What does God say about suicide? - Suicide - TouchPoints

Genesis 1:27So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them.

1 Corinthians 6:20for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice for you so that you could have life. Taking one’s own life would go against everything Jesus taught and sacrificed.

Psalm 139:13-16You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Jeremiah 1:4-5The Lord gave me this message: “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

These words are not just nice poetry—they are inspired words that describe God’s creation of each individual. Every person ever born was known by God before his or her birth. Human beings are God’s workmanship, created by God for a purpose. Human life is God’s to create and God’s to end. Suicide is making a decision to end life, a decision that is God’s alone.

1 Kings 19:3-9³Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there.⁴ Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”⁵ Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat!”⁶ He looked around and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again.⁷ Then the angel of the LORD came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you.”⁸ So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God.⁹ There he came to a cave, where he spent the night. But the LORD said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Jeremiah 20:14-18¹⁴ Yet I curse the day I was born! May no one celebrate the day of my birth.¹⁵ I curse the messenger who told my father, “Good news—you have a son!”¹⁶ Let him be destroyed like the cities of old that the LORD overthrew without mercy. Terrify him all day long with battle shouts,¹⁷ because he did not kill me at birth. Oh, that I had died in my mother’s womb, that her body had been my grave!¹⁸ Why was I ever born? My entire life has been filled with trouble, sorrow, and shame.

Jonah 4:1-11¹ This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry.² So he complained to the LORD about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.³ Just kill me now, LORD! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.”⁴ The LORD replied, “Is it right for you to be angry about this?”⁵ Then Jonah went out to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under as he waited to see what would happen to the city.⁶ And the LORD God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah’s head, shading him from the sun. This eased his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant.⁷ But God also arranged for a worm! The next morning at dawn the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered away.⁸ And as the sun grew hot, God arranged for a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. “Death is certainly better than living like this!” he exclaimed.⁹ Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?” “Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to die!”¹⁰ Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly.¹¹ But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

The Bible certainly recognizes the temptation to take our own life or the desire to have God take it from us at our request, but it consistently expresses God’s unwillingness to agree with those desires. The desire may be real, but it is always provoked by fear, anger, frustration, and a failure to see God’s role in our circumstances.