What are your thoughts on suicide?

[charl]

Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase? By no means! So let's really pound people with the law and make it as harsh as possible so that they'll be really scared and obey.

Oh wait that last part wasn't quite right was it?

Paul was also accused of teaching "do evil that good may result" by simply preaching the Gospel. His answer was not to backpeddle and bring back reward/punishment but to say we are reckoned dead to sin and alive to God. We are what we are by God's grace.

I don't believe that this kind of teaching has the effect it is meant to, but rather the opposite. It lays heavy burdens on people's backs and lifts not a finger to help them.

Does our state of mind contribute some way to our status before God? Or is the finished work of Christ really finished?

Everything is orchestrated by God to give glory to his Name. While I agree he commands us to obey and is not displeased that his children wish to do so, our obedience or lack thereof really don't change things for him.

As for "not caring what man says" is this in response to the Sibbes quote? As I've mentioned before, it is a bastardization of Sola Scriptura to assume that means scripture must be read in a vacuum. This is impossible to boot.

Yes God commanded us not to murder and no one says it is okay. It is one of the many crimes for which Christ bore the just wrath of God on behalf of his bride.

When Jeremiah wished he had been stillborn or killed in infancy he was not living in God's salvation? He was crying out to God and God did not say "there is no room in my salvation for that". Rather God answered back in Christ!!

[brent]

We are not talking about the law and legalism. Again, we are talking about obedience out of love and serving to make God proud. We are talking about God rewarding us when we do. It is a positive thing. The only people that need to be living in fear are those that know God and are not living like it. Again. It is God's performance based rewards system.

[charl]

So how did he punish Jeremiah? And why on earth did he let such impiety insert itself into scripture?

[brent]

Forget J. Talk in context. Talk about how WE live NOW and what WE have been given in the NT as how to live, what we are promised. We will be judged by what we did with our life, the talents given, etc. We will reap what we sow. We will cast these crowns at his feet.

Show me one reference in scripture where taking life is a viable option. There isn't one. Sin is never an option to solve a problem.

[charl]

I do not believe in laying scriptural precedents aside and discussing doctrine based on experience. Jeremiah was a believer who lived in exactly the circumstances of which you speak. He sometimes wanted to die. He accused God of taking advantage of him. He hated his life and wept over his misery and the misery of his people.

Suicide is not simply okay, but neither is it unforgivable.

[brent]

I do not believe in laying scriptural precedents aside and discussing doctrine based on experience. Jeremiah was a believer who lived in exactly the circumstances of which you speak. He sometimes wanted to die. He accused God of taking advantage of him. He hated his life and wept over his misery and the misery of his people.

Suicide is not simply okay, but neither is it unforgivable.

I don't think so. There is no chance to reconcile with God.

Ezekiel 18:24-28

But if the righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of his righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered. In his trespass that he has trespassed and in his sin that he has sinned, in them shall he die.

Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not fair and just. Hear now, O house of Israel: Is not My way fair and just? Are not your ways unfair and unjust?

When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and dies in his sins, for his iniquity that he has done he shall die.

Again, when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and does that which is lawful and right, he shall save his life.

Because he considers and turns away from all his transgressions which he has committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.

I am not asking you to lay principle aside. Just because a man in the bible had those feelings does not mean jack squat. It means he was a man that did not have his eyes on God. It means that he did not fully trust his life in the hands of God. I am not saying that it is easy to do either! A bible character having a thought to end his life is not enough to justify like behavior, knowing what we now know about the riches of heaven, the rewards, the crowns, the judgement of works good and bad. Who wants to go out a quitter, thief, murderer, doubter, walking by sight not faith? Not me. Not anyone who wants to be something for God now and in the new heaven and new earth.

Hebrews 10:26-27
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

[charl]

So who is the righteous man? Apparently your righteousness must exceed that of the prophets as well as the scribes and the pharisees. How is this done? (I admit I am begging the question)

Good Lord this man prophesied alone for 40 years with no one listening to him, watched his people destroy themselves in their sin, was hated, mocked, assaulted, put in prison, thrown in a well and left to die, survived a siege so dire that mothers ate their own children, finally was hauled off to Egypt by a bunch of losers who still refused to believe his prophetic voice and all we can say of him when he cried out in anguish was that "he didn't have his eyes on God?" God was all he had left.

Now to deny that Christians suffer and Christians will struggle with it is hollow triumphalism. This is the kind of law that does push people to suicide. We are not promised that our lives and even our attitudes toward them will be perfect, but we are told have an advocate who suffered much more on our behalf.

Read lament 3, the lament of Christ. did he not "have his eyes on God"? Crying out in the midst of suffering is not wrong. Some will do the wrong thing when they are in that suffering, and I have not once denied suicide is wrong. Yet again, it does NOT change their standing before God.

And yet you will go out that way, for that is what you are-a sinner. This is what it comes down to. Are we justified by Christ, or are we justified by our own actions? If the latter, then you are correct. But if the former, it is HIS righteousness we rest in.

eta: oh and Hebrews had nothing to do with returning to the law after receiving the gospel. Nothing at all.

[winterlens]

I don't think so. There is no chance to reconcile with God.

Reconciliation is past and depends on God, not man.

Col 1.21ff:

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Naturally some will point to verse 23 as evidence that our reconciliation is based on continuing in the faith, somehow thinking that what we do now changes the past. (Incidentally, the only people I have ever heard do this are Christians putting the cart before the horse.)

In fact, what the verse tells us is that continuing in the faith depends on God reconciling us to himself by the death of Christ.

I am not asking you to lay principle aside.

I think perhaps that you are, if unwittingly.

Hebrews 10:26-27
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

Char answered this fairly well, I think. You would do well to look contextually, too--the whole of chapter ten argues against the line of thinking that you propose here.

[brent]

1 John 1:9 does say that forgiveness is dependant on our confessing (agreeing we sinned) to God. Jesus Christ paid the price in full for all sins, for everyone! But watch. We are "positionally" forgiven at the cross.

Confessing and repenting is “relationalâ€

[charl]

Moar Sibbes Awesomeness:

For...our encouragement to a thorough work of bruising, and patience under God's bruising of us, let all know that none are fitter for comfort than those that think themselves furthest off.

Men, for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Saviour. A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hos. 14:3); if men were more fatherless, they should feel more God's fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isa. 57:15).

Christ's sheep are weak sheep, and lacking in something or other; he therefore applies himself to the necessities of every sheep. He seeks that which was lost, and brings again that which was driven out of the way, and binds up that which was broken, and strengthens the weak (Ezek. 34:16). His tenderest care is over the weakest. The lambs he carries in his bosom (Isa. 40:11). He says to Peter, `Feed my lambs' (John 21:15). He was most familiar and open to troubled souls.

et

After conversion we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising, by reason of the remainder of pride in our nature, and to let us see that we live by mercy.

Such bruising may help weaker Christians not to be too much discouraged, when they see stronger ones shaken and bruised. Thus Peter was bruised when he wept bitterly (Matt. 26:75). This reed, till he met with this bruise, had more wind in him than pith when he said, `Though all forsake thee, I will not' (Matt. 26:33).

The people of God cannot be without these examples. The heroic deeds of those great worthies do not comfort the church so much as their falls and bruises do. Thus David was bruised until he came to a free confession, without guile of spirit (Psa. 32:3 5); nay, his sorrows did rise in his own feeling unto the exquisite pain of breaking of bones (Psa. 51:8 ). Thus Hezekiah complains that God had `broken his bones' as a lion (Isa. 38:13). Thus the chosen vessel Paul needed the messenger of Satan to buffet him lest he should be lifted up above measure (2 Cor. 12:7).

Hence we learn that we must not pass too harsh judgment upon ourselves or others when God exercises us with bruising upon bruising. There must be a conformity to our head, Christ, who `was bruised for us' (Isa. 53:5) that we may know how much we are bound unto him.

Ungodly spirits, ignorant of God's ways in bringing his children to heaven, censure broken hearted Christians as miserable persons, whereas God is doing a gracious, good work with them. It is no easy matter to bring a man from nature to grace, and from grace to glory, so unyielding and intractable are our hearts.

Break not the bruised reed.

[charl]

The issue was not "going out a quitter". It was whether Christ has covered our sins absolutely or if there is more we need to do.
If they be in Christ, even a sin as grievous as suicide can not tear his own from him.

Christ has reconciled us to God and he is never far from us even in our sins. He bore the pain of disfellowship on our behalf. Again he chastises us because we are his children. Will the mother abandon her child when he is in the most dire throes of illness? Do we expect God to be less merciful than a sinful human?

[winterlens]

Why would Jesus himself instruct us to pray for the forgiveness of our tresspasses, as we forgive the ones who tresspass against us, if we were not to ask for forgiveness? Why are we told how to live, so that our prayers would not be hindered? Why are we told how to live in church-life so that we can remain in the fellowship? Because God wants a close relationship with us, and sin is a wedge. We are to agree we made the mistake, he forgives and purifies faithfully, because of the cross.

I don't see that anyone has suggested we not ask for forgiveness or live wanton lives. (Lord knows I wish I could sin as much as I want--because I don't want to at all.)

Again. finally, this issue is about not leaving the planet a depressed person, thinking that God is smaller than the circumstances. It is about quitting. It is about living in fear. GOD is BIGGER than any situation. Live like it.

It seems like the original question was whether suicide was a big enough sin to leave a man beyond God's grace. The answer, of course, is no. God saves, and no one can prevent him from doing so. This is the thrust of the gospel.

[winterlens]

Christ has reconciled us to God and he is never far from us even in our sins. He bore the pain of disfellowship on our behalf.

This is so true, and so important.

If we look carefully at the Scripture, we find two ways in which we suffer: both with Christ and on behalf of Christ. The former includes (I think) sin. He bore our sin, suffering our separation from God.

When we sin, we do not endure that separation as he did. His identification with our sin means that he is present with us always, even in the moments of our greatest iniquity.