Does 1 John 3:15 say that someone who commits suicide doesn't have eternal life?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Sep 24, 2012
604
160
43
#1
1 John 3:15
King James Version

15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

(from biblegateway: link)

Would it be correct to view suicide as self-murder and that someone who has committed suicide could not have been saved (using this verse, since someone committing suicide would be someone murdering themselves)? Or is that not the correct way to see things and this verse? I ask as the son of someone who committed suicide (my mother).
 

JaumeJ

Senior Member
Jul 2, 2011
21,425
6,703
113
#2
The Father will in no manner turn away a broken heart.
 

Roughsoul1991

Senior Member
Sep 17, 2016
8,846
4,503
113
#3
1 John 3:15
King James Version

15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

(from biblegateway: link)

Would it be correct to view suicide as self-murder and that someone who has committed suicide could not have been saved (using this verse, since someone committing suicide would be someone murdering themselves)? Or is that not the correct way to see things and this verse? I ask as the son of someone who committed suicide (my mother).
Suicide in most modern cases ends up being a response to extreme depression. Typically the individual is not in the right sanity and act due to the mental illness.

I believe that God would not count that as murder due to the fact they are sick.

But I'm not naive to understand people have suicided due to guilt or honor rituals.

Ultimately in 1 John 3 the context is applied to a brother not the self. So we can not take it to mean the self.

I hold to by faith and grace alone in Christ alone are we saved.

If I eat poorly and die of obesity would that count as murder?
 

JaumeJ

Senior Member
Jul 2, 2011
21,425
6,703
113
#4
Psa 51:16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
Psa 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
 
P

pottersclay

Guest
#5
1 John 3:15
King James Version

15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

(from biblegateway: link)

Would it be correct to view suicide as self-murder and that someone who has committed suicide could not have been saved (using this verse, since someone committing suicide would be someone murdering themselves)? Or is that not the correct way to see things and this verse? I ask as the son of someone who committed suicide (my mother).
Saint.... first off i am so sorry that you had to experience this in your life.

I think that i can speak for most here that this topic is such a grey area. I don't beleive there are any direct answers to this question and thats what makes this topic so tragic.
One could say yea and another nay but GOD knows the heart. Reguardless of the reasons to make a decision that your life is not worth saving and is best to end it is a place i pray no one goes to.....but unfortunately 🤐😔😢
My oldest brother was murded....and my younger brother did end his own life some years later .....so i kind of speak from experience.
 

Webers.Home

Well-known member
May 28, 2018
5,792
1,069
113
Oregon
cfbac.org
#6
.
To my knowledge, there are no hard and fast rules in the Bible pertaining to
suicide, i.e. it's a gray issue and as such has to be decided upon individually
per the principles discussed in the 14th chapter of Romans.

Now the important thing to note is that it is wrong to force your own
personal opinions upon others. In other words: though you may feel very
strongly that suicide is murder, that doesn't make it murder for everyone
unless of course you sincerely believe yourself in a position of absolute power
like Big Brother in George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" wherein Mr.
Winston Smith is required to accept 2+2=5 against his own better
judgment.

That kind of bullying is going on in places like Communist China and North
Korea, but God forbid it should go on among Christians.
_
 
L

Locoponydirtman

Guest
#7
Nope it doesn't say that at all it says something completely different
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
59,938
29,304
113
#8
There is only one unforgivable sin, and suicide is not it.
 

Edify

Well-known member
Jan 27, 2021
1,559
654
113
#9
There was a time I would have legalistally said suicide is murder & the person would have went to Hell.
Since then, I come to understand that the inner man is saved by grace & that grace covers a multitude of sins(if he/she isn't abusing that grace). I have also known a christian who had been saved many years succumb to depression he had all his life & hung himself.
My answer is now this: I have a great hope for my salvation, & to me I should hope for theirs as well. (if we know personally they're really saved)
 

studentoftheword

Well-known member
Nov 12, 2021
1,703
594
113
#10
Why would any True Born Again Person who has experienced the many Blessings and Gifts that is provided by the Holy Spirit want to kill themselves -----and Grieve the Holy Spirit ----that just makes no sense ---

My view

I think the person is really not a True Believer but a pretend Christian who is in the complete control of the god of this world who is Satan ----as Jesus clearly stated -----that it is Satan who wants to Kill ---Steal and Destroy humans -----Jesus came to give Life and to give it more abundantly till it overflows ----

What Fool would ever want to take their Life and Miss the Abundant Life Jesus came to give us here on Earth -------only someone who is not indwelled by the Holy Spirit but calls themselves a Christian ---who is really an unbeliever -----

John 10:10
AMPC
The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).

Greek word for Abundance

Cognate: 4053 perissós (an adjective, derived from 4012 /perí, "all-around, excess") – properly all-around, "more than" ("abundantly"); beyond what is anticipated, exceeding expectation; "more abundant," going past the expected limit ("more than enough
 

ChristsChild

Active member
Apr 28, 2023
213
109
43
#11
I don't think anyone can be the judge of that. God knows our hearts. Even those who give up on their life and seek peace and mercy in death.

God rest them all and have mercy .
 

Bruce_Leiter

Active member
Feb 17, 2023
427
191
43
#13
1 John 3:15
King James Version

15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

(from biblegateway: link)

Would it be correct to view suicide as self-murder and that someone who has committed suicide could not have been saved (using this verse, since someone committing suicide would be someone murdering themselves)? Or is that not the correct way to see things and this verse? I ask as the son of someone who committed suicide (my mother).
Only God knows the heart of a person who commits suicide. I have ministered to people who were left behind, and they are usually devastated. Yes, it's a sin to take one's own life, but in the depths of depression it takes for that act to happen, who knows whether that person has come to believe or not.
 

Cameron143

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2022
19,030
6,537
113
62
#14
1 Corinthians 10:12...Wherefore let him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

Galatians 6:1...Brethren, if any man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted...

In a moment of weakness we all might fail.
 

Blain

The Word Weaver
Aug 28, 2012
19,212
2,547
113
#15
This topic hits me home hard. As one who even as a beliver attempted three times I can give a pretty good idea of what goes on in that moment.

Firstly to be a believer especially one who has such an intimate love and relationship with him and yet to be brought to the action of doing such a thing it is truly a matter of things just being that bad and you just not having anything left.

When your standing there about to commit suicide there is a strange feeling of both death seeming like rest like sleep like freedom there is also a fear in your gut one that really does make you second guess for a second but deciding to go through with it anyways how it happened for me and I am assuming or hoping every other believer who has to struggle with such a scene does the same.

I begged him to forgive for what I was about to do and trusted in him knowing that surely he knows how the severeity of all the pain and life just being to much

Surely his blood was not shed in vain even if I go through with this so I put my soul in his hands and went through with it.

He obviously refuses to let me die I should not be alive right now one og my attempts was to give my self 72 units of insulin I should have gone into a coma at the very least yet somehow nothing happened but I could feel his arms around me.

He is mercy he is love he is understanding he is human he knows and understands pain he knows and understands the human heart. His love for us far exceeds even death or was death not defeated? I have even encountered the entity death a couple times though to be honest I am not very informed on the actual entity of death the angel of death or whatever but he did appear to meperhaps because it is what I am accustomed to viewing death as the grim reaper.


honestly I wasn't afraid of him he didn't speak often but when he did he had no emotion what so ever like the most dead voice you can imagine

Death has been a common theme in my life even before I was saved I am no stranger to death but I can promise you this and I say this not because of any verse or scripture but because of what I have come to know of him if I had sctually killed myself he would never allow me to leave his arms because I trusted him and asked for forgiveness but even if I hadn't asked for forgiveness and just handed my soul over to him in a way I did him a great honor in this moment giving him full trust over not just my life but my soul where I would go from here.

But suicide is not the way and it is a real problem that often goes under the radar in both believers and non believers you could be talking about this topic and a believer or maybe even a non believer sees it and maybe they struggle with depression and suicidial thoughts believer oe not trust me these things are pests they never really leave.

Instead of asking if someone goes to hell or not from suicide what we need to ask is how do we help people do deal with it in a Christ like and biblical way?

People who deal with this know it is like a sickness why is it that one person can be going through so much but never even consider the notion while one person who is just as strong of a person for some reason is prone to give the idea thought?

It is a question I am sure many who deal with it ask and there are of course a lot of obvious answers but even so I don't speak on this from scripture or the word of God I cannot and will not try to prove what I am saying with scripture because trust me the heart of what I am saying is in scripture I speak on this matter from a spiritual but also very human perspective we forget that we are human and sometimes it is not the scripture or biblical view point that makes the difference sometimes it really requires a more personal touch a heart to heart understanding empathyI speak fr9om experience and so I have a very particular soft spot for such people and my three attempts were quite possibly not just me being dumb but because I know what it is like I now have a heart for people like that.
 

Flannery

Active member
Mar 20, 2023
270
70
28
49
#16
The thing about suicide is that it has a broader literal definition than the one(s) in which the person in fact dies. Suicide is riddance of the self, a spy who destroys all records of his own past and assumes a new identity has effectually committed suicide. The Buddhist teaching of meditation to rid yourself of your ego, which is the Latin word for 'I' (first person pronoun singular) is a command to commit suicide. The subsumed identity thief is a suicide, and the commonest subsumed identity theft is of the identity of a dead person, either from state records of an historical death or of someone you personally murdered, so that the still living suicide is guilty under the law of other crimes, and his ridding the public record of the self's identity with which he was born is an indicator of the crimes he has committed, more than in common terminology the crime itself.

The crime of sodomy, or group orgies, is self-subsumption of more than one person into a marriage style relationship, beyond it being homosexual it furthers the act to menage a trios, group pagan marriage via pagan spirituality imbedded in various manuals of god/goddess worship in and with one or more partners via ritual group invocation and evocation simultaneously.

Other proposed definitions of suicide include do not resuscitate clauses in living wills (physician assisted suicide), and in extreme politics, following orders in the Marine Corps. I wouldn't worry too much. As long as you keep hold of knowing who you are, you aren't likely to be found guilty on the last day.
 
Feb 21, 2016
837
189
43
#17
If God had given you life,why would you deny it?On earth as it is in heaven.
 

Blain

The Word Weaver
Aug 28, 2012
19,212
2,547
113
#18
If God had given you life,why would you deny it?On earth as it is in heaven.
For the sake of anyone reading this who struggles with this I think this is the wrong kind of question to be asking.

Unless you have had to be brought to that point even when you were given life it is not a question of why it's a question of how. How was such a person brought to that point? what could have been done about it? how will the eternal results end up?
These things run through the mind of people like that and not every person who claims to be saved is saved so for that I fear for how this topic is handled.

Normally I would be fine debating about this but I understand now how serious of a thing this is.

With how many people visit this site and how the bible discussion forum is likely the first actual forum they visit and seeing an eye attention title like that how many peop-le out of the number of peo0ple who see this thread might have this very struggle?

People read and watch they lurk on a subject such as this honestly I think we need to consider the imprtance of how we approach it and the consequences that could follow depending on what we say.

On a subject as deadly and serious as this is I do not think personally it is wise to take it lightly as just another topic to discuss, when you make a thread about something like this your in the point now where words really matter because there really is power in the words we speak life and death.
 

Karlon

Well-known member
Mar 8, 2023
2,548
1,144
113
#19
"absent from the body, present with the Lord", if you are a born again Christian that is. this is what i was told by a pastor that if a born again Christian commits suicide, you still go to heaven. i never looked it up myself. myself, i tend to doubt that.
 

oyster67

Senior Member
May 24, 2014
11,887
8,705
113
#20
1 John 3:15
King James Version

15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

(from biblegateway: link)

Would it be correct to view suicide as self-murder and that someone who has committed suicide could not have been saved (using this verse, since someone committing suicide would be someone murdering themselves)? Or is that not the correct way to see things and this verse? I ask as the son of someone who committed suicide (my mother).
I will let God decide on an individual basis. Only He knows the heart.