Salvation and Suicide
I saw this question online the other day:
Can a genuine Christian commit suicide and still go to Heaven?
That’s . . . a dangerous question. Mainly because it immediately begs a follow-up: Why are you asking?
I’ll revisit that danger soon, but for now, let’s start with the simple and obvious: nowhere does the Bible address this question. That might seem at first to leave us stumbling in the dark, but I don’t think that’s the case. It seems to me that if suicide—which, let’s face it, is the ultimate “extreme”—automatically damned a person, God would have told us somewhere in His word.
For He knows what we are made of; He knows our frame is frail, and He remembers we came from dust. [Psalm 103:14]
The Lord is even more aware than we are of what we could be tempted to resort to under duress.
So, in light of His inhumanly deep compassion, it seems to me that the answer to the question is a qualified Yes—if.
I believe it’s possible for a true Christian to commit suicide and enter Heaven if the suicide is what we might call a “surge of weakness”—a momentary taking-our-eyes-off-of-Jesus—rather than the consequence of abandoning the Lord. Suicide is a type of murder, but remember that King David committed both adultery and murder (the first led to the second), yet there’s no Biblical evidence that this rendered him suddenly “unsaved.”
I believe the same principle can be inferred from God’s dealings with ancient Israel:
They were not consistently faithful to Him, and they were untrue to their covenant with Him. Yet by His great compassion, He forgave them and decided not to put an end to them. . . . He was mindful that they were human, frail and fleeting, like a wind that touches one’s skin for a moment, then vanishes. [Psalm 78:37-39]
This doesn’t mean that God excused Israel’s waywardness as if it “didn’t matter” or that they “couldn’t help it.” It does mean that He didn’t write them off.
Any sin can be either a mere lapse, or the outcome of apostasy—a willful walking-away from the Lord. Apostasy, if left unrepented, will send you to Hell; a mere lapse will not.
After all, we don’t cease from all sinning just cuz we’re saved. It’s common knowledge among God’s people that conversion doesn’t render you immune to sin, and that your fallen nature will continue to manifest itself in all sorts of ways. Frequently. And often catching us off-guard.
Heck, this frustrating phenomenon even shows up in the writing of Scripture. I find Psalm 89 very instructive here; among other things, Ethan the Ezrahite wrote:
I will sing of Your unfailing love, Eternal One, forever. . . .
How long must we endure, O Eternal One?
Will You hide Yourself forever?
How long will Your wrath burn like fire?
Remember my days are numbered.
Have You created the children of Adam to live futile lives? . . .O Lord, where is the unfailing love You showed in times past? . . .
Praise the Eternal always. Amen. Amen. [vv. 1, 46-47, 49, 52]
Based solely on these few verses, we could be forgiven for thinking that maybe Ethan had a split personality! In the very first verse he declares that he’ll “sing of [God’s] unfailing love . . . forever”—but in verse 49 he demands to know “where is the unfailing love You showed in times past?”!
Yet it’s in the final verse that he recovers a measure of his initial faith: “Praise the Eternal always.” He isn’t necessarily “sing[ing] of [God’s] unfailing love” here, but he is praising Him, nonetheless.
Thus Psalm 89 displays Ethan’s inner turmoil: his faith is fluctuating, yet the Bible nowhere indicates that this “flux” imperils a man’s soul.
Now, apply this to suicide: it’s a sin, to be sure, but in the life of a believer it can be viewed as a “faith flux” that doesn’t necessarily “doom” him. It’s a lapse in either (a) confidence that God will supply the power to endure whatever one is suffering, or (b) willingness to go through that suffering.
One commenter who responded to the online question “Can a genuine Christian commit suicide and still go to Heaven?” argued very flatly, insistently, that a genuine Christian definitely would not commit suicide, and so if you kill yourself, you couldn’t possibly be a legit believer in Christ.
Now, maybe that commenter is the rare exception, but I’d wager that in most cases only someone who hasn’t gone through unusually extreme suffering would be so cocksure in the above assessment. Of course, I’m not suggesting that extreme suffering “justifies” suicide; only that it would make the average person—even a saint—more vulnerable to the temptation. After all, nothing is “tempting” if it doesn’t actually appeal to some part of your nature.
Ergo: it shouldn’t be surprising that extreme suffering would make suicide “appealing” to the average person.
Every single sin, “big” or “small,” is predicated on some kind of appeal to our fallenness, and not only insults God but also grieves His heart. Yet Jesus himself said explicitly that “every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.” (Matthew 12:31)1
“Every sin” must logically include suicide.
Jesus’ words, supported by the Bible as a whole, also rule out the Catholic-type view that suicide is a “mortal”—i.e., damning—sin, in part because it leaves no opportunity for repentance.2 The genuine Christian doesn’t stop sinning just because they’re saved; the vast majority of us are well aware of this. Therefore it stands to reason that we could die (or the Lord could return) at any given moment, and we might have committed this or that sin earlier in the day, or earlier in our lives, but either forgot about it, or for some other reason just didn’t get around to dealing with it between ourselves and God. It should be obvious to any reasonable, Biblically informed person that this would not mean you automatically go to Hell. Indeed, we all have sins that we forget about, or wrestle with confessing.
In a similar vein, another commenter quoted Matthew 24:13—“the one who endures to the end will be saved”—insisting that suicide is the opposite of “endur[ing] to the end,” and so if one kills himself, he’s doomed.
But this could not have been what Jesus meant, for two reasons.
“Enduring” can’t mean living a sinless life; otherwise none of us could claim to have “endured” to the end, and thus none of us would end up saved! And Jesus had already said that every sin except blasphemy is forgivable. Logically that must include suicide, because the Lord only gave one exception.
In the immediate context of Matthew 24:13, Jesus warns his followers about false “messiahs” (verses 4-5), false prophets (v. 11), and rampant, willful sin resulting in a loss of love (v. 12). Therefore, when he referred to those who “endure,” he meant those who resist false messiahs, false prophets, and rampant, willful sin. The ones who “endure” continue to cling to Jesus as the true Messiah and our only way out of sin.
That doesn’t logically make suicide impossible for the genuine Christian, who in many cases might be going through very intense suffering and doesn’t see any way out or through. Tragic, yes; impossible, no.
And yet . . .
Suicide’s uniqueness
The following doesn’t negate what I just affirmed; however, we need to be aware that suicide isn’t just “any” sin. It stands out. We don’t just glide casually into suicide (or murder or other extreme sins), like, say, losing our cool when someone cuts us off in traffic, or reacting with alarm when a stressful situation arises unexpectedly. You don’t go to bed in peace and wake up suicidal.
Suicide is, by nature, the outcome of prolonged and unusual suffering, from which the sufferer can’t imagine any hope of escape. Therefore, suicide is a choice one makes at the end of a process—which raises the question: How did this person handle themselves spiritually during this process?
Suicide could be evidence that one has abandoned Christ altogether; that one is an apostate. Part of me wants to ask a suicidal person, “Do you believe in Christ, or don’t you? What’s the evidence that you were ever saved? What spiritual fruit can you point to since your alleged conversion?”
I couldn’t possibly say that under no circumstances would it ever be appropriate to put such questions to someone with suicidal ideation. However, it seems to me that a person in that dire predicament wouldn’t be thinking rationally in the first place, and thus likely wouldn’t be able to ponder such questions.
On the third hand, from a Biblical standpoint, some kind of conversation must happen, fueled by God’s word and Spirit. We can’t force or “emote” somebody into avoiding suicide. We have to talk to them. And they have to be gently led toward rational thought. And that rational thought—we’re talking about suicidal Christians here—must be centered around Jesus Christ and their relationship with Him.
There’s no reason to think the Holy Spirit won’t help this person through that restorative process; a reversal of the process that led them to the point of considering taking their own life.
In any case, though suicide is, in some ways, a unique sin—
It involves a process that is both intellectual and emotional;
It doesn’t necessarily mean this person is unsaved—but it could mean that;
We can’t know which of these possibilities is the truth, in any one case.
The suicidal person is half-right
Let’s return to the question I posed earlier: If you want to know whether a Christian can commit suicide yet still make it to Heaven—why are you asking? I followed up with that individual in private: but thankfully it turned out that the poster was not, in fact, considering taking his own life.
But to anyone who may be (Christian or non-), I can assure you of this: you’re half-right and half-wrong.
You’re “half-right” in the sense that life as you know it must end.
You’re “half-wrong” in the sense that physically killing yourself isn’t a solution to what you’re going through.
The real solution—the solution to our entire fallen life—is to “kill” yourself spiritually. This is a core teaching of the New Testament; the veritable “secret” of the Christian life.
We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. [Romans 6:6]
My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. [Galatians 2:203]
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. [Galatians 5:24]
[Y]ou died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. [Colossians 3:3]
Notice that in all these verses, the Apostle Paul is referring to a past event: he’s describing what happened to us spiritually upon our conversion. At that moment, God figuratively identified us with His own Son’s death. It’s as if you yourself have died. And naturally, when a person dies, a funeral and burial is in order:
Your baptism shows that they buried you, just like they buried Christ after his death. It is like you died with him and they buried you with him. [Romans 6:4]
But I only quoted part of that verse. Paul goes on to say that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” Here I’ve switched to quoting from the New Living Translation, which is a little closer to the literal sense, indicating that this “new life” isn’t relegated to the future, but is right now. Yet another translation expresses it this way: those in spiritual union with Christ may “walk in newness of life.”
But the postconversion life is also a type of “suicide”:
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. . . . And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” [Jesus—Luke 9:23; 14:27]
“If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” [Matthew 10:39]
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you . . . for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. [Colossians 3:5, 9-10]
[T]hrow off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the [Holy] Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. [Ephesians 4:22-24]
But . . . what if you come to believe that you simply can’t handle whatever suffering you’re experiencing? That you simply must escape?
I can tell you this much: you might still be one of God’s people, and thus enter Heaven after you’ve killed yourself. But you’ll be ashamed to face the Lord in that circumstance.
You’ll deeply regret your suicide.
You’ll forfeit certain heavenly rewards that God would have given you if you’d depended on Him to empower you through the suffering and out the other side. The rewards you could’ve enjoyed for eternity if you’d “killed” yourself spiritually while on Earth.
So, now that you’ve asked “Can a Christian commit suicide and still go to Heaven?”—ask yourself this: Is that really how you want to go out?
A fictional character once asked:
Have you ever seen the aftermath of a suicide bombing? . . . A nightmare. Blood, parts of people. . . . [L]ike a perfect circle of death. . . .
That’s every suicide. Every single one. An act of terror perpetrated against everyone who’s ever known you. Everyone who’s ever loved you. The people closest to you, the ones who cherish you are the ones who suffer the most pain, the most damage. Why would you do that? Why would you do that to people who love you?4
Eloquently brutal. And that’s only considering the human cost. If you’re considering suicide, do you really want to do that to your Lord and Savior—and then face Him immediately after?
More food for thought:
†
“Blasphemy [or “slander”] against the Holy Spirit” can be understood as knowingly attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan or evil. Note carefully the key word here: “knowingly.” This is indicated in the context in which Jesus spoke.
I say “Catholic-type” because Roman Catholicism used to hold this view, but now looks at suicide in a more nuanced way, allowing for such things as mental illness (however that’s defined) or extreme emotional distress that the sufferer may be convinced is unbearable. Nonetheless there continue to be well-intended Christians who hold that suicide will damn you precisely because you can’t later repent of it.
Cf. Galatians 6:14.