Is suicide a sin?

[GreenMunchkin]

Have never had the courage to ask this before. What are your thoughts, please? Will add a poll (of course), but would love some actual discussion, too.

Also, can someone who commits suicide still go to Heaven? Or do you believe suicide negates salvation?

Thank you so much

 

[blueguy]

I voted, don't know. But just off the cuff, if a person have prayed asking forgiveness of any future sins, then they might be ok.

 

[Nadiine]

I voted yes I think it's a sin.
ALL Life is the Lord's to take, not ours. It's murder - of self (& nevermind the hell it puts loved one's thru - added torment and guilt on them).
Let's not forget who and what they leave behind to suffer the pain.

With that said, I believe Christians have committed suicide when under heavy oppression. And I believe that any Christian is not hellbound due committing that sin like any other sin.
That would mean if you had a lustful thought right before your death that you committed adultery & go to hell.

It's not compliant w/ scripture teaching on Christ paying for our sins;
past, present & future.

 

[GreenMunchkin]

I voted, don't know. But just off the cuff, if a person have prayed asking forgiveness of any future sins, then they might be ok.

I don't think that's very scripturally sound, is it? I really don't think it works that way, bro.

 

[Chaplain David]

Have never had the courage to ask this before. What are your thoughts, please? Will add a poll (of course), but would love some actual discussion, too.

Also, can someone who commits suicide still go to Heaven? Or do you believe suicide negates salvation?

Thank you so much

Yes suicide is a grave sin. It is murdering oneself. The act of murder is addressed in one of the 10 commandments. Although my Catholic brethren disagree, I believe the person can still go to heaven if they are saved and born again but there will be a judging of some sort. If you think about someone smashing a baby against a wall and killing it then you will begin to realize what it really means to commit suicide. We are all God's children.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

There are many facets to take into account when talking about suicide. At best, we can say we don't know and pray that God will be merciful, but we also have to understand that only God is the author of life. Only God can decide when we should die. When we try to take that away from Him, we are surely sinning against him.

 

[Nadiine]

There are many facets to take into account when talking about suicide. At best, we can say we don't know and pray that God will be merciful, but we also have to understand that only God is the author of life. Only God can decide when we should die. When we try to take that away from Him, we are surely sinning against him.

well.... the problem there is that we have verses that says He's merciful to whom He pleases to be merciful to and other principles that are involved in mercy....
I don't think it's sinning against God to take mercy away - we just can't know how God will judge any certain person either way.

Romans 9:18
So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

Hebrews 10:28
Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

James 2:13
For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

 

[blueguy]

I don't think that's very scripturally sound, is it? I really don't think it works that way, bro.

Heck, I don't know as I voted.
I do remember reading that David asked forgiveness for the sins that He would commit.
But, not a Bible scholar here.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

I don't think it's sinning against God to take mercy away - we just can't know how God will judge any certain person either way.

I wasn't saying we were taking mercy away, I was saying that we were trying to wrest the power of life away from God when we commit suicide. That is what is sinful. Hope that clarifies things. I don't think we personally can take God's mercy away.

 

[Nadiine]

I wasn't saying we were taking mercy away, I was saying that we were trying to wrest the power of life away from God when we commit suicide. That is what is sinful. Hope that clarifies things. I don't think we personally can take God's mercy away.

k thanks for clarifying, I didn't pick that up the first time around.

I thought you meant we have to believe that God is merciful no matter what to everyone... that if you disagreed, it would be taking His mercy out of the equasion & therefore sinning against Him.

thanx

 

[LoisGriffin]

A lot of people who kill themselves are suffering terrible depression and may not be getting the correct treatment for it. I would hate to think God would send a person to hell because they are ill.

 

[Simon_Templar]

I don't know if suicide sends you straight to hell as some believe... but it is clearly a sin, and a grave one. (no pun intended).

Suicide at the very least is murder. You are taking a life you don't have a right to take.
Above that, it is an act of supreme ungreatfulness.

GK Chesterton wrote an interesting bit in which he contrasted suicide with martyrdom.
His basic point was that a martyr dies out of love, they die because they love everything, they love the world as God loves the world.
Whereas a suicide dies because they essentially hate everything, they hate the world so much that they want to destroy it. A suicide in a sense, is trying to destroy everything because by killing themselves they are ending the world (their world).

 

[Nadiine]

I don't know if suicide sends you straight to hell as some believe... but it is clearly a sin, and a grave one. (no pun intended).

 

[Carolyn H]

I believe suicide is not a sin. I read in one of my journals that the #1 cause of suicide in the US, is undiagnosed Depression. I feel that Depression is an illness- a chemical imbalance in the brain, and genetic. A person can no more be held accountable for depression, than if they were born predisposed to Diabetes.

If a person is an undiagnosed Diabetic and dies of their illness, do they face Judgment? That doesn't sound like a loving God to me! I don't think that sounds like a just God either. Why would it be any different for a person with undiagnosed Depression? Both are treatable diseases...but sometimes BOTH are difficult to diagnose.

The literature I have studied said a Diabetic usually walks around for 7 years with this illness before a diagnoses is made. I do not know the statistics for depression.

 

[Nadiine]

I believe suicide is not a sin. I read in one of my journals that the #1 cause of suicide in the US, is undiagnosed Depression. I feel that Depression is an illness- a chemical imbalance in the brain, and genetic. A person can no more be held accountable for depression, than if they were born predisposed to Diabetes.

K, but depression itself isn't sin... what we DO can be.

So.... if somebody is manically depressed, it's perfectly fine for them in their illness to kill their entire family? God's ok with that?
This just happened here in Calif. yesterday, a depressed man (over the loss of his job & stock) shot his 3 kids & wife to death, then himself & left 3 notes as to what he did & said it was the "honorable" thing to do.

The key here is that even while somebody might have an illness, it doesn't mean sin is lawful when God can and does give you red flags that it's wrong in your heart.
I was spiritually oppressed 11 yrs. ago to the point of starting to plan out suicide. Some may wish I had succeeded at it, but I can assure you that even in my severe depression/oppression, I KNEW it was wrong and it's nothing I could easily do.
Many people have depression and don't harm themselves or others.


We can still know something is wrong and do it anyways.

 

[Zecryphon]

I believe suicide is not a sin. I read in one of my journals that the #1 cause of suicide in the US, is undiagnosed Depression. I feel that Depression is an illness- a chemical imbalance in the brain, and genetic. A person can no more be held accountable for depression, than if they were born predisposed to Diabetes.

If a person is an undiagnosed Diabetic and dies of their illness, do they face Judgment? That doesn't sound like a loving God to me! I don't think that sounds like a just God either. Why would it be any different for a person with undiagnosed Depression? Both are treatable diseases...but sometimes BOTH are difficult to diagnose.

The literature I have studied said a Diabetic usually walks around for 7 years with this illness before a diagnoses is made. I do not know the statistics for depression.

Your parallel example doesn't work because the person that dies of undiagnosed Diabetes, didn't make the willful choice to end their life. The person who commits suicide does.

 

[Jim47]

King David prayed that God would deliver him from willful sin. He did not pray that he would get off the hook for any future sin he might committ and then go and committ that sin.

Suicide is a sin against God and ones self. A sin of which there can be no repentance since that person ends his life before he can repent, but that doesn't mean that all who committ this sin will suffer hell. Only God can answer who will be sent to hell.

God is merciful, so we can always have hope.

 

[ladyt28]

To be completely honest, the thought that suicide is a sin is one of the few things that has helped me talk some people out out it......including myself. The depression that can lead to suicidal thought is unbelievable - you don't know the weight of it unless you've experienced it. It's like drowning in a whirlpool in a deep, deep pool - the rush of the waters is louder than than the voices trying to help you, the water pushing you down deeper and deeper - and then a single line of rope shows up with a voice that comes clear in your head. Sometimes you realize it's Christ and that rope will pull you out and you grab it for all you're worth. For others, maybe another voice tells them that they don't have the strength to hang onto that rope so they don't even reach for it...or maybe they do but then let go in despair.

Suicide is a depression that is by far worse than a sad day - it's a dark, dark room with no air. Is it a sin? Yes, it is the killing of a creation of God in His image but that's not the end of the story. I don't know if it's a sin worse than others. Only God knows if He will forgive that sin.

 

[LoisGriffin]

And sometimes people don't get help:

A jeering crowd taunted a suicidal teenager as he threatened to jump from the top of a city-centre car park.
In a shocking indictment of modern Britain, youths who gathered in the street below yelled at 17-year-old Shaun Dykes to kill himself over the course of three hours.
One allegedly shouted: 'How far can you bounce?'

In a final sickening act, some of those responsible for the abuse outside the Westfield shopping centre in Derby rushed from behind the police cordon to take pictures of the teenager's body on their mobile phones.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-sick-ghouls-jeered-teenager-leapt-death.html

This boy waited three hours which makes me believe it was more a cry for help. Instead all he got was evil people putting their horrible thoughts into his head. As someone who has suffered depression the story broke my heart. Sometimes people cant get the help they need.

 

[Carolyn H]

Your parallel example doesn't work because the person that dies of undiagnosed Diabetes, didn't make the willful choice to end their life. The person who commits suicide does.

I most respectfully disagree. I believe that mental illness can cause people to think in ways they wouldn't if they were not suffering from their chemical imbalance. That is why the numbers are so different for Depressive persons on med vs those who are not.