SUICIDE OR HERO???
About 18 years ago, I was in a class of Bible students and we were often given challenging questions and assignments, to make us think and to steer us away from the cliche' and pat answers that can be so typical of modern Christians. Often, our responses to things are so automatic that in all reality, they are void of empathy and compassion--and many times, they are void of real scriptural truth, too. We often answer based on what we heard all of our lives such as, "God won't put more on you than you can bear", which isn't exactly what the Scripture says, but we say it so much, it seems right. In fact, it isn't correct.
I remember the day in our class when the big question came--I'll never forget it, because for me it was life-changing. It wasn't the content of the question, but the challenge to dig deeper in God's Word for truths that aren't always right on the surface that forever changed me. It was realizing that simply reading words, in the Book that held the Words of Life, was not enough--and never would be again, that changed everything, for me. The question we had to answer was this, "Did Jesus commit suicide when He went to the cross?" since He said, "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." [John 10:18, KJV]. The challenge was to prove one way or the other--suicide or not? Of course, this was highly charged; I mean we are talking about Jesus Christ, but the challenge made us think, pray, study and dig not only into the pages of our Bibles but into the Character of our God. Who is He and what would He do?
I don't think there was ever a completely definitive answer, but it more or less boiled down to how we perceived Jesus ourselves, and how we viewed the cross. For me, to see it as a suicide, makes the cross rather pointless; in other words, Jesus simply died and the story ended. I know that isn't how it happened. So, Jesus is my Hero--my Kinsman-Redeemer. I look at this way (rather simplistically); it's the difference between taking a bottle of pills to (selfishly) end my own personal misery or pushing someone out of the way and taking the bullet that was meant for them. He took my bullet--only more so...way more. Suicide by definition is selfish. It considers no one else. Ask me how I know. (That's a long story, for another time!) Anyone considering suicide as an option, is only focused on ending his/her own pain. There isn't much if any thought to the trail of pain left behind for the survivors of their suicide, just their own relief. To actually commit the act, your personal relief has to supersede everything and everybody else. Clearly, that wasn't Jesus' mindset at or before Calvary. It was all about us. There would have been no Calvary, if there had been no "us". He didn't need to die, without an "us".
There was never, and there never will be, anything selfish about Calvary, other than the criminal next to Jesus who challenged Him to come down from the cross--and save him, too, in the process, even though he deserved to be there. It's amazing how selfish we can be when it comes to this temporal, physical "skin" that returns to dust, but how lax we are about the eternal soul we possess that lasts for eternity (thankfully, we see the contrast in the other thief at Calvary who humbled himself before death and asked Jesus to save not his body, but his soul). We, too, sometimes take God's Word and distort it and twist it into something unrecognizable to suit our "old man" while the eternal one starves for attention.
Remember the famous cliche': "God won't put more on you than you can bear". It's a poor paraphrase of this verse of Scripture: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." [1 Corinthians 10:13]. The cliche' has some very important missing elements. The language of the Scripture passage suggests actually that we will suffer some hard things--unimaginably so, but nothing is new under the sun, and God always "makes a way of escape". The first part of the verse makes it clear that although there are some things that we confront that may tempt us to turn our hearts from God, it's possible to endure--it's been done by others. We can stand. The reason we can stand is not human effort or will, but dependence upon the Jesus who "took the bullet", because He is Ever-Present standing in the gap, for us. He is still supplying drops of His precious blood to the situations of our lives to give us an escape--not always physically out of the circumstances, but spiritually we have the ability to "walk upon mine high places" in Him. Habakkuk wrote: "The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!" [Habakkuk 3:19, AMP] The image God paints for us through His prophet is one of a female deer (as we are the Bride of Christ) whose feet "stand firmer and more upright than the feet of the males" in addition to the swiftness, so that they are able to "go upon rocks and mountains securely, and tread and walk, and even run upon them with safety" (from Clarke's Commentary on the Bible). Psalm 18:33 gives this poignant picture more clarity when we see that the nature and strength of hinds' feet is in their ability to stand firmly, gripped upon a rock, in even fierce storms.
My Hero!
I remember the day in our class when the big question came--I'll never forget it, because for me it was life-changing. It wasn't the content of the question, but the challenge to dig deeper in God's Word for truths that aren't always right on the surface that forever changed me. It was realizing that simply reading words, in the Book that held the Words of Life, was not enough--and never would be again, that changed everything, for me. The question we had to answer was this, "Did Jesus commit suicide when He went to the cross?" since He said, "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." [John 10:18, KJV]. The challenge was to prove one way or the other--suicide or not? Of course, this was highly charged; I mean we are talking about Jesus Christ, but the challenge made us think, pray, study and dig not only into the pages of our Bibles but into the Character of our God. Who is He and what would He do?
I don't think there was ever a completely definitive answer, but it more or less boiled down to how we perceived Jesus ourselves, and how we viewed the cross. For me, to see it as a suicide, makes the cross rather pointless; in other words, Jesus simply died and the story ended. I know that isn't how it happened. So, Jesus is my Hero--my Kinsman-Redeemer. I look at this way (rather simplistically); it's the difference between taking a bottle of pills to (selfishly) end my own personal misery or pushing someone out of the way and taking the bullet that was meant for them. He took my bullet--only more so...way more. Suicide by definition is selfish. It considers no one else. Ask me how I know. (That's a long story, for another time!) Anyone considering suicide as an option, is only focused on ending his/her own pain. There isn't much if any thought to the trail of pain left behind for the survivors of their suicide, just their own relief. To actually commit the act, your personal relief has to supersede everything and everybody else. Clearly, that wasn't Jesus' mindset at or before Calvary. It was all about us. There would have been no Calvary, if there had been no "us". He didn't need to die, without an "us".
There was never, and there never will be, anything selfish about Calvary, other than the criminal next to Jesus who challenged Him to come down from the cross--and save him, too, in the process, even though he deserved to be there. It's amazing how selfish we can be when it comes to this temporal, physical "skin" that returns to dust, but how lax we are about the eternal soul we possess that lasts for eternity (thankfully, we see the contrast in the other thief at Calvary who humbled himself before death and asked Jesus to save not his body, but his soul). We, too, sometimes take God's Word and distort it and twist it into something unrecognizable to suit our "old man" while the eternal one starves for attention.
Remember the famous cliche': "God won't put more on you than you can bear". It's a poor paraphrase of this verse of Scripture: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." [1 Corinthians 10:13]. The cliche' has some very important missing elements. The language of the Scripture passage suggests actually that we will suffer some hard things--unimaginably so, but nothing is new under the sun, and God always "makes a way of escape". The first part of the verse makes it clear that although there are some things that we confront that may tempt us to turn our hearts from God, it's possible to endure--it's been done by others. We can stand. The reason we can stand is not human effort or will, but dependence upon the Jesus who "took the bullet", because He is Ever-Present standing in the gap, for us. He is still supplying drops of His precious blood to the situations of our lives to give us an escape--not always physically out of the circumstances, but spiritually we have the ability to "walk upon mine high places" in Him. Habakkuk wrote: "The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!" [Habakkuk 3:19, AMP] The image God paints for us through His prophet is one of a female deer (as we are the Bride of Christ) whose feet "stand firmer and more upright than the feet of the males" in addition to the swiftness, so that they are able to "go upon rocks and mountains securely, and tread and walk, and even run upon them with safety" (from Clarke's Commentary on the Bible). Psalm 18:33 gives this poignant picture more clarity when we see that the nature and strength of hinds' feet is in their ability to stand firmly, gripped upon a rock, in even fierce storms.
My Hero!
A special thanks to the wise man of God who taught me to not simply read the Word of God, but STUDY the Word--for all its worth. I love and appreciate you, Bishop Ronald L. Young (who taught this Scholar's Class, and instilled in me an excitement for God's Word). What an awesome teacher and presence you have been in my life--I thank God for you!
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