I received the following in a letter the other day: “Recently I saw an article about a 29 year old girl who is planning to take a pill on Nov 1 to end her life because she has stage 4 brain cancer. I was just wondering what your take is on doctor assisted suicide. I cannot see how God would want us to choose between life and death for ourselves. I don’t think that’s our role as humans and instead we should put our trust in God for our lives.”
The Bible does not specifically answer this question, nor does it tell us exactly what to do. There is no commandment for us to suffer through it and tough it out to the bitter end and there is no green light for ending it all.
Thus the Bible reminds me of the United States constitution. The constitution does not say anything about gay marriage, Obamacare, or abortion and yet they ruled on it.
The judges looked at these issues by comparing the case to the entirety of the constitution and then made their decisions on their own, supposedly using logic in trying to imagine what our founders were thinking. (They don’t know much about the founders’ intent on some of these issues is my conclusion.)
The job they have is to interpret laws already made by Congress and determine whether or not the constitution allows for them or not, and not to MAKE laws of their own. That is the job of Congress. Sadly they ignore their charge and make laws like Roe vs. Wade and they adversely affect our lives from that point on.
So getting back to answering this lady’s question, the specific answer she desires is not in the Bible. Nor can we refer it back to God and ask Him to add a new law to the Bible like the judges can do to Congress, thus we must look at our constitution the Bible in its entirety and apply logic to interpret what we have been given.
Medicine has come a long way; perhaps too far. My 92 year old father who suffered from Parkinson’s disease was told that his life could be prolonged if they could amputate his leg; then they wanted to take out a big section of his colon; then they wanted to reconstruct an artery all up and down his leg. At 92 years old, can you imagine enduring any of those painful options?
He chose to refuse all further treatment and go home and die in peace (which he did a few days later) and today he is in heaven. Did he sin? What if he had decided that the pain was simply too much to bear and to just end it all with the little pistol that he owned and he left us a few days earlier? Is that a sin?
Sampson committed suicide, as did Saul. Job and Jonah asked God to take them out. God understood that there would be those who wanted to seek death, but He didn’t tell us exactly what to do.
God created and cherishes life. He also loves us and I’m positive does not want us to suffer unnecessarily. I think suicide to escape emotional trauma and depression is black sin brought on by satan himself. As for suicide to avoid prolonging the inevitable????
Go to our spiritual constitution, (the Bible) and read it for yourself, pray, and see what God tells you about it . . .
Have a great weekend and go to the second Sunday Honey Lake Church special service with Kristi Overton Johnson. You will be amazed at the testimony of this world champion and blessed beyond measure.
Revelation 9:6
And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.
October 10, 2014 – Click here to listen