A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal,
But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.
(Proverbs 12:10)
The forces of darkness in Illinois want to take the state’s death agenda to the next level.
Some deceived politicians have now introduced an assisted suicide—euphemistically referred to as a “Medical Aid in Dying” or “Death with Dignity”—bill in Springfield. A bill sponsored by Illinois Senator Linda Holmes (D-Aurora), SB 3499 creates the “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act.”
To the surprise of no one paying attention, Holmes is also a champion of pre-born baby murder, a promoter of the myth of unequal pay between men and women, and a fierce advocate for all kinds of sexual immorality (with one of her heroes being the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, though probably not for her being a pro-life hero).
These facts alone are an indictment of many in our nation who have elected legislators who are miles off the mark when it comes to matters of basic ethics— when Romans 13:3-6 says they are to be servants of God who promote justice, goodness, and righteousness. But Holmes is not alone in her efforts. In recent years, decorated religious leaders have promoted self-murder in the name of compassion with clever-sounding arguments.
On the matter of this recent bill and the subject of so-called “death with dignity,” how should Christians respond? More specifically, why must we oppose this agenda?
And how should we as Christians directly, wisely, and clearly engage with our elected officials?
Below are five reasons why faithful, God-fearing Christians must oppose this agenda, followed by some suggestions on what to say to our elected officials:
- These death bills distort Who is sovereign. The Creator God alone is sovereign, purposeful, and clear that life is given primarily for Him and His glory. God the Creator and life-giving Lord continues to care for men and women made in His image even through terrible earthly sufferings.
God alone is the sovereign Lord of all good or bad in one’s life. As such, because we are made in the triune God’s image, as male and female, and for His glory, our lives are not our own (Genesis 1:27). To take the life of another person undeserving of death— even your own by self-murder—is a severe evil built on a deception God hates (Genesis 9:6; Proverbs 6:17).
Your life is not your own and you are not sovereign to do whatever you please, particularly when it comes to rejecting God’s Word. God declared in His Word that bloodshed under the old covenant polluted and corrupted people (Numbers 35:33; Psalm 106:38).
God will not waste a moment of anyone’s suffering during this earthly life. In fact, the Lord often uses that suffering most powerfully in a person’s life. When Joseph’s father Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers questioned if he would harm them for the evil they had committed against him earlier. However, Joseph said to his brothers,
“Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive.” (Genesis 50:15-21).
After all Joseph’s sufferings—recall his brothers betrayed him and sold him as a slave, then alone and away from his family, he did the right thing but was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife and then unjustly imprisoned—Joseph was still able to say, “God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5).
A few years ago, a Christian woman in hospice shared how she saw God had placed her in the hospital she was in because she was called to bear witness for Christ to the doctors and nurses. She was faithful and God used her powerfully. Had she decided to selfishly focus on her sufferings, these opportunities to witness for the risen Lord Jesus Christ would have been lost.
Individuals are not sovereign.
Elected officials are not sovereign.
Bills and laws are not sovereign.
God alone is the sovereign, life-giving Lord.
Stories must be told by Christians about the lives of those who, even in their suffering, have blessed and continue to bless those in their family, neighborhood, and beyond. Watching someone persevere through pain under God’s sovereignty and helping them as much as one can (in a manner that is consistent with true love and sound medical care) is a tremendous gift.
But glorifying or fantasizing about the goodness of death to escape suffering diminishes proper trust in God’s sovereignty, wisdom, goodness, and purposes. It reveals faith in man, not God.
- These death bills push our neighbors and nation deeper into a descent toward a destructive, selfish, godless way of living and thinking. Many crises are happening all at once in our society. Confirming these grave concerns is just a sampling of a few recent studies: “Americans are lonely and it is killing them”, “How the Pandemic has Deepened an Epidemic of Loneliness”, “Depression has reached a new height” “One in five Americans (22%) say they always or often feel socially isolated frequently with serious consequences.”
When legislation like this death bill are seriously considered or even worse, passed and become law, it has the effect of further isolating people and confusing them about the meaning and purpose of life.
People need clarity not confusion in our day.
They need to know life is worth living and is a blessing, not a burden. They need to hear they are valuable and contribute, but even more so that prematurely ending their lives will not help but hurt their children, grandchildren, friends, or neighbors. To leave the world in this way will leave an impression on young, more impressionable individuals.
Glorifying suicide is never honoring to God and never loving to one’s neighbor.
God has made us for Himself and He is the one who gives and takes away (Job 1:21). God calls us to trust in Him in good and bad times knowing He is sovereign and good and will provide for us (Job 2:10; Matthew 6:25). This does not mean prolonging life at every cost is always right, good, or wise (see below). But it also does not mean anyone should actively and intentionally legalize, encourage, and glorify murder—even “compassionate” self-murder.
People in our country today need real help. The trust, counsel, and wisdom of medical practitioners, counselors, and therapists are fragile and need to be rebuilt. Sadly, this bill urges further harm, confusion, destruction, and chaos.
- These death bills oppose and distort what it means to truly love and care for one’s neighbors holistically, in light of God’s eternal truth. Christians must oppose this and any proactive “mercy killing” agenda because, to God’s glory, we love our neighbors and know they are more than just people who are suffering. They are eternal beings who will live forever– either under God’s rule and blessing or His just wrath and righteous condemnation. Christ Jesus is the difference and God is patient, not wishing any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
Though for many, “love” has been twisted to mean “affirm whatever I desire and do not challenge me,” true love is always consistent with the truth and is never disconnected from God or God’s righteousness and standards (1 Cor. 13:6; Psalm 119:142). The truth is that the intentional, unjust taking of another human life is never an option for a true Christian. It is still self-murder even if one claims compassion.
By affirming someone’s desire to end their life and urging them towards actively pursuing euthanasia, you aid and abet something God hates and will punish.
With that said, there is a massive difference between actively aiming to end a life and extending life at all costs. One can and must recognize the important distinction between intentional killing and passively allowing someone to die.
By deceptively calling this bill “Medical Aid in Dying,” there is a nefarious ambiguity that will confuse Illinoisans into thinking that across our state, medical aid is being denied to people who are suffering and near death. But this is not the case.
Proponents of a godless death agenda often use ambiguous terms, such as “a dignified assisted death” that are designed to confuse. This terminology has no doubt tripped up some well-meaning Christians and others to hesitate or question what they should believe due to the “nuanced nature” of such arguments. Yet as the late Christian author Melvin Tinker rightly noted in his book, Evanglical Concerns,
“there is a world of difference in terms of intention between deliberately shortening a life (euthanasia) and choosing not to prolong the dying process unnecessarily. The former involves the intention of killing, the latter the intention of not prolonging the dying. The difference between them is morally important and should not be confused.”
Amen!
As the Lord declares, there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) and some elected officials will intentionally blur lines between these to advance their agendas and increase the power of the state.
This also includes the justifications put forward by those seeking to promote self-murder. Loving our neighbors well means we recognize God is sovereign over good and evil that happens in their lives and ours.
He does use our sufferings and trials for His everlasting glory and the earthly and eternal good of many. We are all people in communities with families, neighbors, and networks of people whose lives we can all contribute to and can bless and enrich.
It must be said that people may be desperate for relief but those apart from Christ will find no relief in death. To their eternal dismay and horror, they will find even greater pain and sorrow despite what a deceived world wrongly thinks. As John Piper once rightly put it, as Christians we care about all human suffering and supremely, eternal suffering. As Christians committed to God’s kingdom and glory, our lives are to be ruled by God’s Word. His Word reveals our Lord and Savior’s perfect life, promised death, victorious resurrection, and glorious future.
As Dr. Harold Brown and Dr. Robert Orr note, our Lord and Savior Jesus was
“overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (14:34) and zealously prayed to be spared from the suffering that he knew would only get worse. Yet he affirmed that his primary commitment was to the larger purposes of God, whatever suffering they might entail. The absence of suffering is, generally speaking, something good–which is why Jesus prayed for it. But it is not the highest good–which is why he was willing to endure substantial suffering.”
We can and must minister to our neighbors and direct them beyond their temporal earthly sufferings even as we love them wisely under the rule of God’s Word. Scripture affirms our greatest commitment must be to God’s kingdom, not to the alleviation of suffering at all costs.
Our Lord Jesus called us above all to “Seek first His [Father’s] Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33).
- These death bills wield teaching power and influence (and if they become laws even more so) which will wrongly cast death as a friend, not an enemy to be defeated. Biblically and historically, we know that laws teach and instruct (Galatians 3:24; 1 Timothy 1:8). It has been pointed out by many that for good or ill, the laws of a nation instruct and teach the people of that nation about what is good, right, and true. Many will say essentially “Well, if it is legal it must be moral,” which is not the case. Laws should be built on eternal truth, not ever-changing standards (often based on the preferences of godless, powerful elites).
As law professor Adam J. MacLeod rightly observed,
“We need the rule of law in order to have justice…if law is whatever powerful people say it is, then we do not have rule of law, we have rule by the powerful. Law must stand independent of and superior to the will of the powerful. It must bind the reason of the weak and powerful alike.”
It is not compassionate to promote the so-called “good death” of another if by that one means actively and intentionally ending their life (often for any reason they deem valid). In one sense there is no such thing as a “good death.”
Death is an invasive enemy here in our world due to sin. If you hate death, then hate its source—sin (i.e., the rejection of and rebellion against the life-giving Creator God). But at another level, believers in the United States must recognize that a shift has taken place among our fellow citizens and we must be prepared to push hard against it. Ethicist Wesley Smith observes that today:
“…many now adhere to the “quality of life” ethic, which holds that the value of one’s life is relative to one’s abilities, capacities, and state of health. Unlike the sanctity of life ethic, the quality of life ethic does not abhor the taking of innocent human life. Rather, it perceives killing as an acceptable means of ameliorating human suffering, particularly if the afflicted person wants to die.”
If Smith is correct, then confusion abounds even more than what many realize. When someone speaks of “quality of life,” we likely have completely different understandings of what this means. As such, Christians must be prepared to push back even harder for laws built on truth to be upheld in the public square.
The manipulative whims of politicians preying upon a confused populace that has largely rejected God and forsaken many good things in its heritage will result in more, not less death laws being promoted. “Right to die” groups have ironically died in the past and one can hope that they continue to do so in the future.
- These death bills are a very slippery (and guaranteed deadly) slope. In recent history, the logic behind this thinking has been tried, found wanting, and worst of all, has left behind mountains of dead bodies. We can look back on history and see where those on the slope of justifying death went. For years now, bioethicist Wesley Smith has rightly and repeatedly warned that the “radical ambition of the euthanasia movement” is often in “agendas usually kept in the shadows so as not to alarm a wary public.”
Smith has admirably noted the same wicked arguments made by the socialist Nazis and other proponents of eugenics earlier in the 19th century are being heard again in our day. The arrogant socialist Nazis of Germany steeped in Darwinian evolutionist theory had, at the core of their project, the destruction of those they deemed worth less and inferior. So did the communist-Marxists.
Both worldviews were/are godless and collectivist at the core. They relied on “experts” even as they cast off biblical truth, natural law, and the healthy view of humanity championed by the West, which was formed by the Word of God and declared man as made in the image of God.
The slope does not simply look slippery but is also uncertain. Many before us have slipped down the slope, so we know where it leads. It is next to impossible to view this bill as anything but a foot in the door that will inevitably lead to an expansion of calls for death to include the many women and men, girls and boys who suffer from chronic pain or Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD).
Then to those who are depressed or mentally ill and, perhaps the most insidious, some of the most vulnerable among us—the disabled. This will also disproportionately affect the elderly, the weak, and those who are (wrongly) viewed as “useless” (according to our broken society’s “moral” standards), who will be viewed as a burden and not a blessing.
There is virtually no way to put the brakes on this insane immoral death agenda (despite what some will claim or dress it up as to advance themselves and the cause of death). As author and radio host Steve Deace has rightly noted, this is at its core a spiritual battle—once we collectively let go of the rope of reality, life, and truth, it will go fast.
To change metaphors, you cannot simply retrieve what flies out of the pinata you bust open in the name of liberty or self-expression and put it back in the box. Once a society is destroyed by unjust immoral laws in the name of justice and mercy, there will be damage both seen and unseen for decades to come.
This rises to the level of a society-ending dystopia. This opens the door for people who are unrelated to the suffering individual to decide the value of their life. Very often these will end up being so-called “experts,” but as we know, the experts have been dead wrong about a lot in recent years. The burden of proof lies on those who claim this is good, set against history and the gruesome reality of the past.
In light of the severity of this issue, what can and should we say to our elected officials? What must civil magistrates hear consistently from God-fearing Christians?
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator now. Ask him/her to vigorously oppose SB 3499. Below is one example (it is a bit lengthier so feel free to pick and choose whatever lines you find most helpful:
Suggestion when addressing elected officials: “Dear___________, I am writing to you out of concern about a recent bill. God alone is the Author of life and He gives and takes away. As an elected official in the United States of America, you still declare you are under God and take an oath pledging allegiance under God. No one—no politician, no medical doctor and not even an individual is sovereign over his or her life in the sense that they can do whatever they like with no God-given directives or commands. How we treat especially the vulnerable and suffering is a reflection of how we value and love one another. These bills open a door that glorifies death as a good option. They encourage people made in God’s image to ignore God and God’s Word and the declaration that everyone has worth and value despite what they think or feel. Many medical advances have been made that truly help people and many suffering people can testify that they were most blessed when they gave rather than when they received. Our society is struggling and suffering and many are confused and isolated already. Please do not put forth bills that will cause individuals to look away from their communities and families and toward their base instincts, encouraging fantasies and delusions about death. We want to promote and protect life and dignify our fellow human beings up until natural death. Your job as an elected official is to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good, not do the opposite by further confusing those who are already confused. Please do right in the sight of God and the citizens of our state.
Sincerely, _____________”
May we as God-fearing, whole-bible revering Christians in Illinois pray diligently and speak boldly as we are able and while we still have a voice. Even if it seems like no one in elected office is listening God is glorified when we bear witness for His truth and push back against the deceptions of the culture of death.
Soli Deo Gloria.
