How does God view your value? In an age of assassinations, abortions and assisted suicides, what is a measure of the value of a human life. In looking at the ten commandments and at the sixth commandment, there God sees your life as so valuable that He commands all people everywhere, throughout time, in Exodus 20:13, and He says: “You shall not murder.” As the New International Version (NIV) puts it, or “Thou shalt not kill” is the way the Old King James Version, puts it. Well, what does that mean? That little phrase translated in the NIV as “you shall not murder” is actually two words in the original Hebrew language. It is perhaps one of the most controversial of the ten commandments. It is that controversy which is not changing in our day. In actual fact I need to take two messages to try and cover something the breadth of what these two words, in Hebrew, and four words in English mean. When we are told by Jesus: “you shall love your neighbour as yourself,” this is in direct contrast to that sixth commandment. When we murder we fail to love, as we are loved and as we love ourselves. This is a challenge to that commandment to love, as we have been loved primarily and originally by God.
Firstly, what are the definition of terms in this passage? What is murder for instance? Why does the NIV translate “murder” and the King James Version translate “kill?” Well the word there in the Hebrew is the word “rasah.” And “rasah” is a rare word. It is a type of killing which means a violent, unauthorized killing. That word “rasah” usually means a violent killing of a personal enemy. That's why the NIV translation of “rasah” as murder is perhaps the best translation. In Exodus 21:12-36, God goes further to define murder as the planned or premeditated killing of somebody. It's not an accidental killing. It's not accidental homicide but it's premeditated, thought through before the time. Now in Genesis 9:4-6 God speaking to Noah as he comes out of the ark, tells Noah that a person's life should be treated very seriously. In actual fact in Genesis 9:6, God says: “Whoever sheds the blood of a human being by other human beings shall their blood be shed."
Why does God tell us to kill a killer, a murderer? Well very simply because you are made in the image of God and as a human being you are fearfully and wonderfully made. That means that God gave human beings the law of retaliation, that when somebody kills another person in a premeditated way, planning it and consciously murdering them, then we are to take their life. Now notice that this law of retaliation means that it is to be an eye for an eye. Not when one eye has been plucked out, you can take two eyes in its place. The same applies if somebody consciously murders another person, wilfully, in a premeditated way, his life is to be taken. But only his life. Not his children's lives, not his wife's life, not his brothers or sisters lives, only his life. It is a life for a life. That was God's command all the way back from after the flood. (Today, constitutionally based laws by humans, have replaced God’s command with prison sentences, but that is a topic for another time.) As God recognised in us as human beings, the very image of God, that is why we see that God made human life sacred. God has said of your life, that your life is sacred. It is set apart. It is different from any other life on this planet.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus extends this definition of murder not just to the wilful taking of a life, but He says, it applies even in the case of anger and hatred of another human being. When there is a planned, consideration of somebody as worth nothing, then we are in danger of hell, for we will suffer the eternal consequences of murder. We are to value human life because God made human life sacred. Your life is sacred to God. We are to treat one another's lives as sacred.
Now, if that defines what murder is and what the value of our life is, then what are the implications of that? What are the implications of the sacredness of life; if human life is made in the image of God? Have you ever thought that you are made in the likeness of God? Human beings are not just a highly developed animal. While it is true that the biological sciences demonstrate many similarities between humans and animals. We then know that those similarities enable the medical researchers to test new medicines on animals, before they test them on human volunteers. We know in history that animals have even been sent into space before human beings, because there is a similarity between our physiology and the physiology of some animals. We need to acknowledge that. But before you think that we are the same as animals, while human beings are highly developed animals, we are more than animals. We are also made in the very image of God. Humans are capable of conceptual thought. You can think about all sides of what you are reading right now. We as human beings have ideas and imagination. We can co-operate with our God and Creator in His divine purposes for this planet. We can respond to God and we are responsible for the creation. We are responsible for our environment as God has given us that responsibility. We can have even moral sensitivity. We have a sense of justice and injustice. We as human beings can communicate, not only with one another, but we can communicate with our Creator and we can understand Him speaking to us.
We have then an eternal dimension to our being. That means that your life has a sacred dimension to it. That you will continue to exist after this existence. Thus, for these reasons, the premeditated destruction of what God has made is very, very serious, because it challenges God's divine intention. Now the world often has a very low view of your value, but God says you are of sacred value. God made your life sacred. I remember meeting a man who had been paralyzed from the waist down. He had been shot in an attempted murder. He owned a garage in the centre of Johannesburg. One of his employees got an assassin to try and kill him. The bullet lodged in his spine and he was paralyzed from the waist down. For me, the tragedy of it all was that the attempted murder was for the handsome price of R400 (Rand) and I thought how poorly the world values human life.
Now if God made humans for eternity and if you and I are going to live in a relationship with God forever, then anyone who destroys what God had in mind is shaking their fist at God. They are pointing their finger into the face of God. Murder steals divine authority. Murder despises the divine evaluation of our lives. Murder shortens the time that God has determined for us on earth. Murder disagrees with God's valuation of our human lives. Murder destroys the very image of God that God has placed in every single one of us as human beings. Whether we are black or white, brown or yellow, all of us are made in the image of God and we have equal value for we are made in His image. Murder insults God.
So, the question you and I need to ask ourselves as we consider the sacredness of human life is, how sacred are you viewing your life? How sacred are you viewing the lives of other human beings around you? Do you perhaps hate somebody? Wish you could wring their neck. Wish they would “just get out of your life.” If you could kill them and you’d get away with it, you might even be tempted to do that. Now, if you think they're worthless, then Jesus says we have as good as murdered. That is because human beings are sacred in His sight. The sacredness of your life means you are precious; you are dearly loved. The Bible tells us that you are so precious that not an angel or another human being can adequately die in your place. It took the infinite, Almighty God Himself, to come into this world, break into His creation and die in your place and mine. Your life is sacred. It is precious to Him. Your life is to be set apart and you are to treat all other human beings that way.
What about babies that haven't even been born yet, are they precious? Well, let's look thirdly, at the issue of abortion. Abortion tampers with the sacredness of unborn human life. Now in South Africa since 1996, the legalization of abortion has meant that over a hundred thousand babies have been killed every year and we're running into the millions now. One in five babies are being murdered in their mother's womb before they even have a voice to cry out “help me, help me”. We need to remember that though this murder, has now been legalized in our country, it takes a judge or a group of judges many hours of deliberation and sifting through all the evidence before they can send a murderer to jail for 14 years. While it takes a (usually) young, emotionally-distraught woman, minutes to agonise and go into an abortion clinic and end the life of a defenceless, sacred human being. There are over 4 000 unborn babies being murdered every day, yet lawmakers elevate the rights of individual mothers above the rights of unborn human beings. Abortion becomes an extremely emotional topic.
The Bible teaches us for instance, in Exodus 21:22–23 (NIV84) “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely … if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life.” Then, in Jeremiah 1, God says that Jeremiah was known before he was even conceived. In Psalm 139, God says that when you were woven together and knitted together in your mother's womb, where He saw you and knew you and loved you. When John the Baptizer was in his mother's womb and Mary came to visit Elizabeth, we read that John leapt for joy in his mother's womb, as he heard Mary's voice and recognized the presence of the Creator of all the universe (Luke 1). Unborn babies have cognition. They know what's going on around them, which is one of the reasons some mothers sing to the unborn babies or play classical music. Because in the womb that “bundle of cells” as the world calls it, or that foetus, is actually a human being. It has cognition. It can understand.
The world has many debates for and against this issue. They debate when the foetus becomes human, at this stage or that stage, but where there is a heartbeat and there are brain waves, there is a human life. Just as brain waves and a heartbeat are proof of life in injured adult humans. That “foetus” is not just a collection of cells. That is a human being. She or he is growing in the mother's womb, and God has given life to that person. Out of all the millions of possible combinations of sperm cells and ovum, God gave life to that couple of cells. The two that God brought together.
We need to remember that that unborn life would become human. We should not agree with any callous taking of human life or the careless interference with that life. Whether it is abortion through chemical or surgical means, no matter how desperate we are. Yet at the same time, while we understand all of these truths about abortion, that means we as Christians need to act. We need to say clearly that every abortion is the murder of a helpless human being, because God made human life sacred. Secondly, we need to reach out in compassion to emotionally distraught mothers and do everything in our power to assist them. To alert them to the temptation to sin in even considering murder. Then, if they have committed that murder, to point them to Christ Jesus who alone can meet their need for forgiveness and finding new life again. Where there are unborn or new-born babies and we encourage mothers not to abort these human beings, we then need to provide adoption services and where possible adopt babies into loving Christian families. Likewise we need to support orphanages. Like helping with the Door of Hope or St Mary’s, down the road from us, in practical ways. In this complex world, seek to put an end to the systematic murder of human beings.
More human beings are dying in their mother's womb, than are dying in the Ukraine right now or on any other battlefront around the world. This should stop when we realize that one in four babies are murdered in the womb. You can think of a beautiful child. One baby, two babies, three babies and the fourth baby is dead, not even in a coffin. They are sometimes thrown out but most of the time their tissue is used for scientific experiments and sold for great profit by these abortion clinics. We need to stop and say abortion is murder and it is wrong because God made every human life sacred.
What about suicide? Is suicide a murder, if somebody takes their own life? Well, suicide is another issue related to the fact that God made human life sacred. When a person purposefully destroys himself or herself, in an attempt to run away from this life, when they take God's prerogative upon themselves, they are murdering themselves. In the United States, for instance, the suicide rate has increased by 300% since the 1960s to today, especially among young people. While we have free love, we seem to have grown in depression, hatred and murder. The Bible records the suicides of people like Judas and King Saul, when he consulted witches and the list goes on and on. The historical record also records suicides of sometimes famous people throughout history. There are those “heroic” kamikaze pilots who committed suicide by crashing themselves and their planes into allied ships and troops during the Second World War. Then there are the romantic suicides in literature, like Romeo and Juliet and there are the pessimistic suicides among people who lack adequate support to deal with life's difficult burdens.
Suicide remains the worst kind of murder. It is murdering the very image of God and you are made in the likeness of God. GK Chesterton, a Christian writer of more than a hundred years ago, said that “suicide insults everything on earth.” That implies that because God made you as a human being sacred, you and I need to care for one another. We need to attempt to prevent suicide as much as possible. We need to become family for those who are depressed and discouraged. We are to bring as much healing and help to those around us as we can. I still remember the moving tribute at one funeral that I officiated at, where the person giving the tribute spoke up as a single person without any family and saying how the deceased had welcomed them into their family and made them to be a sister alongside them and that that had turned their life around. That not only had they been freed from suicidal tendencies, but they had found the living Lord Jesus in their life.
We as Christians need to reach out to those who are struggling emotionally in whatever way, and we need to play our part. Open our families to be a blessing to others. We need to weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh. We must help bear the heavy burdens of life wherever possible. We all have to carry our own load, but we need to carry one another's burdens (Gal 6). Those traumatic wounds or overwhelming troubles that come to us at times in our life. We need to be there for one another and so we need to prevent one more murder, at least, when we prevent a suicide. If that's the case it's because God made human life sacred, and this then has all sorts of ramifications for how you live and how you think about yourself and about others.
There is what I call “mind murder” that is just as dangerous to our eternal well-being as abortion and suicide. Mind murder is when we hate other people and murder them in our minds. What do we do about all of this? Romans 12:9 tells us hate what is evil, not people, but hate what is evil. Just to sit passively is wrong. We are to hate evil. We are to hate abortion. We are to hate suicide. We are to seek to overcome all these evils not with more evil, but with good. We are to do all the good that we can whether through adoption, through counselling, or through opening our families, etc. Romans 12:17 goes on to say “be careful that you don't repay evil with evil.” Don't bomb abortion clinics — that's repaying evil with evil. Don't despise people that have fallen into the trap of abortion or even attempted suicide. We are to have compassion and reach out. I visit in hospitals and have seen the medical staff show little compassion for those that have come in there with failed suicide attempts. We as Christians need to reach out and go beyond what the medical staff can do. We are to speak up for the unborn wherever we can. We are to do what we can but not support more murder, assisted suicide or suicidal talk and abortion in any form. We are to feel for humanity. We are to feel what God feels for you and for me.
We are to remember that God made your human life sacred. You are more valuable than the most valuable Picasso painting. You are so valuable that God Himself in Jesus Christ died for you and you are to treat yourself and others as sacred and valuable. God made your life in His image. God made you in His likeness. Treasure what He has made. Care for what He has made in your life and in the lives of those around you.
When you fall into temptation, when hatred creeps up into your heart, if you are murdering somebody in your thoughts, then run to Jesus. Confess your sin to Him. Ask Him to forgive you that hatred or bitterness. Ask Him not only to forgive you by His shed blood on the cross but to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Then not only to forgive you and cleanse you but to fill you with a supernatural power to love everybody that He puts around you, because they are made in the image of God. They are sacred in His sight and should be sacred in your sight. That means, start with loving what He has made in you and looking for help as you go through the attacks that come to everyone. For no temptation that has come to you, which is not common to all of us, but God has made a way out under it for you. Turn to Jesus today. Ask Him to save you; to change you from the inside out.
Let's pray together. Oh Lord Jesus, in a world of hatred, we so easily forget the sacredness of human life. Thank you for making me in Your image. Thank you for making each and every person in the world, in Your image. Thank you Lord, that we are all sacred. Help us to treat one another as precious and as sacred in one another's sight and to turn from all hatred and bitterness and all anger that rises so quickly. To turn to You moment by moment, day by day, for forgiveness and cleansing and empowering by your Holy Spirit. To live lives of love, joy and peace. For this we plead with You and pray for, in the powerful name of Jesus Christ our Saviour and God. Amen.