The Sixth Commandment

This morning, I want to start with a bit of a revelation of a man by the name of Doctor Peter Singer, who is a professor of bioethics at the liberal Princeton University. He is a professor in human value. And he asked the following question that I want to start with this morning. Can we justify attributing equal value to all human life while at the same time attributing to human life a value that is superior to all other life, animal life, plant life? As a leading academic on ethics and not a Christian, he writes, I don't see any argument in the claim that merely being a member of the species homo sapiens gives you moral worth and dignity, whereas being a member of the species pantroglodytes, for example, that is chimpanzees, that does not give you the equal amount of dignity or worth.

In other words, he says, there is nothing inherently more precious about human life than other forms of life. Now, some of us here may agree with this. All of life, we might want to say, is equally precious. But Doctor Singer goes on and he argues for the only logical conclusion that can come from this world view. And he says there are three options if you hold this view, if you have this principle.

First, if human life isn't morally superior to other life, he says, first, we either in order to equalize us, we have to raise the status of animals, granting them the same state as we grant to human beings. Or secondly, that we preserve quality by lowering the status of humans to that which we now grant to animals. Or thirdly, that we abandon the idea of the equal value of all humans over and against other life, replacing them with a more graded view in which moral status depends on some cognitive ability, so intelligence. And that graded view, this third option is what professor Singer promotes. He says, if one has the cognitive capacity scoring highly enough on a graded scale, then one may be recognised as equally morally valid and valuable as much as a human being or other life form.

Now, within the world of ethics, this is actually a significant question being talked about. As we're moving away from a biblical Christian world view, this is something that is really important. Why is human life important? With an evolutionary mind frame of having just come from previous animal life forms, why is why should we think human life is more precious? More specifically, why do we try so hard to fight or protect the life of the oppressed or the vulnerable?

When in an evolutionary sense, human life is no different to any other life form on planet Earth. And the problem for me as a Christian, as a Christian thinker, arises from the vacuum that is left when we disregard God's explanation of humanity. The implications of this perspective, this non-biblical perspective of human life is staggering, however, in the implications, the consequences of it. Keep in mind, this is a man teaching ethics at the leading universities, Princeton University in America. And in this person's view, Professor Singer's view, those who would be deemed cognitively impaired, people with mental disabilities, people who have had accidents, people impaired by degenerative disease ought not to be regarded as intrinsically equally valuable to the rest of society.

That is the consequence of this thinking. Similarly, and we can see where this goes, an unborn child who can't speak yet, who can't walk yet, who can't voice an opinion yet would not meet professor Singer's criteria, being equally valid and morally dignified. And we understand where that leads when an unwanted pregnancy comes along. The same can be said of euthanasia, which is also a very hot topic at the moment, euthanasia and whether a family or a society at large has a say on whether an elderly person or a person with a disability or person dying of cancer may be put to death, removed from society as a drain on them. Now these questions, these very, very difficult questions stand in stark contrast to the word of hope and dignity we find in the Bible.

And funnily enough, we find those words of hope and dignity in Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments. Please turn with me to Exodus 20, verse 13, the sixth commandment from the Lord God Yahweh, the God of Israel. God said this: You shall not murder. You shall not murder. Now, like last week, we find the commandments five through ten, the second tablet of God's commandments addressing humanity.

The first half talked about our relationship with God. The second half is talking about our relationship with one another. These commands are intended to facilitate the flourishing of humanity. They facilitate the flourishing of humanity. And for very civilised people like ourselves, the sixth commandment almost doesn't need to be said, does it?

We feel like we don't really need to be told not to murder. We live in a society where we just can't go out and kill someone. But again, the implications, as we've seen in the past, have far reaching consequences. The Bible makes it very clear if you have a systematic reading of it. The commandment itself obviously prohibits the unlawful taking of human life.

But this also includes the unlawful taking of your own life. So we're talking about suicide. It talks about the taking of another's life, murder. But the heart of the matter goes even further than that. In chapter five of Matthew, verse 22, Jesus explains the sixth commandment saying that anyone who is angry with his brother or his sister is liable to judgment.

Anyone who insults his brother or sister will be liable to the council, and whoever says, you fool, in their heart, be liable to the hell of fire. Jesus said, in view of this commandment. In the same way, the apostle John writes in one John three, fifteen: everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer, he says, has eternal life in them. So what this is saying, what the sixth commandment is talking about here is that the root of murder as well as the fruit of it, the cause of murder as well as the action of it is forbidden.

The reach of this commandment extends to the secret hostilities of the heart even, as well as the murderous actions that these hearts can do. The absolutely brilliant Westminster Larger Catechism, a great theological statement of the faith written many hundreds of years ago, talks about this in their explanation of the sixth commandment. In question 36 of the catechism, it asks: What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment? What are the sins forbidden in you shall not murder? And this is the answer.

The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are all taking away the life of ourselves or others except cases of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defence. Notice that in here as well, it talks about murder. There's a difference here with killing. The neglecting, it goes on, the neglecting or withdrawing of lawful and necessary means of preserving life. It includes sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire to revenge, all excessive passions, distractive cares, immoderate use of meat.

That was an interesting one. Excessive, immoderate use of meat. Now I think there's something to that. Hunting animals for the sake of hunting is something that I think is actually not very Christian at all. Immoderate use of meat.

Drink. Immoderate use of drink. Of labour and of recreation. So things that can harm us, not using labour and recreation well. It also includes oppression, quarrelling, hitting, wounding, and whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any.

That's pretty inclusive, isn't it? Pretty all inclusive. Put simply, the sixth commandment is calling us to a radical commitment for the overall welfare of our neighbour. It summons us to the sacrificial pursuit of the general well-being and the highest good of all people for the glory of God and the honour of Jesus Christ's name. That is what this four-word commandment is addressing.

Now, for a liberal professor in ethics, the Bible and what it says to us may not be a source for determining ethics for human life, but for those who are convinced of the truth and the power and the relevance of the Bible, there are three things behind this commandment that I feel motivates us and makes us or gives us an understanding for why God would say, You shall not murder. And these three things are, first, the dignity of human life. The dignity of human life. Secondly, the reality of the downfall of human life. And then thirdly, the destiny of human life.

Like I said, last time we had alliteration happening. Today, also have alliteration happening. Three D's. The dignity of human life, the downfall of human life, and the destiny of human life. Now, first of all, let's have a look at the dignity of human life.

The sixth commandment presupposes that human life is valuable. It assumes that. In Genesis one, verse 27, we see that God made man and woman in His image. God created man in His image. It says, in the image of God, God created him.

Male and female, He created them. Now, apart from any of the gifts we possess, quite apart from our cognitive ability, our ability to understand and give reason to thoughts, apart from anything that we might profess, all people, the Bible says, are created equally with dignity and value because of the imago Dei, the image of Christ, the image of God. The likeness of the Creator shines in the features of the least and the lowest. The character of God shines in the least and the lowest of humans. The most destitute, therefore, the most diseased, the most infirm, the most elderly, or the most young.

The infant and the unborn we see in the Psalms are formed and knitted together by the hand of God Himself. That's why in Genesis nine, verses five to six, God says to mankind: I will require a reckoning for the life of a man, He says. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed for God made man in His own image. God gives a reason there for this law. The sixth commandment teaches that murder is sin because it is an assault on the image and the character, the name of God.

And we talked about that other commandment, didn't we? Honouring the name of God, this is part of it. His character is tied to humanity. James, the brother of Jesus, similarly connects the violation of the sixth commandment to the teaching of Jesus in Matthew five when he says when we misuse speech, when in our anger and resentment we wound one another, we do damage to one another.

He shows us that murder is sin, and then he points us to the fact that when we misspeak, we are doing injury to the image of God in our brother or our neighbour. He says this: when we bless our Lord and our father with our tongues and with it in the same breath curse people who are made in the likeness of God. Brothers from the same mouth come blessing and cursing, and this should not be so. And so we see this indictment, this rebuke against our anger and our resentment. An indictment on our malicious tone, our hateful speech, our passive aggressive manipulation.

These things do not align, these things do not sit well with the sixth commandment. The people we belittle, the people we wound, those whom we mistreat, bear the stamp and the imprint of God's divine likeness. Your assault on them is then not an assault on them alone, it is an assault on the God who made them, who dignifies their humanity as well as yours with His image. As Calvin put it, our neighbours bear the image of God. To use him, abuse him or misuse him is to do a violence to the person of God who images Himself in every human soul.

So we see the dignity of God presupposed in this commandment. God has stamped human beings with His image, and therefore it has inherent value in itself regardless of what they can offer you, regardless of what they can do for you, regardless of what they can do for society at large. They in and of themselves are valuable. We're going to the second thing, the downfall of human life. And this presupposes not just the dignity but also the gravity of human life.

In the Garden of Eden, we saw this, didn't we? Adam and Eve, our first parents, needed no transcripts of the moral law. They did not need the Ten Commandments given to them. They knew it. They lived it.

Up until a point when Satan, who himself is a fallen angel, a victim of sin itself, when they heard God warning them, You must not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for you will surely die if you do, God said. Satan comes along and he tests them. And he tempts them and says, If you eat of it, surely, God is not going to kill you. You're the apple of His eye. He won't kill you. But they do.

They indulge in the forbidden fruit. And when our first parents took that fruit and ate, theologians point out the irony that they actually broke the sixth commandment there because what happened is not only for themselves that they bring death. Their eternal life was now shortened, but for all generations that was to come after them, they gave the death sentence. They broke the sixth commandment in that moment. Romans five, verse 12 puts it this way: Sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and death through that sin.

And so death spread to all mankind because now all have sinned. So instead of life being eternal, instead of life being granted through Adam to all people, death is the result of that rebellion. The taking of life now is possible. And the painful reality and the consequence of this sinks in, doesn't it, in Genesis four, which is the first recorded sin of mankind. Anyone remember what that is?

Genesis four? Cain and Abel. What happens with Cain and Abel? Murder. Murder, the first recorded sin in the Bible.

Genesis four, verse eight. Cain killed his brother, and murder is the epitomising sin, revealing and unmasking the depravity that has started infiltrating the human heart. And if you read in this Genesis account, one of the striking features of the narrative is the way that this downfall of humanity becomes more and more apparent as the Genesis account continues. Genesis six, verse five says: The Lord, at the time of Noah, the Lord saw the wickedness of man who was in the earth and that every intention and the thoughts of his heart was always and only evil. And God repented of having created them, it says.

Now that means, among other things, that the law of God written on our consciences by nature was no longer reliable. What He had given Adam and Eve was no longer working. And so by the time we get to Exodus, the next book in the Bible, many, many, many hundreds of years, thousands of years later, we find God having to give the Ten Commandments physically and literally so that people would know how to live. By this time, morality had become so grey. It had been adjusted and changed and people did not know what was right and wrong, and here God gives them the Ten Commandments and says: This is how you are to live.

This is how I intended you to live. And that is what this sixth commandment teaches us, not just that all of life is dignified by the image of God, not just that His image shines in the face of every human being, but that those same human beings are lawbreakers. Those same human beings are disobedient, that they distort the image of God and that they inherently also seek to destroy it. And we do this in a huge variety of ways, the Bible says. It says when we speak with venom towards one another from our tongues, those very same tongues that praise the name of God, we're breaking and we're destroying this image.

When we stoke the fire of long standing grudges against our in-laws or long distant family members, we are committing murder in our hearts. When we take opportunities for petty vengeance, while that very night we pray, Father, forgive me as I forgive my debtors, our consciences sleep contentedly in the illusion of our moral squeaky cleanness until the law of God comes in and it pierces us. And it puts a spotlight on our motives, on our hearts, on our very, very shaky rationalisations and excuses for why we behave, how we behave. And the most respectable among us are laid bare as breakers of the six commandments for who we are in the sight of God, and we see that there is only one true judge.

And we realise we are murderers, perhaps not indeed, but at least in word and in thought. You have heard that it was said, Jesus explained, You shall not murder. But whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother is liable to judgment. Anyone who says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

See the downfall in this of humanity as well. It taints and it touches every one of us. But then the third point, we see the destiny of human life. First, the dignity, then the depravity or the downfall of humanity, and then finally our destiny. The Bible consistently holds out two final destinations for people everywhere and it's a destiny that lasts forever.

And each person in this room, each person in this church will face one of two of these. Eternal life is the great hope for eternity, for humanity. Job 19, verse 25 speaks of this hope where Job says: I know that my redeemer lives and at the last day He will stand before the earth and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I shall see God. Even if my external nature, my flesh is destroyed, is removed, my deeper part, my flesh, my soul, what lies underneath this skin will see God. That was Job's lasting hope.

Eternal life with God who he could call his redeemer. Eternal life is the great hope of humanity, and yet eternal death is the very real enemy for all of us. And whether we are comfortable believing these things or not, these are the only possibilities. These are the only two options that each one of us has regardless of faith, regardless of creed, regardless of nationality. I've got a very dear friend who's a Muslim who, this morning, I saw is celebrating Eid, the holy period of the Muslims.

But regardless of what he believes of that sacrifice that Eid points to, regardless, he needs to know the one sacrifice that really matters. If we are talking about life today in the sixth commandment, we must talk about the eternal nature of it as well. The destiny, the eternal destiny of life because if it is just for eighty short years, then who cares? Who cares really? But if it is for eternity, then there's something significant about this life.

That's a long time. And the warning that I must give now is that at the end of your day, your life will last for eternity. That is not the question. What the question is is that for some of you, if you do not acknowledge and repent of your sin, if you do not believe in Jesus Christ, if you do not make Him your Lord and your Saviour, then your eternity will be spent away from Him. Your eternity is an eternity worse than death.

So how then, if we realise this morning that we have broken this commandment, and I probably would wager all of us have, how then if we have broken this commandment, whether in the heart or in the flesh, how can we be spared from God's wrath and righteous, fair, and just punishment? How? Well, friend, my great hope, my great privilege this morning is to tell you that God has made a way, and it is astoundingly and astonishingly gracious. Astoundingly and astonishingly, it came through death, the death of Jesus Christ, the murdered Saviour, the murdered Saviour, who at the hands of murderous men and women, boys and girls were put to death for murderous people like you and me. The one who never broke the sixth commandment.

Think of Him bleeding and dying amidst the insults and the mockery of the crowds that placed Him on that cross all the while. We sixth Jesus. They break the sixth commandment as they seek righteousness and justice to be done. But for Jesus Himself, the great prophet Isaiah in chapter 53, he was assigned a grave with the wicked though he had done no violence.

And then the prophet continues and says: It was the Lord's will, however, to crush Him. And though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin, He, who is Christ, will see His offspring and prolong His days. I will give Him a portion among the great, God says, because He poured out His life unto death and He bore the sin of many and He made intercession for transgressors of God's law. The inherent dignity of life and the grace of God to protect it. The inherent dignity of your life and the grace of God to protect it sent Jesus Christ to the cross.

Your eternal destination was important. That death was a death that I should have died, however. Blood for blood. Life for life. For the death of the family member, the friend, or the colleague I have caused a thousand times in my life.

The destiny of human life that echoes through eternity, but the all-sufficient work of Christ on the cross has now changed my destiny forever. So what we find is that there is mercy for murderers at the cross. And so not only have I been forgiven if I place my trust in Jesus as my God, as I acknowledge Him as my Saviour, my heart is also radically transformed. Not only forgiven, but transformed because now I see in my friend and my colleague, there is no need to be resentful or bitter anymore. If I have been saved to such a great future, what is a slight?

What is an insult? What is a wound to me? I have peace eternal. I have a joy that cannot be taken away forever. Why will I harbour resentment?

Why will I be bitter towards those that have hurt me? Why will I hate them? Why will I be angry when my life has been marked and radically transformed by peace. The peace I have with God forever. Can we understand that?

Not only saved, but transformed. So come to the cross again, friend. That is where we see murder took place. That is where we find life, however, in Jesus Christ. Take up the perfecting power of His death.

Take up the new life that He is offering you. Turn away from the bitterness, the anger, the resentment, and drink in this joy, this tranquility of life that is available in Him. Let's pray. Oh God, forgive us that we would seek to harm another's life. Forgive us that we would seek to destroy their value, that we would seek to make them less than what You have created them to be.

Oh God, is a sign of our brokenness when we do that. It is a sign of our incompletion yet that we are not perfect, that we are not fully transformed, and we look with eager anticipation to that great day where You will be all in all, and in a blink of an eye, we will be transformed. But Father, do not stop with this work of transformation already at place. Help us to understand Your image, Your pattern, Your face in every human being around us, the dignity and inherent worth of everyone we meet. But we also realise, Lord, our downfall in this.

We realise how we cannot maintain it far less, those who do not know You, those who have not tasted Your grace. And so it is no real surprise that we will be hurt. It is no real surprise that we will be attacked. It is no real surprise that we will be the subject and the recipients of anger and bitterness and resentment, physical and emotional harm. Oh, but God, our destiny, our life is protected and secured by You forever.

And so while there is nothing that can take this away, we do not need to fear man who can simply take away life. We fear the God who can take away life and soul, but who has chosen to protect this soul of ours. So, Lord, we pray that our dealings with one another in this church, as brothers and sisters, all radically knowing, transformed by this truth, Lord, that we will deal with one another well and beautifully and graciously. And then, Father, we pray for those we know, so many that don't know You, and we pray, Lord, that we will be examples of this wonderful life that You have given us. Help us to resist those who would seek to destroy life.

Help us to fight for its inherent worth. And Father, help us to do this with a glad and thankful heart because we have already received the prize. We are just waiting now to see it fully. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.