What About Suicide? And Can A Person Lose Their Salvation/Forgiveness From Jesus?
Questions From A Friend of Mine:
A couple of topics of discussion came up at work one day and I’m curious what you have to say about them.
Can a person lose their salvation and do people go to hell if they commit suicide?
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Thanks
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My Response
Great questions! Thank you so much for sharing them with me!
Here are some thoughts:
1. Can A Person Lose Their Salvation?
A. There are many Christians who believe the answer is yes–it is and has been over the centuries a rather hotly contested point.
B. My personal belief is that a person who is truly saved/born-again cannot lose their salvation…(please click HERE for information on what it looks like to receive Jesus as your Savior).
Here are some reasons why I believe this–powerful Biblical (and logical) statements on the assurance of salvation for those who have received Christ Jesus as Savior:
-John 10:27-30: “My [Jesus] sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
-Romans 8:1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…”
-We cannot DO anything to lose our salvation because we DID nothing to earn it! If a Christian can commit a sin to lose salvation, then their salvation wasn’t a free gift but an earned payment. Of course, some make the case that receiving Jesus as Savior is an action/work in and of itself, but that is splitting hairs I think. Please click HERE for thoughts on the “unforgivable sin” of Luke 12:10.
-Once Christ is received by faith, we are literally “re-born/born again” as a child of God through faith in Jesus (John 1:12-13; John 3:3-16). We have a new spiritual DNA and can do nothing to alter that DNA, no more than a person can change their physical/earthly DNA by making sinful choices (or even by “divorcing” their parents as a few teens have infamously done over the years; even in such cases, biologically the teens still are and will always be related to their biological parents–NOTHING can change that fact).
-Of course, there are some people who claimed to be Christians and who have completely and clearly denounced Jesus, stating emphatically that they do NOT want Him to be their Savior and their King. Moreover, when we get to heaven there will be some people who AREN’T there who we thought would be there. In these situations, it seems that 1 John 2:18-20 (especially verse 19) offers a helpful explanation that those who ultimately denounce Christ never really were Christians in the first place:
“They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.
For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us;
but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”
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-The next question that must be asked, then, is how do I KNOW if I have truly received Jesus as Savior? Great question! Please click HERE and HERE for some helpful thoughts.
2. Do People Go To Hell If They Commit Suicide?
A. There are many Christians who believe the answer is yes–it is and has been over the centuries a rather hotly contested point.
B. Since I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools for 18 years, I remember being taught that Catholics who commit suicide either go to hell or have to go to purgatory for a time to have their sin of suicide atoned for (since a person who commits suicide cannot ask God’s forgiveness for that sin because they are already dead). I remember being taught that there are two different types of sin, venial (minor/secondary) and mortal (major/primary). To die with unconfessed mortal sins was very serious and would result in eternal hell at worst and delayed heaven at best. This might not be the official Catholic position but it is what I remember being taught. I believe this is why many non-Catholic Christians think that Christians who commit suicide go to hell.
Here are the Biblical issues I have with the above beliefs:
-The Bible makes no distinction between lesser and greater sins; ALL sin is terrible, ALL sin was responsible for Jesus’ torturous death on the cross, to commit one sin is to commit ALL sins (i.e. to break one part of the Law of God is to break ALL parts of the Law of God [James 2:10]). Of course, from an earthly perspective, some sins have bigger consequences than others (murdering a person in cold blood causes much more pain/suffering than stealing a pack of gum from a store). But in the heavenly sense, both sins are terrible and can only be forgiven through placing one’s faith in Jesus’ torturous death on the cross.
-Again, if committing any sin can cause us to lose our salvation, then Jesus’ death on the cross didn’t pay for ALL of my sins it just paid for MOST of them. And yet, Colossians 2:13-14 tells us that for those who receive Him as Savior, Jesus took ALL our sins, nailed them to the cross, and paid for in full our moral indebtedness to God the Father. GRACE!!!
-We do not have to confess every individual sin to be completely forgiven by Jesus. Practically, this is simply not possible. Not only is there not enough seconds in a lifetime for someone to apologize for each individual sin (we sin WAY more often than we realize since sin is not just the bad things we do but also the good things we do NOT do! [James 4:17]), but the Bible also teaches that our hearts are so clouded by sin that we are not able to personally realize/detect every single time we commit a sin (Jeremiah 17:9; Psalm 19:12).
C. Therefore, my personal belief is that a person who has received Jesus as their Savior will still go to heaven even if they commit suicide.
D. That having been said, suicide is a POWERFULLY destructive sin that causes horrific pain/wounds/suffering for many left behind. Some studies show that close relatives of a person who commits suicide are much more likely to someday commit suicide themselves. When a person commits suicide they literally are murdering themselves and are making a choice–when their earthly life will end–that only God has the authority to decide. A Christian who commits suicide is still loved and cherished by God but has caused much grief and suffering for their loved ones. Please click HERE for some thoughts on loving those who are deeply hurting; please click HERE for thoughts on what to do when you or a friend/loved one is considering suicide.
I hope this is helpful! Please let me know if any of this is confusing and/or if you have any follow-up comments/questions.
All for Jesus!