There's no doubt that suicide is a tragedy. For most Christians, suicide is wasted life, a life that you should use to glorify God. Yet, we must not be quick to judge. We honestly don't know how much a person is going through nor do we know his/her relationship with God. But if you're wondering what the Bible says about suicide, let's give it a look below.
Choosing Life
Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life..." – Deuteronomy 30:9-20
Suicide, on surface level, is considered self-murder. And if you'll look at God's Ten Commandments, one is not to commit murder. It will be hard to argue that reckless taking of any life, including suicide, isn't considered a sin. In the verse above, God wants men to choose life over death, in the same way that God wants us to choose life over whatever problems we have. There is another verse you must keep in mind.
God is the author of life, thus, the giving and taking of life ought to remain in his hands. – Job 1:21
Since God gave us life, he must also be the one who will take it. Many of us believe that we do not have the right to take our own life because whatever we have now, we're just borrowing it.
Can suicide be forgiven?
Suicide is indeed a grave sin, and many people are wondering if God can forgive people who take their own life. Although the Bible didn't address this issue directly, we can lean on John 3:16 to answer this.
As long as you believe in God, you will have eternal life. This is God's promise. This also means that if someone who committed suicide already accepted God as their Savior, God can forgive them. Bear in mind that there's only one unforgivable sin, and that is denying or refusing to accept the Lord as one's Savior.
There can be various reasons that someone might fall into despair or depression, and various things that can drive a person to suicide, and perhaps it is not for us to try and judge what is going on inside someone else, especially given that mental illness, and depression have become prevailant in our modern day society. There obviously can be a clear line drawn between someone who commits suicide in an attempted terror attack, or someone who has been tortured by mental illness for much of their life.
For us, seeing any life taken must be a wakeup call, and the sadness we feel in our hearts when we see life taken away must only be a portion of the pain that such actions must be causing our heavenly father.
What we can realise is that we will never really know a person's suffering, which is why we must always extend love and care to everyone as much as possible. A smile or a greeting can go a long way. It is, indeed, a tragic event, and if you have lost someone to depression or mental illness, we can perhaps find some comfort in knowing that suicide is not exempted from the Lord's redemption, and this is because Jesus Christ died on the cross for all of us.
