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Suicide by
Crucifixion
Growing up in my parents denomination, I was taught that Christ was a martyr; a victim of circumstances beyond his control. But later, when I became a Bible student, I discovered that Christ wasn't a victim at all; no, he went to the cross on purpose: deliberately.
§. Matt 20:28 . . The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
§. John 10:17-18 . . For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This injunction I received from my Father.
§. Matt 26:52-54 . .Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?
Think about it. The Bible's Christ could control the weather, restore withered limbs, stop the flow of chronic bleeding, activate a man's eyes blind from birth, multiply loaves and fishes, turn water into wine, walk on water, pass through solid walls, raise the dead to life again; and summon legions of angels in his defense. Do you really think any army on earth could crucify a man with those kinds of abilities unless he volunteered? No, the Bible's Christ could have easily spoken one word and his tormentors would have all dropped dead in an instant.
§. Isa 53:7 . . He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth.
Some people only accept the concept of suicide if it's self inflicted; but there are such things as assisted suicide, voluntary suicide, and suicide by cop. Yes, people have actually deliberately provoked the police to shoot them dead.
Voluntary suicide would fall into the category of situations like the sinking of the Titanic. There were only enough life boats aboard Titanic for half the passengers. So the captain gave orders to take only women and children aboard the boats. The male passengers could have easily mutinied and overpowered the women and children to save themselves, but valiantly chose to go down with the ship instead.
Giving one's life to save another's is an acceptable form of suicide; and it's the route Christ took to ransom his fellow men's souls from the wrath of God.
§. Rom 5:6-10 . . For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a worthy man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been made innocent by his blood, we shall be spared the wrath of God through him.
Some people pity Christ; but I don't pity him at all; not one little bit; no, I do not pity; I applaud. Had I been there, with hind-sight, I would have driven the nails in myself and been only too happy to do it because I do not want to go to Hell; no sir, I don't. I sincerely believe God means business about the reservoir of flaming liquid in Rev 20:11-15.
The Bible's hell is not a place you want to be. If people in there could step on somebody right now to get out; I guarantee you they wouldn't hesitate to climb up out of there on the bodies of their own children. People up here on the surface just don't appreciate how bad it is down there or they would flock to Jesus for safety— bellowing, yelping, and stepping all over each other —like a panicked crowd fleeing a burning nightclub; they would trample everybody in their way just for a chance to grab his garment and beg for mercy.
To give you an more graphic picture of the desperation people feel in Hell; feast you glims on this picture:
Holocaust prisoners may have marched to their deaths quietly but they certainly did not go to their deaths quietly. According to eye-witness accounts, they were herded into garage-like buildings and the doors shut tightly behind them. Then a canister containing a toxic fuming substance was lowered into the room through a small hole in the roof just big enough for the canister to fit.
After the initial panic, and all the screams and shrieks subsided, and no movement could be detected from inside, the doors were opened and the sight that greeted the Nazis was as typical as it was ghastly. What the prisoners did was try to climb on top of each other in a frantic attempt to reach the little hole in the roof for some fresh air. The pile of bodies resembled a conical shape like the paper cones stacked in dispensers alongside water coolers: except the tip of the pile was up instead of down, so that the last people standing ended their lives atop the fresh corpses of their fellow prisoners.
In some instances, prisoners attempted to burrow their way out by breaking lumber at the base of walls with their bare hands; but weren't fast enough. I've seen photographs of them with their lifeless arms protruding outside from trying to claw their way to safety.
NOTE: I made a special effort to avoid identifying the ethnic identities of any of the prisoners in my illustration. If somebody's mind read "Jewish prisoners" into the text, it did so without their even thinking about it. It is a matter of historical record that Holocaust prisoners were an amalgam of ethnic Poles, Jews, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, the disabled, homosexual men, and political and religious opponents. Limiting the Holocaust to Jewish victims is stereotyping. Yes, they were there, but they do not own it. In point of fact, Jewish prisoners amounted to barely half.
Anyway; my use of the Holocaust was meant as merely an illustration of the desperate conditions one might expect to encounter in the Bible's hell when they arrive. It in no way was meant to sentence Holocaust victims to hell. : END NOTE
There's a program on cable television called Dirty Jobs. On one episode, host Mike Rowe went to a steel foundry. He donned all the personal protective equipment that foundry workers wear and was tasked with removing a refractory core from one of the kettles that had just been used to pour a mold. The kettle was enormous and he could only reach the core with a long tubular tool called an oxygen lance. After only just a couple of minutes working on that core, his face shield began to melt from the radiant heat coming off that kettle, and the flesh on his face began to actually cook. Afterwards, the foundry supervisor scolded Mike for overstaying the safe time-limit for de-coring a kettle.
If crucifying Christ was the only way to escape circumstances like any of the above, then I say more power to the Roman guards who strung him up.
BTW : There's always somebody to come along and insist that suicide is murder; which is quite ludicrous as Gen 9:5-6, Ex 21:12-14, Lev 24:17, Lev 24:21, and Num 35:31-34 all indicate that murderers kill others rather than themselves. Besides; does anyone seriously consider it prudent to charge the heroic men of the Titanic with murder?
The God of Love?
Is the Bible's God totally a god of love as bleeding-hearts make Him out to be? Not really.
§. Ps 11:5 . . the wicked, and the one who loves violence, His soul hates.
Hate that festers within one's soul is a very serious kind of hatred.
The Hebrew word for "violence" in that passage is chamac (khaw-mawce') which is an ambiguous word that can mean: wrong, cruelty, injustice, and oppression.
Webster's definitions of violence include: undue alteration (e.g. perjury, false witness, unapproved editing), discordance, outrage, and causing injury by distortion, infringement, and/or profanation,
Webster's further defines outrage as: (1) an act of violence or brutality, (2) injury and insult, (3) an act that violates accepted standards of behavior or taste.
Those are not just behaviors that God hates; but clearly hates the perpetrators of all such acts too. I get so weary of hearing the worn out cliché that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. Bull!
§. Ps 5:4-5 . .You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell . . . you hate all who do wrong.
That festering hatred is precisely why it was essential that the Bible's Christ throw himself to the wolves.
§. 1John 2:2 . . And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Webster's defines "propitiation" as: to gain or regain the favor or goodwill of; viz: to appease, and/or to conciliate.
The lost have trouble sometimes appreciating that there's really a God out there somewhere in the celestial sphere just waiting to drop an anvil on their heads and that is precisely what makes the gospel the good news that it really is. It tells of a God who, while passionately hating people's guts, at the same time pities them enough to help them avoid the wrath of His own indignation.
Take for example the below beatitude:
§. Matt 5:7 . . Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
The Lord wasn't talking about forgiveness in that beatitude. The word for "merciful" is eleemon (el-eh-ay'-mone) which means: compassionate (as an adjective). And the word for "mercy" is eleeo (el-eh-eh'-o) which means: to pity (as a verb) viz: to be tender, kindhearted, responsive, sympathetic, warm, warmhearted, cordial, and accommodating.
So then, what the Lord is saying is; if you are cruel, thoughtless, and unresponsive to your fellow man— if you lack the milk of human kindness —then you will get no sympathy from the Bible's God whatsoever.
But what about God? Is He somehow above that beatitude? Does He practice a double standard? Didn't that beatitude say anything to Him as well as to the Lord's audience? Well, if compassion were a country, the Bible's God would be China; and just to prove it; he commissioned His very own, only-son to throw himself to the wolves on behalf of the very people He hates.
§. John 3:16-17 . .For God so cared for the world that He donated His only son, so that everyone who relies upon him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His son into the world to condemn it, but to rescue it.
That is remarkable; and I'll tell you: there is no way that I would ever throw my one and only son to the wolves for the people on my hate list; no way. Let 'em all go to Hell; I say. But not the Lord's father; no, the Bible's God is not like that— but God help the unappreciative churl that sniffs at what the Lord's father has done for them because the full brunt of Almighty God's repressed anger is going to come right to a sudden boil the moment they appear before Him in court.
§. Heb 10:29-31 . . How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as unholy the blood of the covenant that sanctified Him, and who has insulted the Spirit of kindness and generosity? For we know him who said: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
That's scary, and definitely not the usual kind of Hallmark Card that you'll find your average rank and file pew-warmer sending their friends, associates, and loved ones during the holiday season.
Frequent Objection: Giving up one's life for another is not suicide.
I can't help but wonder if those who pose that particular objection would at least agree that what the Lord did was heroic? God thinks so, and in point of fact was so impressed with the Lord's performance that He awarded Christ supreme monarch over everything and everybody that exists; except Himself of course.
§. Dan 7:13-14 . . I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like a son of Adam came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they escorted him near before Him.
. . . And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom the one which shall never be destroyed.
§. Php 2:7-11 . . He made himself of no reputation, taking the form of an indentured servant, coming in the likeness of human beings. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
. . .Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is supreme, to the glory of God the Father.
The name that's above every name isn't really "Jesus", no, the name that's above every name is Yhvh. In point of fact, the Bible's God himself now addresses Christ by the name of God.
§. Ps 45:6-7 . .Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your peers.
The Lord's peers are the other kings of the Davidic dynasty; which includes David, the paterfamilias of the dynasty. Christ is even David's superior now because though David was honored as God's firstborn (Ps 89:20-27) he was never promoted to the rank of God, nor granted permission to use God's name as his own; therefore:
§. Ps 110:1 . .Yhvh said to my master: Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.
No king on earth outranks a king with David's status of God's firstborn. So then, in order for Christ to outrank the paterfamilias of Israel's royal dynasty; he has to hold the rank and title of God; which apparently Thomas thought he did.
§. John 20:28-29 . . Thomas answered and said unto him: My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him: Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
Thy Word
