"To Be Or Not to Be...That Is The Question"... Hamlet, Scene 1

     Indeed, that is  the question!  Because the subject of Assisted Suicide has once again reared it's ugly head in our society, I decided to put in my two cents worth. In order to do this I had to do some digging and to this I have to say, "Thank God for the Internet!"
     In my "digging" I have come across some wonderful things. One of these things that I've learned is that the Christian Church from Saint Augustine to Focus on the Family, has consistently been in agreement on the subject.  These church leaders have laid out a principle on the matter, that they gleaned from the scripture, so I don't have to wonder what the Bible teaches.     
     Now it's true, there are some denominations that have departed from this Biblical teaching. This is not new.  As a matter of fact, it began with the Apostle Peter. They base their opinion on the feeling that we must be "compassionate" to the suffering.  Then they proceed to define compassion as the prevention of suffering and pain.  This  definition of compassion, Jesus rebuked in Matthew 16:22, 23  Peter's statement there, "Be it (suffering) far from Thee, Lord."  Jesus replied to him by saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"   He wasn't calling Peter "Satan", but was addressing the "spirit" within Peter that would utter this Satanic temptation.  Jesus knew His purpose in coming into this world and He was saying, "Stop tempting me, Satan, with Peter's notion of compassion, for this suffering and death is the very reason for My incarnation!"  This is a larger subject than I want to address here, but suffice it to say, the Christian Church, down through the ages, warns us to avoid the stumbling block of this squishy compassion and instead chose to believe that suffering is very often God's chosen way.
     The principles which the church leaders came up with are as follows:
             1.Suicide is against nature.
             2.Suicide is destructive to community.
             3.Suicide is a sin against God.
     So with these points in mind, let's look at them one at a time.  1. Suicide is against nature... It is natural to love your own body.  Jesus said it, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." in Matt. 19:19, and 22:39, Mark 12: 31, 33, and Luke 10:27 He included this phrase in His presentation of the Greatest Commandment. Then Paul said it in Eph. 5:28, 29.  He even went farther and said, " No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church."  So it is natural to love your own body and that makes suicide "unnatural". (By love, I mean care for your body.)
     The second point on which the principle is based is...2. Suicide is destructive to community. Have you ever noticed how suicide, "runs in families"?  Indeed, in the Jewish community, a good father would never give his permission for a young man to take his daughter in marriage, if there was a history of suicide in the young man's family. (Check out the movie, Yentle.)  The reason for this, I believe, is that when a person commits suicide they are conveying a message to their children, of faithlessness. They are saying, "When life gets too hard the thing to do is "punch out".  That leaves no room for God's intervention or for you to glorify Him through your death.  
     The third point of the principle is...3. Suicide is a sin against God.  Augustine based his position against suicide on Deut. 32:39 which says, "Look now; I myself am He!  There is no other god but me!  I am the One who kills and gives life; I am the One who wounds and heals; no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!"  Augustine went on to say, "Life is God's gift to man.  It belongs to God alone to pronounce life and death."
     But having said that, God gives us a choice. He says in Deut. 30:19 "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live..." God's wish for us is that we live! 
     So, I concluded, it was pretty plain from the scripture that suicide is not the "way of escape" from suffering or anything else.  Then I asked myself the second question. " Well then, how about when I get to that point where I think life is not worth living, it's painful and just too hard,  I'll just ask someone else to do it for me...a Doctor for example."
   But, the scripture also says that I have no right to ask another person to sin, or entice them to sin.  In fact I would be inviting them to murder me and that is a violation of the seventh commandment in Ex. 20: 13... "Thou shalt not kill. ( The Hebrew word for kill here is ratsach or murder.)  So if I ask someone to assist me to commit suicide, I'm asking him/her to "murder" me.  Not only is that against God's law but it is against a Doctor's oath.
    So the answer to Hamlet's question is..."To be"!  If you are a Christian and devoted to God and His word, you will reject the false idea of compassion, just as Peter had to reject it as coming from Satan, and stand against suicide in any form.

"...and so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you.  Let them be a living and holy sacrifice___the kind He will find acceptable.  This is truly the way to worship Him!" Romans 12:1