Do
not murder
13
“You shall not
murder.”
Scott Klusendorf, a Christian who boldly stands up for
the unborn in the area of prolife ministry ask people to ponder the question of
taking life by giving this example. If
you are washing up with you back turned to your child and he asks “Can I kill
this?” you must first understand what the ‘this’ is before you can give an
answer. If it is a spider – go for it. If it’s the neighbour’s cat – absolutely
not. If it is his little brother – now
we need to sit down and have a serious talk.
What
is murder?
Bible has a very definite definition of what murder
is. It is the purposeful taking of an
innocent human life. In our above
example, though all three involve ‘killing’ only the last one is considered by
God as murder. When we think of serious
crimes, the one that would top the list in most people’s mind is murder. Even when we talk to the unbeliever and bring
up their keeping of the 10 Commandments – the first one they will affirm is
“Well I’ve never murdered anyone.” I think the reason that we regard murder as
so serious is that it is permanent. If
you dishonour your parents you can apologise and try to make it up. If you steal you can always return the
item. This cannot be done with murder. However
the most important reason murder is so serious is that it is an attack upon the
image of God (imago dei). This is why
murder is limited to humans – only humans are created in the image of God. He
created human beings as His prize possession. He created human beings as His
beautiful and unique masterpiece and that means, that each and every one of us,
no matter our nationality, or our background, no matter our socio-economic
status are precious in God’s sight, because we bear the mark of our great
Creator. And that is why the Lord detests the sin of murder. Because when we
choose to murder someone, we are choosing to stamp out of existence one of
God’s image bearers. Those who commit the sin of murder, have committed an act
of pure and unadulterated evil in the sight of the Lord. That is why God tells
us in 1 John 3:12, “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and
murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil
and his brother’s righteous.”
But
I would never murder another person….
Thankfully murder is rare and I am sure that most of
us will live our whole lives never meeting anyone who has murdered or attempted
to murder another person. So does that
mean most people can say they have never broken this Commandment? If you’ve read the Bible before, then you
know all too well that Jesus takes the application of this Commandment one step
farther. In Matthew 5:21-22 Jesus speaks
these words, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not
murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to
you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger
of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of
the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”.
You see, Jesus not only condemns the sin of physical murder, He also condemns
the very root of that sin. He prohibits the causes which lead up to murder:
things like hatred, anger and the seeking of revenge. Under Jesus’ criteria, all of us have broken
this Commandment. Yes we have not
physically murdered anyone but well are all guilty of murdering someone in our
hearts.
Spiritual
murder
How can I commit spiritual murder? Well not only can a
man die physically but he can die spiritually and eternally; because of the
fall man is dead spiritually but the gospel of the grace of Christ has brought
a way by which men and women can be brought from death unto life. So we can commit spiritual murder by
preventing anyone form coming into contact with the way of Life. The Lord Jesus
uttered some of the severest words in the Bible against those who interfered
with the spiritual opportunities, especially of the young. He said to his
disciple that it were better that a millstone were hanged around their neck. He
condemned the Scribes and Pharisees who prevented men coming to a knowledge of
the truth.
But what about ourselves? Have we withheld the message
of life from anyone? Do you remember what Paul said Woe is unto me if I preach
not the gospel Have we failed to tell the message of life? Have you been
keeping it to yourself? If we are to be concerned about the physical well being
of people then how much more do we need concerned about their soul. Men and
women need to hear about the way of life.
Summing
it up
We don’t like to talk about murder and in some instances,
it could be seen as ‘bad form’ to bring it up in polite conversation and
perhaps that is right. Yet it took a
murder to bring about our salvation. We
often, correctly, speak about Christ’s sacrifice – yet if we define murder as
the purposeful taking of an innocent life, then what the Romans and Jews did
was murder Jesus. However, Jesus
voluntarily did this for us
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished
by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that
brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Healed indeed.
Let us always give Him praise.
Song
for the day
I have found this song that picks up what we have just
read in Isiah 53:3-7 regarding Christ’s sacrifice. You can listen to it here
Prayer
for the day
Our merciful Father,
Forgive us for the times that we have allowed anger towards
our fellow man to grow in our hearts. We
ask that you remove this seed of bitterness before it grows to hatred and in
doing so violate this command by committing murder in our hearts. Let us be known as people of peace following
the example of your Son the Prince of Peace.
We thank you, that even though you hate murder, you permitted it to
happen to your Son so that all our sins might be forgiven and that even the
vilest sinner who repents and turns to you can find true forgiveness, peace and
life.
By the shed of blood of Jesus we pray this.
Amen
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