Will suicide send a person to Hell?

[Parkenstein]

The answer is definitely no. Once a person believes in Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they are entered into union with Christ and they can not lose their salvation. The only unpardonable sin is not believing in Jesus in the first place.

What you would be saying is, is that when Jesus was on the cross bearing all of the sins of the world, that the sin of suicide missed him and he did not pay for that sin. Impossible.

Using human viewpoint, it would seem for sure that person would go to hell. But when you use divine viewpoint, viewpoint from the Scriptures, the only conclusion you would come up with is that they are still going to heaven. They are a "loser" in time, but still going to heaven because at one point in their lives, they believed.

 

[liars_paradox]

I dunno if they'll go to Hell, but I know it is written: ... a living dog is better than a dead lion. (Ecclesiastes 9:4)

Right, but remember that the same narrator also mentions that the dead can't think any longer either - which implies that once you're dead then that's it for you.

 

[mylife4his]

The Bible says, John 10:1010The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
God gives life, satan takes it away. God abides in heaven, satan lives in hell.

 

[Jig]

That's true...but committing suicide is to murder yourself...and murder is a sin.

Yes, suicide and murder are both sins. No one is denying this here.

So, can one plan on intentionally committing sin and get forgiveness before intentionally committing the sin?

While it may be possible to receive forgiveness if you are still alive after intentionally committing a sin...because you would still be alive to ask for and receive forgiveness.

How can one ask for and receive forgiveness AFTER they have murdered themselves and they are no longer alive on earth?

When someone accepts Christ into their lives and receives the gift of salvation - God forgives ALL of that persons sins, past, present, and future. No need to ask for forgiveness AFTER they commit suicide. That sin was already forgiven.

You may, however, raise the question whether or not a true Christian would commit suicide. This seems silly though. Do true Christians stop sinning altogether? Nope. We struggle with and commit sins daily. To say that there are "unique" sins that true Christians can't commit, like the act of suicide, seems to be a special pleading fallacy.

 

[Jig]

If God was monstrous enough to actually torture people in a place named Hell for rejecting Him then sure, why not!

I understand you don't believe in an eternal Lake for Fire. However, this comment is filled with errors.

The reason people go to Hell is not because they rejected God, they were already heading there because of their sin. God doesn't send people to Hell, He rescues them from Hell.

Their rejection of God is not the CAUSE. Sin is the CAUSE.

 

[Distinguished]

Suicide is a sin, correct? No sin sends a person to hell, only rejecting the finished work that Jesus paid for our sins at the Cross. With that said, the one who commits suicide will be judged for it, although saved and in heaven. Heaven will not be equal for everyone (neither will hell--pm me if you want me to explain). The bible says that he who is least will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, but he who is greatest will be least. So that shows that the level of comfort or reward is not the same for everyone in heaven. It also says that some will have no reward when they get to heaven. So the one who commits suicide who is a believer will go to heaven, but may be missing many rewards when he or she gets there.

 

[Distinguished]

I understand you don't believe in an eternal Lake for Fire. However, this comment is filled with errors.

The reason people go to Hell is not because they rejected God, they were already heading there because of their sin. God doesn't send people to Hell, He rescues them from Hell.

Their rejection of God is not the CAUSE. Sin is the CAUSE.

Im not really quoting you....i just overlooked the comments that he doesn't believe in the lake of fire. The lake of fire is real and it is a future event. I can give it to you in great detail, but it is so much that I would need your email and email it to you. But I can give it to you verse by verse showing you that it is real. It was never meant for man, but for the devil and his angels, but if man wants to follow the devil there and reject God, then God lets them.

 

[Distinguished]

That's true...but committing suicide is to murder yourself...and murder is a sin.

So, can one plan on intentionally committing sin and get forgiveness before intentionally committing the sin?

While it may be possible to receive forgiveness if you are still alive after intentionally committing a sin...because you would still be alive to ask for and receive forgiveness.

How can one ask for and receive forgiveness AFTER they have murdered themselves and they are no longer alive on earth?

Once you leave your body, do you have the opportunity to ask for and receive forgiveness??? Nothing in scripture indicates that this is possible.

If that were possible, then everyone in hell would ask for and receive forgiveness and go to Heaven...which isn't happening

Committing murder and not having opportunity to ask for and receive forgiveness...is to die in one's sin.

Don't know about anybody else, but I ruled out suicide years ago because I did not want to die in my sin and receive the judgement of those that have not asked for and received forgiveness.

One does not have to ask for forgiveness just before they die in order to be saved and go to heaven. Once saved, always saved. We cannot lose our salvation. Jesus' sacrifice covers our sins past, present and future. In 2 Corinthians 5:19 it says that Jesus died for the sins of the world not counting men's sins against them. Please don't miss that...for the sins of the world. So what it means is that one must have to opt out of Christianity by rejecting the cross in order to not be saved. That is why all babies go to heaven because they don't have a mind where they can opt out of salvation. The bible doesn't give an age of accountability because I believe that everyone is different, but Jesus died for all sins of the world already so you have nothing to worry about if you are a believer.

 

[ittarter]

Well this is fascinating. Can you give me a source for a conservative evangelical theologian making this argument? Or is this tongue-in-cheek?

Do the math. Say 10% of the world is nominally Protestant Christian; maybe 1 in 3 of these (I'm being generous here) are Christians in the conservative evangelical sense of "trusting in Jesus for their eternal salvation," bam, we're down to about 3% in heaven. Ergo, the rest in hell.

I'm not speaking from an academic perspective, of course, but from personal experience. I've met lots of people who believe that sort of thing. Anyway the statistic itself is irrelevant and mostly included for shock value, but also partly an inside joke with myself which I will not elaborate on.

 

[Saltyjames]

"Thou shalt not murder."

...like David, Moses, Paul, Ehud etc.

No sin sends the saved to hell. It is another part of man's relentless aim to replace God's word by adding to it.

I personally think Judas may well be in Heaven. He repented miserably unto killing himself.

Man's doctrine is the opposite of God's for a reason.

 

[Distinguished]

The reason people go to Hell is not because they rejected God, they were already heading there because of their sin. God doesn't send people to Hell, He rescues them from Hell.

Their rejection of God is not the CAUSE. Sin is the CAUSE.

That's a great response.

 

[Distinguished]

"Thou shalt not murder."

...like David, Moses, Paul, Ehud etc.

No sin sends the saved to hell. It is another part of man's relentless aim to replace God's word by adding to it.

I personally think Judas may well be in Heaven. He repented miserably unto killing himself.

Man's doctrine is the opposite of God's for a reason.

Acts 1:25 implies Judas is going to hell.

Other than that, you are right, we would never know if Judas is going to heaven or hell without such a verse as that. If it were not for that verse implying he is going to hell, I would have guessed that Judas might have had a chance at going to heaven because he seemed to have repented.

Apparently, he felt sorry for what he did, but he never accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He was sorry he killed Jesus, but still didn't believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be. All Judas says in Matt. 27:4 is "I have sinned,...for I have betrayed innocent blood." He does not claim Jesus as his Lord and Savior here.

 

[liars_paradox]

It doesn't. That's a Catholic tradition, not a Biblical teaching.

Maybe a Roman Catholic interpretation, you mean? I am not sure what most Protestant denominations officially think about this matter, and having no church myself right now I don't know what my denomination thinks either since I don't have one.

But, after looking it up on google, I found an article which compares six Christian denominations and the views that they have on various topics. For the topic of suicide, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and Methodist/Weslyan are all "opposed" to it. Eastern Orthodox and Methodist/Weslyan are stated to view suicide as a sin. And, Reformed/Presbyterian and Anglican/Episcopalian aren't stated to have any opinion on suicide.

So, based on my research, which admittedly isn't much, most Christians are at least against suicide (if they don't outright view it as a sin) and a minority of them have no opinion on suicide.

It seems that the majority of Christians inherited this view on suicide from her Roman-Catholic origins (with the exception of the Eastern Orthodox church I guess), and the argument for sin being a person's death-sentence, if you will, to eternal life is that they can't repent in their lifetime because they're already dead.

But, my question is, how do we know this to be true? Where in the bible is suicide defined as "murder"? Or, should we try to analyze the meaning of the word "murder", maybe not only within the English language but perhaps the Hebrew language as well?

When I looked up the word "murder" on dictionary.com, I did find a biblical definition of the word murder, which stated

Wilful murder was distinguished from accidental homicide, and was invariably visited with capital punishment (Num. 35:16, 18, 21, 31; Lev. 24:17). This law in its principle is founded on the fact of man's having been made in the likeness of God (Gen. 9:5, 6; John 8:44; 1 John 3:12, 15). The Mosiac law prohibited any compensation for murder or the reprieve of the murderer (Ex. 21:12, 14; Deut. 19:11, 13; 2 Sam. 17:25; 20:10). Two witnesses were required in any capital case (Num. 35:19-30; Deut. 17:6-12). If the murderer could not be discovered, the city nearest the scene of the murder was required to make expiation for the crime committed (Deut. 21:1-9).

So, according to Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary (where this information originated from), murder isn't simply the taking of another person's life but is done intentionally. If this is really how God views murder, then does this also include killing someone in self-defense? How about situations involving war or capital punishment, where an individual still has to take the life of another?

At least in Numbers, it appears that killing someone as the "avenger of blood" absolves one from any guilt of being a murderer. So, assuming that the "avenger of blood" would be the executioner of the murderer then the Bible does clearly leave capital punishment out of its definition of "murder". However, I didn't find any mention of killing someone in battle during war in Numbers. It's possible that someone who knows more about God's word better than me might be able to find a passage where war-time killing is excluded from the definition of murder, but that would be a distraction from the topic of my thread.

Based on what the book of Numbers says about murder, an act of murder has to satisfy three criteria:

1. One person has to act in such a way that they end up taking another person's life,
2. The act must be intentional, and
3. It must have been committed out of hostility towards the deceased.

It seems that suicide falls short of the definition of murder, even if intentional, because it fails at least one criterion if not two criteria. However, that doesn't conclude that suicide isn't murder or that those who do commit suicide can still be saved, but so far it doesn't seem that there is a good argument for suicide being an act that prevents one from being saved.

citations:

1. Comparison of Christian Denominations' Ethical Views. ReligionFacts.com. Retrieved November 6, 2010 from Comparison Chart of Ethical Views of Christian Denominations - ReligionFacts
2. murder. (n.d.). Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. Retrieved November 06, 2010, from Dictionary.com website: Murder | Define Murder at Dictionary.com

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

It is a sin against the 5th commandment. Those who are against it; they are against it because it is a sin. What other reason could there be????

 

[jeremiah1five]

This was something that I have been wondering for some time, where in the bible does it actually say that suicide will send you to Hell? That is, if we were to assume that Hell was an actual place. But, any cited scripture where "Hell" isn't explicitly referenced will do as well, I guess.

There is no reference that suicide will send one to hell. Neither is Judas in hell but he is with Jesus. Yet, hell is a real place for a dead body. It's called a grave.

What sends a person to hell (grave) is sin.
Unpardonable sin.
A true believer cannot commit this sin.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

I remember something about that Jesus guy saying that God is kind and just--even to the thankless and the wicked.

So consider, therefore, God's response to a person's suffering to the point of terminating their own life, the sense of hopelessness they experienced, the sense of purposelessness and despair--and then consider, again, God who has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus.

We worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not a cold, mechanical GodBot.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[papaJP]

To commit suicide is to commit murder. God said if you spill the blood of one of my creations (human) you will pay with your blood. Since a suicide is the ending of ones life in the flesh and it is breaking one of the commandments which is murder you no longer have the opportunity to ask for forgiveness. This leaves you an unregenerated sinner and will be judged at the great white throne judgement seat. That is where all who are lost will be judged before they decend to hell and away from God. Sin cannot exist in the presence of God and unless you ask for forgiveness and receive it you cannot be in the presence of God in heaven.

 

[Kaitlin08]

God judges every sin based on the circumstances. A person who commits suicide out of despair must be very different from a person who commits suicide to escape imprisonment.

 

[Woldeyesus]

This was something that I have been wondering for some time, where in the bible does it actually say that suicide will send you to Hell? That is, if we were to assume that Hell was an actual place. But, any cited scripture where "Hell" isn't explicitly referenced will do as well, I guess.

Even if least known, the only reason for which one will die in one's sins is not suicide at all but the charge of not knowing and believing that Jesus is actually the "I Am Who I Am", the Father, Almighty God and "life-giving Spirit" or source of life, i.e., "the living God" and "God of the living" as testified LIVE by Moses and Elijah (Matt. 17: 1-13; Luke 9: 28-36) and powerfully revealed once and for all in Jesus' diacritical (transfigurational) death on the cross. (John 8: 21-28 et al.; Matt. 26:64; 27: 50-56)

WARNING: Active opposition to the thoughts and ways of God, concerning Christ's death on the cross, leads to suicide, e.g., Judas.

The lesson is simple, viz.: "taking care first of the log in one's own eye" or, in plain English, minding one's own business. (Matt. 7: 1-6)

 

[liars_paradox]

It is a sin against the 5th commandment. Those who are against it; they are against it because it is a sin. What other reason could there be????

I think that someone else made a similar response. It doesn't say in Exodus or in Deuteronomy that God said not to kill yourself. And, it's generally interpreted to include only killing other people - not yourself or animals.