Suicide revisited

Some months ago we looked at suicide among Christians. Here Graham Heaps returns to this sad subject.

Though it was 25 years ago, I remember the occasion very well. It was Sunday morning, my fiancee and I were in a church in the south of England, not far from where my parents lived.
We had been to the church several times, knew the minister and were getting to know others in the church. The minister stood up to give out the notices, and what he said shocked me deeply. He explained that the previous minister of the church had taken his own life.
He had apparently been feeling very depressed and had gassed himself in his garage, using the exhaust fumes from his car. The matter was graciously and supportively handled, but I was only a young Christian and very disturbed. How was this possible? Could a believer get that low? Would the Lord allow a child of his to take his own life?
Sadly, in the years since that Sunday morning, I have heard of a number of other professing Christians who have taken their own lives. They have been people who not only lived their lives with God's children, but gave every evidence of being themselves the choice servants of the Lord. I have also felt way out of my depth as a pastor trying to help godly men and women who have contemplated destroying their lives.

Ahithophel and Judas

It has been widely held that no Christian can ever commit suicide: that however low a Christian's spirits may be, God will keep him back from this ultimate evil. In support of this position it must be said that there are no clear-cut examples in Scripture of believers taking their own life, in spite of the fact that we often find the Lord's people in the depths. Indeed, the key examples of suicide in the Word of God are of the most evil of men, whose hearts have been hardened in spite of God's great grace to them. Ahithophel, David's treacherous friend and Judas Iscariot are striking examples of graceless men passing recklessly into the judgment of God by their own hands. These two men have often been held up as the final proof that it only the worldly or impenitent man who can destroy himself.

Job and Elijah

And yet, to declare that no one who commits suicide could be saved eternally seems to go beyond Scripture. It is evident that the Lord's people may be brought very low by affliction, conflict and bodily weakness. We see in Scripture great men of God wishing they were dead. Job, in deep despair, says to his friend Eliaphaz: 'O that I might have my request, that God would grant me what I hope for, that God would be willing to crush me, to loose his hand and cut me off' (Job 6.8-9).
Jonah (Jonah 4.3) and Elijah (1 Kings 19.4) both pray to be allowed to die, feeling utter frustration with their circumstances.
It is, of course, true that there is all the difference in the world between wishing you were dead and attempting to take your own life, and yet godly Elijah certainly puts his life in danger by rushing out into the desert with no food and water. God, in mercy, provides for his disheartened servant (1Kings 19.5-7) and withholds any questioning of Elijah's attitude and behaviour until later - a marvellous example of how to care for the severely depressed. So Elijah is preserved from the ultimate folly. It is encouraging to notice that God's love for him is not changed by his longing for death. Indeed, that divine affection is seen more clearly than ever in God's life-saving intervention.

God's intervention

Thankfully, our loving Father often intervenes at the point of greatest need to prevent his deeply-disturbed child from following the seemingly compelling logic of a deranged mind. There are many wonderful testimonies to confirm that. Yet can we be so certain that he will always intervene, and that therefore we must declare all who commit suicide to be apostate and lost? That appears to be saying far more than Scripture says.
Scripture recognises that the Lord will keep all those in whom he has begun a good work (Philippians 1.6). He will keep them from final apostasy. But he does not promise to keep them from all other vile kinds of sin. David is a tragic demonstration of that. If the Lord does not always keep his children from adultery and murder, can we be certain that he will always keep them back from this great 'evil'?

Unconfessed sin?

It will not do to say (with the learned Charles Hodge) that suicide 'is a crime that admits of no repentance and consequently involves the loss of the soul'. It is not even true to say of suicide that it always admits of no repentance. A person who takes 20 paracetamol has time not only for remorse, but the godly sorrow of true repentance.
Furthermore, it is surely a fallacy to imply that the only sins from which the Lord's people may be pardoned are those which are expressly confessed. All die with unconfessed sin, but to those who rest on Christ it is pardoned. Is it possible to believe that the Lord has singled out this grievous sin as unpardonable - without making that clear in his Word - so that a disturbed, troubled and deluded man who loves God but is duped by Satan into thinking that suicide is the only answer will be lost if he succeeds in his madness?
There can be no doubt that for a believer to attempt to take his life is to succumb to a terrible lie of Satan. God alone has the right to determine our life span. Life is precious and sacred. The most distressing of lives can be lived to his glory. His grace is sufficient in all circumstances. The Christian 'knows' all that. Therefore, for a Christian to attempt to 'end it all' is to begin to adopt once more the stance of the hopeless unbeliever. It is a great sin indeed, and totally irrational.

William Cowper

Yet it is not difficult to see from the life of the famous Christian poet, William Cowper, how even a believer may come to think that suicide is the only answer. Cowper was a melancholic. Not a few members of his extended family suffered from awful bouts of mental illness. His natural tendencies were made worse by a number of very painful experiences. His mother died when he was only six. He was sent away to school where he was severely bullied. As a young man training for law he was a failure. Then a close friend of his was killed in a swimming accident.
It was all made worse in his mind by his sense of guilt at so many squandered opportunities and by the fear of being exposed as a useless failure. At the age of 31 he tried to kill himself and his incompetent attempts could be amusing if they were not so tragic. But God used Cowper's distress mightily and he was converted shortly afterwards while living in a mental asylum! Great joy replaced his gloom and foreboding.
Yet Cowper's problems were not all behind him, because when God converts a man he does not transform his temperament. Nine years after his conversion, while he was living in Olney, near to his dear friend, John Newton. Cowper fell into great depression (perhaps brought on in part by criticism of his platonic friendship with the godly widow, Mary Unwin). Many biographers assert that at that time Cowper again attempted suicide. All Cowper said w hen writing an account some years later for his friend, Lady Hesketh, was that the doctor had recommended the Newtons and Mary Unwin to show particular vigilance lest Cowper attempt suicide, to which Cowper adds the telling comment 'a caution for which there was the greatest occasion'.

Natural disposition

When Cowper had this period of more than 12 months of terrible affliction in 1773, he was already a mature believer and author of all the best-known and loved of his hymns. Yet he was for months in the blackest of despair, increased by a recurring nightmare (that he was apt to believe) to the effect that he was cast off by God. His impression of this was so great that he often believed it above the promises of Holy Scripture. And Cowper suffered further severe times of darkness, especially in the last years of his life.
Cowper's great problem was his natural disposition and constitution. Grace supported and strengthened him, but did not remove his weakness and proneness to serious depression. Grace removes none of us from all the effects of the curse. Why the Lord allowed this great servant of his to go through such anguished darkness in which he seems to have at least contemplated suicide is a great and insoluble mystery. The Scripture does not justify God's dealings with his own. What it does do is to assure us that 'in all our affliction, he is afflicted', and that one day he will wipe every tear from our eyes.
Thankfully, the Lord preserved his servant William Cowper from taking his own life. In his great mercy he does that for his children in the vast majority of cases. Sometimes he interventions are clearly and strikingly miraculous. Far more often he preserves his children through the living concern, acceptance and service of other believers.

Caring

It can be frightening and exhausting to try to care for an unstable and deeply-depressed Christian. Indeed, so inadequate can we seem for the task that we can be sorely tempted to pass the job to others or run out on our friend fearing that we are only making things worse. It may well be that professional help is needed, but however much professional help a Christian friend or family member may receive, it will almost certainly be just as vital that they know they are wanted, accepted and valued by their friends if this awful temptation to take their own life is to be resisted. Such love will need to go beyond reassuring words of support and promises to pray for the depressed friend. There will be need to be frequent practical demonstrations of love, which will prove costly in terms of effort and nervous energy. Carers often feel painfully alone in their ordeal. No one else seems to understand the pressures of the situation. But the Lord knows and he has promised to help.

Resist

The same promise of sufficient grace is also God's Word to his depressed follower. God promises grace to withstand the beguiling temptation that his children sometimes face, to believe that taking their own life is the best option in their circumstances. And it can be a powerful temptation because suicide seems to offer both immediate heaven to the sufferer and relief of a great burden to the family and friends - though they do not see the situation like that at all. But it is no kind of solution, for God who is all-wise says that self-murder is very wrong. If you have such thoughts, do not listen to them. Resist them with all your power.

Some Scriptural consideration concerning severe depression and the temptation to suicide