Acts of Murder

The Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land. . . . They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns.

–Hosea 4:1–3

The sixth commandment says, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). What does “murder” encompass? The most obvious answer is physical acts of murder. But in today’s world, not everyone agrees on what that means, so let’s look at four acts of killing prohibited in the Bible.

1. Homicide. Since the first murder (Genesis 4:8), people have been killing one another in anger. Hosea 4:1–3 says, “The Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land. . . . They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns.” Doesn’t that sound like the world we live in? People employ violence in horrific ways. They take somebody’s life because of perceived slights against them. That is prohibited by the sixth commandment.
2. Suicide. Many people who take their own lives do so out of desperation, believing Satan’s lies that life is hopeless or that their loved ones would be better off without them. We are to deal compassionately with people who have mental illness and assure families that suicide isn’t an unpardonable sin.^* However, it is wrong to take a life we didn’t create, including our own. Psalm 100:3 says, “It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”
3. Euthanasia. Euthanasia is also known as physician-assisted suicide. It’s not the cessation of medical treatment, such as a cancer patient opting not to continue chemotherapy; euthanasia is the termination of life. Multiple states permit some form of medically assisted suicide, but no matter what name or legal protections we give this practice, it constitutes the taking of life.
4. Abortion. People often ask, “Where does the Bible address abortion?” The passage we often point to is Psalm 139:13: “You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.” But the sanctity of unborn life is also addressed in Exodus 21:22–23, which says if a pregnant woman is struck, the penalty for injuring her unborn child is “life for life.” In his commentary on Exodus, John Calvin wrote, “The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, . . . and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.” Taking the life of an unborn child is murder.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “The Sixth Commandment: Preserve Life” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2023.

* If you struggle with thoughts of suicide, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988.

John Calvin, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses, Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, trans. Charles William Bingham, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1854), 41–42.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.