Gospel Prism

“You shall not murder.”
Exodus 20:13

Introduction

This week, Jack Kevorkian, the doctor imprisoned for his assisted suicides, was released from prison. ABC News interviewed a woman named Susan Fitzmaurice to comment on Dr. Kevorkian’s release. She was one of the protesters from a advocacy group against assisted suicide known as Not Dead Yet who attended his release. Ms. Fitzmaurice has broken bones from so many falls that she is unable to walk and in pain and she states: “For me, the biggest problem is the stigma he attaches to disability. He makes our lives feel like they’re worthless. Instead of offering us death, he should be offering us counseling.”

Ms. Fitzmaurice makes a very insightful point. The problem with assisted suicide is the problem of the devaluation of life. If human significance is based on cultural norms, then there very well could come a day when people like Susan Fitzmaurice could be “put out of her misery” en masse. Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University is one person who might actually be a proponent of such thinking. In his article, “All Animals Are Equal,” he argues that there is nothing intrinsically dignified in a human being that separates himself from an animal. Either animals should have the same status of human beings in every way (including the freedom not to be eaten), or there should be allowed “the right to perform painful experiments on retarded humans for trivial reasons; similarly it would follow that we had the right to rear and kill these humans for food.” Prof. Singer’s logic, however cruel-sounding, makes sense to me. Without a value of life based on some standard, the culture becomes that standard. And as culture changes, so does the value of human life. Thus, most likely, Dr. Kevorkian’s fight for assisted suicide will prevail one day, and in some countries like the Netherlands, it already has.

This is why the sixth commandment speaks to us in so many ways. As much as it is about people, it is so much more about the God who creates people in His image. His glory is at stake and as we have seen in each commandment, a failure to keep this commandment is ultimately a failure to believe the first commandment, that God is the only true God. In Prof. Singer’s worldview, and in our culture’s, God is a non-entity and life issues should not include Him. But to exclude God is to dehumanize humanity, and then Dr. Singer’s views aren’t so farfetched at all.

Why is the 6th commandment based on the first one?

So let me tackle three questions concerning this commandment beginning with this first one: Why is the 6th commandment based on the first one? Murder undermines the first commandment because murder makes light of God by making light of His image. Gen 1:27 says: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Intrinsic in every human life is the very reflection of God Himself, albeit now terribly disfigured by humanity’s rebellion against Him.

After the Flood, God made a promise to Noah in Genesis 9 and there He spoke of human dignity in regard to murder this way: “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.’ (Gen 9:5-6)” There is no text clearer that shows why murder is a terrible offense against God: murder is a disregard of God Himself. Because the murderer does not believe God truly exists, because God is not the only God as the 1st commandment says, this person can commit the act of murder. And when there is an absence of trust in God Himself, there will be a continual degradation on the value of human life and dignity. Usually, this begins with the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn, the mentally impaired, the sick, and the elderly. In Marvin Olasky’s interview with Peter Singer, Olasky recounts:

If the 21st century becomes a Singer century, we will also see legal infanticide of born children who are ill or who have ill older siblings in need of their body parts. Question: What about parents conceiving and giving birth to a child specifically to kill him, take his organs, and transplant them into their ill older children? Mr. Singer: “It’s difficult to warm to parents who can take such a detached view, [but] they’re not doing something really wrong in itself.” Is there anything wrong with a society in which children are bred for spare parts on a massive scale? “No.”

I refer to Prof. Singer for two reasons: First, I think whether we like to hear what he has to say or not, he is one of the most consistent thinkers from a non-Christian perspective on issues of life, ethics, and morality. He follows the rabbit trail of a godless world to its logical conclusions, a world where ethics is completely relative. Even though our culture believes Singer’s relativism is right, they don’t want to make those leaps—yet. Which leads me to the second reason for the Peter Singer references: the Singer century is becoming a tragic reality. Our world is upholding the dignity of human life far less than it did. Contrast that picture to what God thinks of human beings according to David beautiful Psalm (8:4-6): “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”

David is in wonder of God. He’s thinking to himself, “God, I am nothing and yet you have made me a bit lower than Yourself. Why would you be so good, so kind, so gracious?” Samuel answers this question in 1 Samuel 12:22: “For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.” It pleased God and made Him happy to make us for Himself. As a father of four, when I see my kids happy, smiling, excited, enthusiastic with the life they have, sometimes I just sit there and smile at them. Oh the joy they bring to me during such times, so how much more our Father in heaven who made us for Himself for His pleasure and our joy? This is the resounding picture Scripture gives to us regarding God’s passion for His creation, His image bearers. And unless we know this deep within our soul, we will not understand why murder is so terribly heinous.

What Are the Different Ways We Murder?

Ok, so now you might be saying, “I agree and I see that murder is truly a breaking of the 1st and the 6th commandment, but at least I haven’t killed anyone.” Well, I’d like to address this point by pointing out 6 different ways murders happen today. I am not saying everyone here has murdered in all 6 ways. But there is not a person here who has refrained from murdering another. The first way is the most obvious, homicide.

1. Homicide: The intentional killing of another human being, based on Genesis 9:5-6, is an obvious breaking of the sixth commandment.

2. Suicide and Assisted Suicide: Thomas Watson (The Ten Commandments, 146) describes suicide this way:

It is the most unnatural and barbarous kind of murder for a man to butcher himself and imbrue his hands in his own blood…Self-murder is occasioned usually by discontent, and a sullen melancholy…This discontent arises from pride…from poverty [self-pity]…from covetousness…from horror of mind…I can see no ground of hope for such as make away with themselves; for they die in the very act of sin, and cannot have time to repent…They murder their own souls.

Every person who committed suicide in the Bible died without hope and I agree with Thomas Watson, suicide is murder of the soul.

Assisted Suicide or euthanasia is different than suicide. It’s not physically done by the self, but rather, done by someone else. Again, I would say that this makes sense in a society and culture that has truly begun to deemphasize God and therefore, to minimize the sanctity of life overall.

3. Abortion: David writes in Psalm 139:13, 15-16: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb…My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” There is no doubt from this text that God believes life does not begin when a baby is delivered, but rather, when a baby is conceived. If we believe God to be the all-knowing God who forms people in the womb, then abortion is a complete disregard for this truth. Abortion is ultimately saying that the woman is God rather than God Himself. Notice the anti-abortion slogan, “Pro-Choice.” In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve wanted to choose their own way apart from God’s way. They didn’t want to depend on God to be their only God. They wanted to be God, to have the knowledge to distinguish for themselves between good and evil. They wanted choice. And that is still what is being proclaimed in the abortion debate, people want to choose to be god over their own lives, rather than God Himself. And hence, in this schema, abortion is not murder, but a choice. But abortion is murder and another means of worshipping another god.

4. Hatred: John writes about hatred as murder in 1 John 3:15 when he says: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” John’s logic goes, if you hate someone with a passion, you want them as good as dead. Calvin (John Stott, The Letters of John, 146) says it best when he says, “We wish him to perish whom we hate.” Hatred is that ongoing bitterness toward someone where we despise even being in the presence of another.

5. Anger: But of course, this type of hatred flows from the next type of murder, anger. Anger has so many other manifestations, and all of these are really confronted by Jesus in Matt 5:21-24: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Jesus noted that the Pharisees believed ultimate justice was in human hands, i.e., the council of the Sanhedrin (v. 22). For the Pharisee, justice was to punish physical crimes like murder. But Jesus makes clear that murder is not merely a physical act, but a sin of the heart. In other words, the Pharisees judged murderers on the basis of their actions and told them they were liable to punishment by men (the council). Jesus was saying that those who were angry were murderers and were liable to the same punishment physical murderers deserved, eternal judgment by God Himself.

So what does this murderous anger look like in our hearts? It is anger against a brother, a feeling of resentment of any kind. Any type of unpleasantness or tension is an anger, that’s how broad this word “anger” is. And then Jesus notes that the person who “insults his brother” or says “you fool” is a murderer. This insulter is the contemptuous person, the condescender. To say “you fool” assumes that the ‘you’ is the fool and the one saying ‘you fool’ is wise. The murderer with murderous anger is the know-it-all, who never fails to be right. The murderer is sarcastic and looks down on another. The murderer criticizes others continually. The murderer gossips to ruin the reputation of another and whose tongue according to James is full of evil and deadly poison (James 3:8).

And this murdering person through his anger is unforgiving and dreadfully hypocritical. He or she is worshipping at the altar while saying such a person deserves no forgiveness. Jesus uses the altar in v. 23 almost to show the ludicrousness of the murderous anger. How can we approach an altar of worship where our Lord was sacrificed for every dreadful sin on our behalf and then say that we refuse to forgive a brother? Unforgiveness, meaning holding any resentment, any bitterness, any tension, keeping any record of wrongs against another, is not only murderous, not only murderous anger, but hypocritical murderous anger that leaves such a person liable to judgment (v. 22). And in this way, this person of murderous anger, shows a complete disregard for a Living God and breaks the 1st commandment. Martyn Lloyd-Jones insightfully shares: “Killing does not only mean destroying life physically, it means still more trying to destroy the spirit and the soul, destroying the person in any shape or form.” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, 225)

6. Envy: Jonathan Edwards defines envy as, “A spirit of dissatisfaction with, and opposition to, the prosperity and happiness of others compared with our own.” From the beginnings of human history, this type of envy has led not only to a bitterness of the soul, but to murder. Remember the story of Cain and Abel? The first physical murder occurred when Cain looked and saw that God looked upon Abel’s offering with favor because of his heart. And when Cain looked he was envious of Abel’s relationship with God and “Cain was very angry, and his face fell… Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” (Gen 4:5,

The story of Joseph and his relationship with his brothers began with the sin of envy. Gen 37:3-4 recounts: “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.” And so out of this envy, comes verse 20: “Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.” And there was David, a man after God’s own heart: “He saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. 3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” (2 Sam 11:2-4) And from this envy of Uriah, David killed Uriah and committed adultery with Uriah’s wife. This is why Paul writes to Titus: “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). Envy and hatred flow together. And Paul tells the Galatian church in Gal 5:21 that envy and murder (in some manuscripts) lead people away from God’s Kingdom. Envy assumes that God is incompetent and insufficient in His provision. We worship ourselves and trust more in ourselves than God and we simply refuse to trust Him, and so we crave. We’ll talk envy in much greater detail when we study the 10th commandment.

But as you can see, it is foolhardy to believe that we do not murder. All have murderous hearts. And so, if you are sitting there taking this in, you might now appreciate Paul’s soul-wrenching question in Romans 7:24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

How can we be freed from our murders?

And that is the question, “How can we be freed from our murders?” The answer is the very next verse in Romans: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25) Paul knows so well that Jesus became a murderer for murderers and bore the punishment of murderers. Listen to Isaiah’s prophesy of what Jesus would bear: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth…9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7, 9). He had done no violence, but He was punished as if He was the most violent of all. And as Jesus was nailed to the cross, hanging in shame, dying the murderer’s death, He forgave so that we might be forgiven as He said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus became the one who had an abortion. Jesus became the angry venomous person in the car steaming at the other driver. Jesus became the bitter, angry person still refusing to forgive another in the church. Jesus even became the man wielding the knife stabbing someone for money. Jesus became the son or daughter holding grudges against her parents for years of neglect. When we trust in His wonderful name, this is what Paul says is our promise: “[Jesus] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:25) We are declared completely free and guiltless of our murders because Jesus became the murderer for murderers. And so because of this marvelous truth, we believe Jesus’ promise deep in our hearts: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

So how must we respond as freed and forgiven murderers?

1. Glorify God

You have been set free. Paul writes in 1 Cor 6:19-20: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” We must continually go back to this freedom and remind ourselves of it, that we were bought with a price. Such a reminder will keep our eyes fixed on glorifying God. When we forget this, we will fix our eyes either on ourselves, which will lead to pride (I’m so great) or self-pity (Woe is me!) OR we will fix our eyes on others by comparison (I’m better than him), envy (I should have been promoted), or condemnation (I’m not pretty like her). And this will lead to more murder. Fix your eyes on the freedom won by the Gospel for His glory and you will be free indeed.

2. Love your neighbor

The Heidelberg Catechism says: “Is it enough then, if we do not kill our neighbor in any such way? The answer is, “No, for when God condemns envy, hatred, and anger, he requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves to show patience, gentleness, mercy, friendliness toward him, to prevent injury to him as much as we can, and also to do good to our enemies.” (A107) To keep the 6th commandment is not passive, but active. We respond to His mercy through the cross by loving our neighbor as ourselves. And yes, this means forgiveness. In this world you will be hurt by others, even those you care about and love. And if you put your foot down and say, “I refuse to forgive,” not only are you a murderer, but you are enslaved by your murderous ways. Forgiveness is actively trusting that what Christ has done for you has freed you to forgive. Loving your neighbor also means to show mercy and kindness. When we care for the lost and the poor and the oppressed, we are actively responding to our naturally murderous ways by stating that we believe we have been set free by the Gospel. Such a response flies in the face of our murderous hearts, and keeps us alive and thankful in Christ.

3. Murder murder

Listen to what Paul says in Col 3:5 and 12-16: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry… Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” In light of the Gospel, we murder murder which as we know is at the heart. In other words, we give up our idea of personal rightness over another and assume that my rightness is based solely on Christ’s rightness. Thus, we murder murder this way and then look at the many ways we respond to this refusal to be mastered by our murderous hearts. We respond as Paul says, with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing one another, forgiveness, thankfulness, and love above all. To strive for such things in light of what Christ has done is surely an antidote to a heart that loves to hate, to envy, to despise, to hold grudges, to commit abortion, to commit suicide, to commit homicide. And look at what is the anchor of this truth, that this is absolutely what frees us: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” I am telling you, dear friends, apart from having the Word of Christ, the all-sufficiency of Scripture dwell deep in the core of our being, we will continually be murdering one another. Therefore, this is a plea once again for all to come together to love God’s Word communally. This is why we do this in HG. You need this time or we will be flooded with murderous thoughts throughout the day. But as much as we need corporate times of His Word, how much we need alone times reflecting on His Word, through reading and memorization. And how we need biblical preaching to pound into our souls His Word. Murder murder by believing in the Gospel as it resounds in His Word.