Before I begin this harrowing, dark topic of suicide, I'll share some things applicable to us all. Also, this blog entry is not for condemnation, but to help people and have people understand where the Word of God stands on suicide. Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." When you carry heavy burdens, give them to Jesus and you will certainly find rest in His peace. Jesus carried the wages of our sins on the cross; He can certainly carry anything troublesome that we may have. It is not His duty to have you suffer alone and never recover. He wants to help each of us with every single tribulation we go through and it begins with our submission to Him and your trust in Him with your life and its inevitable troubles. Always remember that Jesus is "able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20). As humans, we all have limits, but Jesus has no limits. There are things that He can do that we do not understand or can ever imagine. It's no wonder we don't fully fathom God. There are probably things that we have yet to see from Jesus, such as His second coming (and His first coming and resurrection are hard to imagine as it is, even for us believers).
Depression is the ultimatum of suicidal tendencies, and the root of depression begins with troubles, and it escalates from there. Second Corinthians 1:3-11:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For as the sufferings of Christ overflow us, so our comfort overflows through Christ. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort. For we don't want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in the province of Asia: we were completely overwhelmed — beyond our strength — so that we even despaired of life. However, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. He has delivered us, we have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again. And you can join in helping with prayer for us, so that thanks may be given by man on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.
Through this tribulation that Paul and his companions faced, they literally wanted to die ("we even despaired of life"). However, realising that they do indeed have a death sentence not by their choice but by God's, they put their hope in God to save them, which He did. Through their hopes and afflictions they helped others, and Paul encourages Christians to do the same, which some of us do. Notice I said some, not "many" or "all" of us. Troubles, or tribulations, are an inevitable part of life. Complaining about them and doing nothing about it won't make the problem go away. What can you do about it? Hope and trust in the Lord and overcome it. If not, the dilemma will indwell and manifest itself in your thinking patterns, and the forces of Satan will invest in the forthcoming spiritual bankruptcy. These are trials, and often trials come one after another. James 1:2-4, Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Trials are a necessary act of the will of God so that God will be sure and that you will be sure that you are complete in Him, lacking nothing from Him. And so we come to grow jealous of other peoples' successes. Proverbs 14:30, A tranquil heart is life to the body, but jealousy is rottenness to the bones. When food is rotten it dies and decomposes until it becomes nothing. In the same manner, jealousy can do the same thing to our spirit. Depression causes us to be jealous of other peoples' successes — ultimately their success of being happy, and suicide is the breakdown of the matter of our existence into nothingness — both our corpse and our spirit. You also start to feel shame because we feel guilty of sins, but I tell you, if this ever happens to you, do not hide it. Proverbs 28:13, The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy. So you see, hiding what you are feeling from God, or your sins, won't do you any good. You can't hide anything from Him; He is our God in secret who sees in secret (Matthew 6:18).
Ultimately, you begin to feel lonely. What do you do about this? Psalm 37:4-6, 25-26: Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you your heart's desires. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act, making your righteousness like the dawn, your justice like the noonday... I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned or his children begging bread. He is always generous, always lending, and his children are a blessing.
Stay committed to God, trusting in Him always, and you will find the help that you need. This is a Davidic psalm, and David lived for 70 years, and for all that he had seen he had never seen the people of God abandoned by Him. I'm really young at the moment, but many others and I have yet to see God abandon His faithful people. For more than 5,000 years He has never abandoned a single faithful human being on this planet. Notice that I say faithful. If you are unfaithful to Him, do not be surprised if He abandons you because if you abandon Him, He will not be there for you. People don't understand this because He's such a loving God but He is also our Father, and as our Father He gives us a tough love, so tough it out. If you remain faithful to the best of your ability, He will be generous and merciful towards you and He will lend you His hand. The question is if you will take it. But you have to ask for His hand first. You're never lonely if you trust in Him. Take David's troubles as an example and then what he resolved to in Psalm 13:
LORD, how long will You continually forget me? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me? Consider me and answer, LORD, my God. Restore brightness to my eyes; otherwise, I will sleep in death, my enemy will say, "I have triumphed over him," and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in Your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance. I will sing to the LORD because He has treated me generously.
In spite of his depression he trusted in God, and look, he was happy as depicted in verses five and six. As a man of God, he trusted in Him. As a musician, he praised His name, and I imagine he played his lyre as well.
You also begin to feel that no one understands. But take heed in Hebrews 4:14-16, Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens — Jesus the Son of God — let us hold fast to the confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time. In spite of the immense weakness and insignificance/worthlessness that you may feel, Jesus understands! He's been there before! Because He experienced it as well He can relate to and sympathise with every single one of us. I say again: Jesus understands! He gets it! Be bold and approach Him and give Him time to work with you. Second Corinthians 12:9, And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. This is the attitude we all ought to have, whether you're suicidal or depressed or not; it is humbleness. The power of Jesus Christ's power is so amazing that you can do everything through Him who gives you strength (Philippians 4:13).
Hebrews 13:5, ...and be content with what you have, for He has said, "I will never eleave you nor forsake you." When we feel abandoned, Jesus never leaves us nor forsakes us. Suicide is leaving Jesus! "Be satisfied with what you have" is what the Apostle Paul teaches us through the Holy Spirit. Suicide is not being happy or content with what you have. If it were that easy to be with Jesus, I would seriously commit suicide right now! I am not kidding. If it were unquestionably logical that suicidal people automatically go to Heaven, then Christians would commit suicide every day for that very reason. Christianity would probably be an extinct religion if that were true. That action would be leaving Him to be with Him; it doesn't make any sense. Life is sacred, as God says childbirth is a blessing (Psalm 127:3-5). John 16:21, "When a woman is in labour she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world." This reminds me of when my mother says my siblings and I are a blessing in her life. How deeply troubled my mother, father, siblings, and close friends would be if I decided to commit suicide! When you're depressed and/or are having suicidal thoughts, you are being selfish because all you can think about is yourself and and your own predicament and not how it affects others around you but rather how it will solve your problems. I don't say that in condemnation; it is a sheer psychological fact that depressed and suicidal people are selfish, although they are incognisant of this fact. As a victim of depression and suicidal thoughts myself, I can certainly testify to this fact because during that predicament all I ever thought about was myself and how my suicide would affect me and not those who love me and care about me.
Utterly nullifying that sanctity of life that God created is practically spitting in His face. First Corinthians 6:19-20, What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. In the Old Testament, a corpse that touched a person would become spiritually defiled, and therefore defiling God's Tabernacle (Numbers 19:13). The Tabernacle was where God dwelled among the Israelites, so as God's children if they touched a corpse they would not only defile themselves, but especially God. And now, as Paul describes in the above verse to the Corinthian church, our bodies are literally sanctuaries of the Holy Spirit. Since this is true, if we kill ourselves and therefore become a corpse, we therefore defile God's Holy Spirit, defiling ourselves and ultimately defiling God. You are expensive; you are God's valuable item, for He sacrificed His only Son to die for your sins. What a waste that sacrifice would be if you were to commit suicide. Do you honestly think you'd be glorifying God with your body if you destroyed it through suicide? God is our Father, and like any earthly father whose son or daughter commits suicide, He weeps.
Jesus does not want you to die and remain in that state forever. John 10:10, "A thief comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance." Suicide is denying His life and purpose for you. The Devil himself tempted Jesus to commit suicide. Luke 4:9-13, So he took Him to Jerusalem, had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down here. For it is written: 'He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you, and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' " And Jesus answered, "It is said: 'Do not test the Lord your God.' " After the Devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Him for a time. Satan tempted Jesus that if He truly is the Son of God, then he should risk taking His own life into His own hands because God will protect Him according to His Word, but how did Jesus respond? He quoted God's Word, refuting Satan's intentions, proving his misinterpretations wrong. And Satan ran! This is exactly how we are to drive the Devil away (James 4:7). Likewise, do not test God by committing suicide with the thought that you'll go immediately to Heaven; that's now how the faith works.
That being said, do I believe successful suicidal people go to Hell? After thoroughly studying the Scriptures, I can honestly say that I do, as morbid as it is. My evidence is as explained earlier in I Corinthians 6:19-20 and Numbers 19:13. It is silly to think that they go straight to Heaven because as I just explained, committing suicide is not an immediate way to Heaven because that's not how our faith functions. As I understand New Testament doctrine, the faith that brings us to Heaven is something that we have to work at. Faith is a work ethic that you build up for your entire life, not something that you just receive when you believe in Christ. Now, the next couple verses I will be giving can be used to explain why suicidal people go to Hell. But if you take the texts literally, which we all should, you will find that nowhere in these passages does it say they go to Hell indefinitely. Although I believe successful suicidal people go to Hell, these verses I will be giving are not evidence for that, which Christians use as evidence. You can certainly say that they imply the possibility, but you cannot say it proves it indefinitely. I will be listing each passage and explaining them in their literal terms. Let's first look at Judas and examine what the Apostle Peter said about him:
"Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled that the Holy Spirit through the mouth of David spoke in advance about Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was one of our number and was allotted a share in the ministry." Now this man acquired a field with his unrighteous wages; and falling headfirst, he burst open in the middle, and all his insides spilled out. This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that in their own language that field is called Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood (Acts 1:16-19).
The way Judas' death is written about is basically saying that he died a shameful death. So shameful to the point that they named the field he committed suicide in after his traitorous deed. His death is portrayed as shameful, not condemning. When someone commits suicide, nobody ever thinks how honourable that was; they think of how sad, unfortunate, wasteful, and unnecessary it was. If that weren't so, then people wouldn't try to talk suicidal people out of their suicidal thoughts. It's only stupid to think that suicide is a one-way ticket to Heaven. Now, Judas was a disciple of Christ — he was "one of our number and was allotted a share in this ministry"; he was one of us. However, he "enacted unrighteous wages" by allowing money to tempt him to betray Jesus, eventually causing his unrighteous and shameful suicide. Like Judas, people who commit suicide are not with Jesus. As described earlier in this blog entry, Jesus wants us to put our burdens on Him, but suicidal people don't do that and by not coming to our Lord in time of need, how are they with Him? I'm not preaching this to condemn and judge any suicidal person. Many others and I, and most importantly Jesus Christ Himself, want to help suicidal people. If you failed an attempted suicide or you have thoughts of suicide and you're reading this, do not be so anxious about this failure to God. Second Timothy 2:13, ...if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. It's that simple; God will take care of you should you come to Him. So we can see that in this passage, Judas' suicide is described as shameful and unrighteous, and we can automatically assume that he did not receive a one-way ticket to Heaven (not because of who he was, but because of his suicide), but we cannot assume that he received a one-way ticket to Hell either because nowhere in this passage does it say that. You can argue that it alluded to it because of his "unrighteous wages," but that's an implication that we come up with on our own, not something that happened indefinitely.
Another verse that people use to condemn suicidal people to Hell is Revelation 9:6: In those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them. From this verse alone we cannot say indefinitely that this means people during this time will commit suicide because of their misery. It is not known how God will prevent the death wish of so many people from being carried out, but He is God; He can do anything. This will happen at the sound of the fifth trumpet (9:1) and locusts will harm only people who do not have God's seal on their foreheads (9:4). (Now, these are the new believers after Christ raptures His Church. There will come a time when these new believers will have God's seal on their foreheads as opposed to the mark of the beast.) The locusts will not kill the unfaithful; they'll only torment them for five months (9:5). Like any other immensely tortured human being, people will want to die and will probably try killing themselves because they'll think death will stop the pain, but during this time it will be ineffective every single time (9:6). Because where we see that death wishes and self-inflicted death will not bring you to God since He prevents that death from happening, which would defeat the whole purpose of punishing the left over sinners.
Even in this passage we do not see an indefinite condemnation to Hell for those who commit suicide. You can say that that is so for these specific people during this time of the fifth trumpet since they are the left over sinners suffering God's wrath and are going to Hell anyway, but you cannot say that indefinitely for all the others before this time, which is now. But you can still make the argument that it is the same for suicidal people before this time, but you can't prove it. We can only speculate. I would like to believe that suicidal people go to Heaven, but I fail to see that as a one-way ticket to Heaven because of the sanctity of life depicted in Scripture, especially since a larger number of unbelievers commit suicide than believers do. It goes against Christian doctrine that an unbeliever who does not choose God would go to Heaven after committing suicide. As far as a believer who has once submitted themselves to Christ and committing suicide at one point, I honestly cannot say whether they go to Heaven or not, and neither can anyone else. There are two simple sides of the argument here. You can argue that because they were a born again, baptised Christian, nothing can separate them from the love of Christ (Romans 8:34-39) and therefore go to Heaven. This is very true, but my argument against this is that if Christians still go to Heaven after committing suicide then I would seriously commit suicide right now so I wouldn't have to live in this terrible world any longer; and there would probably be mass suicides in Christendom if this were indubitably true. And if I committed suicide, the work that God has set before me to do His will on this planet will be incomplete, dishonouring His will and His image in multiple ways. And to support my argument I again use I Corinthians 6:19-20 and Numbers 19:13. In the Old Testament, if somebody touched a corpse, therefore defiling himself and does not purify himself, he would literally "be cut off from Israel" — separated from God. As I Corinthians 6:19-20 explains, our bodies are the literal temple of the Holy Spirit, and as I explained earlier committing suicide and becoming a corpse is defiling yourself and God, therefore separating you from God with no chance of purifying yourself from it, because you'd be dead. The other argument is just the opposite — that because they committed suicide they have chosen to not be in Christ and therefore suffer an automatic condemnation to Hell, which is obviously the side that I have struggled to come to, and you have my evidence.
However, those who have attempted suicide and are still alive, they are not condemned to Hell. They need our help and especially the love of Christ. Like any other sin, we have I John 1:9 to cling to: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I want to end this with Hebrews 12:15: See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and by it, defiling many.
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