting, because that’s the compassionate thing to do. So, why shouldn’t we do the same for people when it’s necessary? I’ll tell you why? People are not on the same level as animals. Human life is special. Such a casual view of human life denies the divine spark within and lowers people to the level of animals.
The biblical view of people is that we are not merely self-aware animals with opposable thumbs and complex forebrains, but that we are beings created by God in his image, for his purposes. Our lives have meaning just because we exist, and not because we fulfill some need on the food chain or serve our fellow human beings in some menial way. I realize that this runs completely contrary to the prevalent mood of our society these days; but, you know, that’s the point of nearly everything in the Bible! Our society, our world, the culture we’re a part of is corrupt, tainted, and sinful. We are not to be just like everyone else, but to look at things from God’s point of view. Our lives are not our own. Ultimately they are God’s.
Human life is being figuratively devalued. Now, suppose that none of the implications of this commandment that I’ve mentioned so far apply to you. You’ve never considered suicide, you don’t support abortion, and you’ll never murder your neighbor in a fit of rage, no matter how much his dog barks. Does this mean that this commandment is irrelevant for you? We all might like to think so.
However, Jesus made it clear that we violate this commandment when we violate the spirit of it, and not just when we murder in a literal sense. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21–22a niv).
Do you realize what this means? Taken at face value, it means that we violate the spirit of this commandment merely by having murderous thoughts of anger toward people. However, I got to thinking about this and realized that sometimes anger arises within me when I least expect it, almost with a life of its own. How many of you have been angry at someone for just a second, and then, before you acted on the anger, you realized what you were doing and how it was an overreaction to something. Then you put that anger out of your mind? Everyone here has done that many times, I’d bet.
We all get momentarily angry with our spouses, our children, co-workers, our best friends, you name it. Does that mean we’re all essentially guilty of murdering them in God’s eyes? I don’t think that’s exactly what Jesus had in mind here. Jesus, like all good preachers and teachers, gave specific instances to clarify what he meant, exactly. Here he gives two examples of what he was talking about, and guess what: Both have to do with someone saying something angry, hateful, or hurtful to another person.
There’s an old story about a man who spread gossip, who bad-mouthed and told nasty lies about an elder in the village where he lived. After a time he realizes how wrong it is to do this, so he goes to the village elder and repents, confessing his wrongdoing and asking forgiveness.
The village elder agrees to forgive him, but first assigns him the task of taking a feather pillow to the top of a windy hill and releasing all feathers. The man is relieved that forgiveness can be obtained so easily. He goes out and fulfills the assignment.
When he gets back, he goes to the elder to be forgiven. The village elder tells him that he has just one more assignment for the offender. The man is somewhat annoyed at having another condition added to the forgiveness, but he is anxious for absolution, being truly repentant, so he agrees. The village elder tells him to go back up the hill and retrieve all feathers from the pillow. The man says this would be impossible. The elder explains that each feather represents a lie the man spread about him that has gone on to do damage to his reputation and to his very life.
Then he asks, “How can that damage be repaired?” Just as it is irreversible when someone’s life is taken by another person, Jesus makes the point that the violence done to a person when angry words are spoken is also irreversible, and therefore akin to murder.
This means that when we gossip about someone, when we “blow off steam” at someone because we’re angry and can get away with it, when we calculate our cutting words to have the maximum effect on the temporary object of our wrath, when we run down people who are unable speak up for themselves, when we holler at people who are driving like idiots around us—when do all these things, we’re not merely being rude, unkind, or insensitive to them, but we’re actually devaluing their lives, lowering their worth in someone’s eyes. We’re forgetting that they, too, are a child of God. We’re forgetting that they, too, are made in his image. You see, if we respect human life in general because God created us all, then we’ll also respect their life in particular for the same reason.
Human life is valuable; it is given to us by God himself. We exist because God has willed it so. Now, the world tells us we exist because of chance and therefore we can do whatever we want with our lives. But that is a very different picture of life than that which the Bible presents to us. Our lives are not our own, but ultimately belong to God. The command to not murder is more than a prohibition against unjust killing; it is the command for us to cherish human life—every human life—just as God does.
© Derek Helt
A resource of Christianity Today International
