Gospel Prism

I am going to respond to Tim in a comment on his question about Living Wills, but it has been so much of my heart of late, that I feel I must respond in a post. Allow me to make this disclaimer: I have not sat down and studied this issue in light of the whole of Scripture. I need to do some research to make a sound biblical case first so please grant me grace here before I say something.

With that said, I am concerned that when it comes to living wills and “pulling the plug,” Christians have made many assumptions on this subject without thinking through all of the ramifications. Here are some of the assumptions that I realized when I was dealing with my uncle’s death:

Assumption #1: If the person is physically suffering and in pain, it is better for that life to be ended.

Family members are told this by the doctors. As a family member, there is this idea that I should not let my loved one suffer pain because that is cruel to him or her. But this thinking simply is not a biblical idea. No where in the Bible does it say that we should avoid suffering as an act of love. In fact, to the contrary, we know Jesus suffered for God’s glory and for our benefit (Hebrews 2:18). Paul suffered the thorn in the flesh and that was to reveal the sufficiency of the grace of Christ (1 Cor 12:9-10). Peter tells us that suffering is following in the steps of Christ ( 1 Peter 2:21). I have a feeling that we use this reason to avoid suffering because we have believed in the world’s system that suffering is a result of the mechanics of the world we live in. It has nothing to do with the wages of sin, and it certainly has nothing to do with the grace of God and the glory of Christ. John Piper has an excellent word on this subject. He writes:

It should not surprise us, even though it is utterly unnatural, that Paul should say in Colossians 1:24, “I rejoice in my sufferings for you and I complete in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.” In other words, when I complete Christ’s afflictions by making a personal presentation of them to you in my own afflictions and pain, I rejoice. I rejoice.

Christian Hedonism simply says this is a good and admirable thing that Paul is doing, and we should go and do likewise. To treat this magnificent spiritual event of joy in suffering as something small or incidental or not-to-be-pursued is close to blasphemy. I say this carefully. When the Holy Spirit himself does such a great thing, and thus magnifies the all-sufficiency of Christ in suffering, it is close to blasphemy to say, “It is permissible to experience suffering for others, but not to pursue the joy.” The Christ-exalting miracle is not just the suffering, but the joy in suffering. And we are meant to pursue it. In 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7 Paul says, “You . . . received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in and in Achaia.”

Notice two crucial things: First, joy in tribulation is the work of the Holy Spirit; second, it is an example for others to follow. Beware of those who belittle the miracles of the Spirit of God by saying they are good gifts but not good goals.

This is a false assumption if there ever was one.

Assumption #2: Pulling the plug is not truly ending the life because 50 years ago, medical technology would not have been able to save such a person.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this assumption from medical professionals. There is an irony in this statement because no doctor would ever say, “50 years ago we did not have a CAT scan so we will not give you that scan to see if your brain is damaged.� It seems that only when it comes to “pulling the plug,� this reasoning is used and that seems to be a spurious reason at best. The reality is that we are living not for a tomorrow or a yester year when we are thinking about actively or even passively ending a life. This is a decision for the here and now, not what hypothetically would have happened 50 years ago.

Assumption #3: Pulling the plug will provide greater resources to benefit those who can use them, rather than spending them on someone who is obviously in a state that has barely any life left.

This assumption is very dangerous for a few reasons. First, we are still talking about life, an image-bearer of God (Genesis 1:26-28). When I stared at my uncle on the respirator in ICU and then a week later stared at him in the coffin, it was the difference between looking at a person ill and a sandwich. That thing in the coffin was not a person. It had no life, no spirit. It was white and ghastly. Even the bacteria that was infesting his body was probably dead because it knew that it had nothing worth living for, nothing it could feed off of. If bacteria knew the difference between life and a corpse, then surely people should know the difference as well.

Second, to distinguish life on the basis of one’s ability to respond to society could lead to some terrifying results. Those who are mentally disabled, those elderly with Alzheimer’s disease, those who are incapacitated in any way could easily become the next grouping of people whose “plugs are pulled.� Hitler’s logic of experimenting on Jews to cure the diseases of society would make sense in such a system. After all, if one life is not worth saving due to the flow of resources to that life, then what is to keep a life becoming expendable to save the many others that could be saved from such resources? Perhaps experimenting on a life to find a cure for breast cancer would become permissible and even considered the betterment of society in such instances.

Third, our God never uses “the betterment of society� as a reason to act and not act. If we can assume that God’s glory and our satisfaction and joy only in light of God’s glory is of the greatest importance, than we would never make decision solely on the basis of how one’s death can make things better for others. But instead even pulling the plug must answer the question, “Does this glorify God?� (1 Cor. 10:31).

Assumption #4: I can make this decision objectively and for the benefit of my loved one.

I assume in light of my biblical anthropology that I am a sinner (Romans 3:23) and that my heart is deceitful especially to myself (Jeremiah 17:9). It is very difficult for me to make a decision without letting sin affect it. Well, in my pulling the plug, I must know if my I am deceiving myself in thinking that this is solely for the benefit of my loved one. Or am I in any way receiving a direct benefit from this action? Do I benefit financially through life insurance? Do I benefit through convenience? Usually a person in this condition can be there ad infinitum. This could affect my schedule, my work, my family. Perhaps to disconnect this life means now I can live my life. But does this perhaps taint my decision to make a decision that really values this image-bearer of God.

Perhaps we might hear these words, “Don’t blame yourself. He wouldn’t want you to live this way.� This I might be true. But what about the Lord? What is of greater import to the Christian, what our spouse thinks or what our Lord thinks? There have been many times I have failed as a husband and father in my leadership for my family. Only by the grace of Christ can I stand before my family and continue to lead them. I am thankful though, that the Word has given me directives to live faithfully. Sometimes, even I do not know what is best for my family. But I know that God always knows best as revealed in His Word. As a Christian, I must test the spirit (1 John 4:1) by assessing these decisions in light of God’s Word.

The fact is, I cannot make this decision objectively. Thus, if you are even considering doing this, make sure you have someone you trust to ask you the hard questions that really probe whether this decision is more about your own comfort than your loved one’s. If it is about your comfort, I would direct you back to Assumption #1.

Assumption #5: Living wills allow you to make the decision for your loved ones so they do not have to have the burden of this hard choice.

Once again this is what most people believe is the best thing to do. Instead of your family “pulling the plug,� you can reject the plug in the first place. This way your family will be spared. We try so hard to anaesthetize our family from sorrow, grieving, suffering. But again, this begs the question, is this a biblical approach to suffering? Does suffering do anything not only for the patient, but also for the family? John Piper recounts the life of the English Baptist preacher John Bunyan. He was jailed in from 1660 to 1672 and could have been freed only if he had agreed not to preach the Gospel. He had a wife and four children who would also have suffered tremendously considering in those days women were completely dependent on the husband for their livelihood. On top of this, his daughter Mary was blind. This is what he wrote about his situation:

“The parting with my Wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling of the Flesh from my bones…not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great Mercies, but also because I…often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor Family was like to meet with should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides; Oh the thoughts of the hardship I thought my Blind one might go under, would my heart break to pieces.�

But John Bunyan commented that the only way he could ever understand a text like Psalm 119:71 which said, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes,� was to go through such suffering. Living wills are an attempt to make sure that we protect our family, not from the Enemy’s lies, not from the burglar or mugger out to harm them, not from the deception of false teaching, all of which we must do, but from living out the Gospel in light of suffering.

When Jerry Bridges was writing his book Trusting God, his first wife was found to have a malignant tumor in the abdomen. It was almost as if the Lord was asking Jerry to apply the very things he was writing. After 8 weeks of radiation therapy and another month of waiting, the doctor ordered a CAT scan to see if the tumor was gone. The day before those results were delivered to them, of course, his wife was anxious over the news she would hear. Finally, in turning to the promises of the Word, like this verse in Psalm 27:1, she said this, “Lord, I choose not to be downcast, I choose not to be disturbed, I choose to put my hope in You.� Jerry writes about his wife: “She told me later, as she recounted this to me, that her feelings did not change immediately, but after a while they did. Her heart was calmed as she deliberately chose to trust God.� (Jerry Bridges, Trusting God, 194)
For Jerry’s wife, the answer rests in the assurances of God’s Word that God is who He says He is and that was learned in the midst of suffering. A living will attempts to remove that suffering from loved ones. But as Matt Redman writes about, Jesus’ road was “marked with suffering.� He tell us that in this world we WILL have trouble in John 16:33. The answer then is not to try to avoid the trouble, but to TAKE HEART that while we suffer, He has overcome even suffering and sin (1 Cor. 15).

Assumption #6: The situation is hopeless. Why bother?

Every doctor said this to us. To the person apart from Christ, this argument is the most compelling. If medically things look bleak, why not end things? There really is no hope, no cure, no possibility. But for those who believe in a Sovereign, Supreme, Almighty God, surely there is no such word as ‘hopeless.’ It has been documented frequently that the hopeless have survived. Jesus says in Matthew 17:20 that faith can move mountains. In Matthew 19:26, Jesus says: “”With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.â€? Do I believe this to be true or is Jesus lying here? This statement undermines the word ‘hopeless.’ As a Christian, we simply cannot believe any situation is ever hopeless. Rather, we believe in the Lord’s will and according to Jesus’ work on the cross that has now destroyed the veil between us and the Father (see all of Hebrews), we are now able to approach the Lord with all kinds of prayers (Ephesians 6:18).

Assumption #7: Pulling the plug will bring the loved one to a better place because He is a Christian.

Yes, this is true! I believe my uncle is in heaven. But this does not mean that I should end a life because I believe a person is to be with the Lord. Otherwise, I should go around ending the lives of all Christians because to be with the Lord is better than to be here. That simply is not my responsibility as creature rather than Creator.

I know there are many other points that are lacking here. I would imagine that this post could get longer, especially as I hear from some of you on this subject.