If you commit suicide, do you go to hell?

How is commiting suicide any different than commiting adultery as far as eternal consquences go? Either one you had to plan for, either one Christ drank the cup of God's wrath for, either one does not strip you of your justification in Christ...

Greo said:

Before you make your statment, be sure to read all posts first and understand my arguments so that you know where I am comming from, inorder for you to get a better gist of what has already been said. That way, I don't have to repeat myself. I would love to hear your resultant question or statment.

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Sorry...

This verse is a first class condition in the greek which means this is assumed true about believers who believed like in rOMANS 4:5

2 timothy 2:11 It is a faithful saying: For since we die with Him[we did ,Romans 6], we shall also live with Him: 12 Since we suffer [we will, act 14:22] we shall also reign with Him. Since we deny Him [we will,romans 12:2] He also will deny us[ 1 cor 3:12-15 rewards] 13 Since we are unfaithful[every day life/present tense salvation], yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself[why 1 cor 6:19-20]

A Brethren in Christ, I do not see Romans 12:2 saying born again believers will deny God, It says we should not bend to the attractions of the world, but rather set our mind on the indwelt Spirit of Christ and "be transformed bythe renewing of your mind."

What 2 Timothy 2:12 is saying is that God keeps His word. If we endure, we shall have eternal life. If we reject Him, He will say, "I never knew you." So no matter, whether we are liars or not, God is not a liar and does exactly what He says.

The answer to the question is no. Like any other sin, if you are truly saved, all your sins are no longer perceived by God because Jesus has taken care of them. Piece o' cake.
(P.S. Don;t go and kill yourself!.)

What is it that makes suicide any different from any other sin? I've heard the, "It is a turning away from God," but I don't see any evidence shown for that. Any other sin would lead to death, too, without Christ.

This is like another discussion. What if you commit any sin and die before you can repent and be sorrowful for it? Do you go to hell? If so, then our salvation is based on what we do, not on God's grace. To be sure, we must believe to be saved, but that is an underlying condition of the heart, not something that can change on a moment-to-moment basis. If salvation is lost when a sin has not yet been repented of, then Peter was unsaved after he denied Jesus the first time. Scripture doesn't record anything that leads us to believe that he felt any remorse until after the third time. So did Peter lose his salvation, and then regain it later when he repented? If Peter had died after denying Jesus, but before repenting, would he have gone to hell? I do not think so.

I think that our salvation is not based on the past, and we can't just say, "Well, I did such-and-such, so I'm saved forever and I can do whatever I want." But I also don't think that we need to worry about committing some sin, or not having faith, or denying Christ, and then die and go to hell before we have a chance to repent. Salvation is a change in our identity. Before, we were identified as sinners along with the rest of the world; in salvation, we are separated from the world, and we have our identity in Christ. This is a change of our being. Momentary lapses can happen, as happened to Peter, and these do not condemn the child of God. Most people who commit suicide are not trusting in God, as was pointed out in this thread, but the sweeping statement that "all who commit suicide go to hell," is an over-generalization.

The question I would ask is, does the person who commits suicide love God deep down in his heart? It is possible that he does. People who love God still makes mistakes, sometimes even bad mistakes, but unless that love for God dies, then salvation is not lost, but the person is "saved, but only as through fire" (1 Co. 3:15).

Suffice it to say that salvation is not lost by an action, but by a change of heart. If one's heart turns away from God, suicide could certainly result. But I know that many terrible things have been done by people who were dear to God (Peter is one example, David is another), and I don't think that their actions caused them to be unsaved, because they were such people as could later look back on those actions with sorrow. If a person committed suicide, and was such a person who would later repent (if that were possible, and who knows if God allows people to repent of suicide after death), then I think that's all that counts.

To be saved you have to have Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Taking your own life, is taking the life that belongs to God in your own hands. I dont think you get to heaven if you commit suicide. It is not letting Jesus be the lord of your life, you are. That is just like having another God..
God bless!

pro_odeh, you most likely sin on a daily basis, would you agree? Even if you don't, most people do sin on a regular basis, but this doesn't mean that everytime they sin they are unsaved until they repent. Yet each sin that you can think of is "not letting Jesus be the Lord of your life," just as suicide is such a sin. Any sin is rebellion against God, and any sin comes from a lack of faith. The Scripture says that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin." (Rom. 14:23) That's one way to define sin: something done not of faith, but of our lusts (James 1:13-15). My point is that an action will not separate you from God, and people with good hearts can commit bad acts. David was a man after God's own heart, yet he committed adultery and murdered. Was he unsaved until he said he was sorry? I hardly think so. His heart, deep down, was right, but the passions of the moment caused him to sin, and the same thing can happen to any of us.

Our flesh is weak, and sometimes even a Christian who is strong will lapse and his flesh will lead him into sin. Paul spoke of this situation in Romans 7, where the Christian with his mind doesn't want to sin, yet his flesh leads him into sin. Paul asks who can deliver us from this situation, and he thanks Christ for the deliverance. Christ will stick with us through the weakness of our flesh, and indeed, He has fixed the problem, though the devil lies to us and tells us that we are still in bondage to sin. However, Romans 6 tells us otherwise. Most of us agree with Romans 6 in our minds, and we agree with the devil a lot of the time with our flesh. But salvation is progressive, and our walk with God should be just that -- we should be moving forward. If we at some points slide back a bit, this doesn't mean that we lose salvation, but that we let our guard down, and that we have work to do. And if a person's lapse leads them to suicide, I can't say that they will definitely go to hell or to heaven. If they still love the Lord, but they made a mistake, then they will go to heaven. If they have "forsaken their first love," then I think they have made their choice to leave heaven's kingdom.

No, we all commit sins every day, and quite a few of them to. But Jesus forgives us all of this, if we confess. But for one sin, there is no forgiveness.
Mark 3:29 (NIV) 29But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”

To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, is not to allow Him to work in you. If you dont have Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you cannot have the Holy Ghost in you either. I would say, taking control over your own life, taking it away from Jesus to use, is doing this.

You must agree that if you believe in something else than Jesus, you cannot be saved. Because you are letting something else guiding your life. It could be another religion, money, women, or as in this case, yourself..
God bless!

pro_odeh said:

To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, is not to allow Him to work in you.

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So, do you think that you are ever allowing the Holy Spirit to work in you whilst you sin? Every time we sin, we are taking our eyes off of Christ, at least temporarily. I still contend that it is the underlying condition of your heart that matters, and that even great saints can sometimes fall into some grave error, but that doesn't make them unsaved until they repent.

You say, "Jesus forgives us of all of this, if we confess." If you think a person needs to confess/repent to be forgiven of a sin, what happens if you have a bad thought, then get run over and die? Do you go to hell? I do not think that salvation oscillates like that.

What i meant when i said not to allow Him to work in you, was that you deny the Holy Spirit access. Throuhg not believing in Christ. When it comes to the sin in the last moment thing, we cannot be sure. But i dont think, or hope, that you will end up in hell for that.

But the issue here is that suicide is being the lord of your life. You no longer let Jesus have the rightful claim over your life. He has a devined purpose and destiny for you. Denying Him to have your life, is not believing in Him. Its like, as i said, having a god above God. If you are a muslim when you die, (not talking bad about muslims, it was just the first religion i thought about) you obviously dont believe in Christ, and you cannot be saved. Jesus is no longer the lord of your life. When we believe in Him, we give our lives to Him. If we take back our life, and use it however we want, Jesus is no longer lord, you cannot claim to believe in Him (because then you would give Him your life), and you cannot be saved..
God bless!

If suicide is denying Jesus lordship over your life because you are taking that lordship yourself, then again, I say that this is something that we do every time we sin. I say that a person who loves Christ can fall into error, and perhaps even into an error as serious as suicide. My examples of Peter and David were to show how a man of God can fall into grievous sin, but I don't think for a moment that David or Peter were headed to hell until they repented. The fact that they had hearts such that they would later repent meant that their sins were forgiven. I think it is the same way with suicide. If the person would have later looked back on it with regret, and if he wasn't sinning just in defiance of God, then I think it is very possible that he may be forgiven. It all depends on the condition of his heart.

It is interesting that this came up in conversation just today. My Dad and I were talking to a pastor, and I mentioned that we ought to get together sometime. But this pastor informed me that maybe we could do it next week, because he thought that this week, he would be really busy counselling with a lady who is having suicidal thoughts. This lady apparently has some kind of medical condition, and it's something that she inherited from her mother, who had the same problem. She has been cutting herself and debating suicide.

The key thing is that she's debating it. She knows she shouldn't do it, but for some reason, she is drawn to it. This could be the medical problem, or it could be an evil spirit, or it could be that such medical problems are caused by evil spirits -- I wouldn't know. But the thing is, it is something outside her control that makes her desire suicide. This doesn't mean she isn't responsible for her actions, but it does mean that she needs lots of help from people who love her, and that if she didn't get that help, she might very well make a bad decision while under the stress of those haunting feelings of depression.

Furthermore, my dad, a psychologist who has some experience with such situations, said that most of the time, when a person is in the situation that is described above, that person has thoughts of suicide and hovers on the brink, but doesn't really want to commit suicide. This is why you hear of people "attempting" suicide. If they didn't have doubts, and if they didn't still have a desire to live, it would be fairly easy for them to contrive a way to kill themselves. My dad pointed out that in many suicide cases, people just go a little farther than they intended in their attempt, and they accidentally do kill themselves. So while they were having conflicting desires to live and die, and while they might attempt suicide, it is often by accident that people actually hurt themselves enough to kill themselves.

And I think that our God is full of mercy, and that, as the Bible says that He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15).

Let me put something out there for all who are skeptical about medical conditions causing depression and suicide. I used to fit this description myself. I heard of post-partum depression, and I thought that those women just needed to get a grip on things and trust the Lord, and then they would overcome any hormonal problems or whatever the problem was. As I later learned, I was being excessively judgmental. Anyway, here's what I've got to say.

I can tell you from experience that medical thing can cause such deep depressions as to make one suicidal. I had to take the drug Prednisone once, and it is a pretty common drug. It can have some bad side effects, though. It can make people very irritable, make them have mood swings, or make them depressed. When I got on it, it put me into a deep depression. This was not coincidence, because both times I had to take it, for the first couple of days, I had no will to live. I had been experiencing cancer treatment, and had endured a lot of things, and had come through it all fairly cheerfully, but that Prednisone took me apart. I have had a good upbringing, which means that it would be hard, if not impossible, to get me to a place where I would actually commit suicide. But I did have suicidal thoughts when I initially got on Prednisone. I remember praying and asking God to kill me, to let me die. I didn't want to live anymore, and I saw no purpose in being alive. Everything seemed totally hopeless, and no one and nothing could cheer me up. I would get over this after a couple of days or so, but it was terrible when I was in the middle of it. I would try to think joyful thoughts, but they didn't "take." Everything was negative.

I have had some times where I have been somewhat depressed since, or perhaps discouraged is a better word, but nothing like that. I really, sincerely wanted to die, and what do you know but that this just happened to occur right after getting on a certain medication -- and that not once, but twice. If you think the same thing couldn't happen to you, think again. (This is directed to anyone who thinks this way, like I once did.) You're not as strong as you think you are. "Oh, well, I would just keep my eyes on Jesus, and He would be my strength, and I wouldn't be suicidal no matter what kind of medical condition I had." Do you really think so? Peter also said that he would never deny Jesus, even if everyone else did. Look what happened. (Also note how Peter thought that those other disciples might be weak, but him! he was strong!) However sure you are that you could overcome such problems, I was as much and moreso. I had been an upstanding 15-yr-old who was dedicated to the Lord, and I was also quite cocky.

Does this mean that we aren't responsible for our actions if we are medicated a certain way? To a certain extent, I would say, yes. Perhaps if we were strong enough in our faith, we would never get sick, and drugs could have no effect on us, just like that snake bite didn't hurt Paul. But if you aren't on Paul's level, and you get poisoned, and it makes you go crazy, I don't think God blames you for what you do. It gets to a point where you don't even have any control over what you do; you might say that you are sort of like a person having a seizure. God takes into account our conditions when we do something. Of course, if we are to blame for causing those conditions, such as if a person got drunk, then killed someone by reckless driving, then we are guilty for the cause, in this case getting drunk.

Am I saying that we can't overcome such medical problems with Christ's strength? No, I mentioned that Paul overcame a deadly snake bite, and we hypothetically could do the same thing. But don't be surprised if when you get bit by a lethal snake, you die. And also don't be surprised if you ever take some mentally altering drugs (even as medication), or if you ever get some illness that causes mental instability, that you have some thoughts and feelings that you wouldn't have otherwise.

The surest way to get something like that to happen to you is to get cocky about how you'd do better than all those other people who have less faith. This is the way Peter was, and he denied Christ. I thought I would never have some kind of "medical depression," but I did. My previous thoughts of invincibility and overcoming through Christ's strength did me little good, because I thought it couldn't happen to me.

The question arises: can miracles happen to "average" Christians, or just super ones like Paul? Well, we can have miraculous things happen in our lives, but if we start judging others just because they fared worse than we did, we probably start to see the flow from God stop. Consider when Jesus walked on the water. If we were the disciples in the boat, we would probably shake our heads when Peter was sinking and say, "That's really too bad. He lost faith. Now he will die. If you lose faith, you sink into the water and die. Peter didn't allow the Holy Spirit to work through him." Compare that to the attitude of Jesus, who just loved Peter, and helped him out of the water. Jesus asked Peter why he had little faith, basically admonishing him to do better next time, but he didn't just let him sink while saying, "Too bad. You're dead."

All of that to say, don't be judgmental of those who commit suicide. You might do the same thing if you were in their situation, even though you may be just positive that you wouldn't. Don't go judging others just because they have a different area of weakness than you do, no matter how bad their sin. Let God judge them, and you can pray for them and edify them.

As I earlier said, this SOAPBOX post was directed to anyone who thinks, like I once did, that people feeling suicidal or who have other problems just need to get over it. It's not to you personally, pro_odeh, although it is to you if you match the description.

pro_odeh said:

What i meant when i said not to allow Him to work in you, was that you deny the Holy Spirit access. Throuhg not believing in Christ. When it comes to the sin in the last moment thing, we cannot be sure. But i dont think, or hope, that you will end up in hell for that.

But the issue here is that suicide is being the lord of your life. You no longer let Jesus have the rightful claim over your life. He has a devined purpose and destiny for you. Denying Him to have your life, is not believing in Him. Its like, as i said, having a god above God. If you are a muslim when you die, (not talking bad about muslims, it was just the first religion i thought about) you obviously dont believe in Christ, and you cannot be saved. Jesus is no longer the lord of your life. When we believe in Him, we give our lives to Him. If we take back our life, and use it however we want, Jesus is no longer lord, you cannot claim to believe in Him (because then you would give Him your life), and you cannot be saved..
God bless!

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So we lose our salvation evertime we sin?

To make one thing clear, I am not judging people who commit suicide. I know people can have problems. I have had them to, and I have had suicidal thoughts. But I have never acted on them, or gotten to the level that I would concider commiting suicide. The thought that I would go to hell if I did has kept me away from it. Now, I am not talking about people who suffer from a mental condition, or act like they try to commit suicide for attention. That is another issue.
God never lets us go through more than we can handle. We have to trust Him. Its hard to say this without sounding judging, but if you commit suicide, you do not trust God to look out for you.

We do not loose our salvation every time we sin. We can fall into sin, but be forgiven. That doesnt mean that you have to mention every thing we do wrong and repent on it.
But suicide is a hard subject. Because there is no time to repent afterwards. By doing it, you are ending your life...
Lets say that you have been a christian all your life. But you start drifting away, and you eventually convert to islam. A week later you die. Will you be saved then?
Now again, I am not saying that those who end their life are weak in faith, but they are not just commiting a sin. They become the lord of their life (you could say that it happenes every time we sin, but i would say that is just falling into sin. Not living in it, witch I think suicide is), but they justify it with the problems they are going through. If you justify a sin, you will not be forgiven!

But what about all those sins we commit, that we justify? I cannot answer that for sure. God is mercy, so I hope He sees the heart and forgives us. Of course I hope that goes for suicide also, but I dont think its good of us to think that God is mercy, so I will probably go to heaven when I kill myself. What if you are wrong?

I am not saying this to talk badly about those who are on the break of comitting suicide. I am saying it as a worning. That no one should go through with it. No matter how bad your life is now, it will be a million times worse in hell. Let me specify that Im referring to those who commit sucide because they dont want to live any more. And justifying it with the troubles they have.

Now what if the person knows that suicide is wrong, but he still goes through with it? is it wrong then? I cant say anything about that. That is up to God to jugde. But I of course hope those are saved!

Just a comment on another thing you said. You dont have to be strong in faith to experience miracles, or drink poison and survive. It is God who makes these things happen. Those who are closer to God might experience these things more often because they are better in letting God into their lives. But God can come anytime. The importaint thing is not to test God in these things.

I know I may sound judging, or in lack of tolerance. When you come to a point further than I was, I can only imagine how hard it must be. That is where we as fellow christians come into the picture. We need to show them the love of Jesus, and show that we are there for them, careing, and helping them in any way possible. Because we cant rule out the fact that they may not come to heaven, and nobody wants that to happen! I hope nobody takes this the wrong way..

God bless you all, and hold on to your life in Christ!!

Is suicide any worse than murder? In other words, does it have more potency to make you lose your salvation?

Christ took away the sins for everyone that believes in him at the cross. So no you do not go to hell if you commit suicide, because once saved always saved no matter what the sin.

If you kill someone, and claim that you have the right to do so because of your situasion (not in self defense or war or anything like that, but someone on the street for example), will you be forgiven for that? when the Bible is spesific, and you know it is, but you still think that you have every right to do that sin, will you be forgiven then?
If you are not forgiven of all your sins, can you enter the kingdom of heaven then?

pro_odeh said:

If you kill someone, and claim that you have the right to do so because of your situasion (not in self defense or war or anything like that, but someone on the street for example), will you be forgiven for that? when the Bible is spesific, and you know it is, but you still think that you have every right to do that sin, will you be forgiven then?
If you are not forgiven of all your sins, can you enter the kingdom of heaven then?

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If you believe in Christ you will enter heaven
Isaiah

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Christ was wounded for our transgressions & iniquities, not just some but all!
We were forgiven for them and they were wiped clean at the cross. If the only way to get into heaven would be to ask forgiveness for our sins that would make salvation a work, and not a gift from GOD.