" THE GOD OF LIFE TREASURES LIFE ."

105. Q. What does God require in the sixth commandment?
A. I am not to dishonour, hate, injure, or kill my neighbour by thoughts, words, or gestures, and much less by deeds, whether personally or through another;[1] rather, I am to put away all desire of revenge.[2] Moreover, I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself.[3] Therefore, also, the government bears the sword to prevent murder.[4]
[1] Gen. 9:6; Lev. 19:17, 18; Matt. 5:21, 22; 26:52. [2] Prov. 25:21, 22; Matt. 18:35; Rom. 12:19; Eph. 4:26. [3] Matt. 4:7; 26:52; Rom. 13:11-14. [4] Gen. 9:6; Ex. 21:14; Rom. 13:4.

106. Q. But does this commandment speak only of killing?
A. By forbidding murder God teaches us that He hates the root of murder, such as envy, hatred, anger, and desire of revenge,[1] and that He regards all these as murder.[2]
[1] Prov. 14:30; Rom. 1:29; 12:19; Gal. 5:19-21; James 1:20; I John 2:9-11. [2] I John 3:15.

107. Q. Is it enough, then, that we do not kill our neighbour in any such way? A. No. When God condemns envy, hatred, and anger, He commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves,[1] to show patience, peace, gentleness, mercy, and friendliness toward him,[2] to protect him from harm as much as we can, and to do good even to our enemies.[3]
[1] Matt. 7:12; 22:39; Rom. 12:10. [2] Matt. 5:5; Luke 6:36; Rom. 12:10, 18; Gal. 6:1, 2; Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:12; IPet. 3:8. [3] Ex. 23:4, 5; Matt. 5:44, 45; Rom. 12:20.

Scripture Reading:
Genesis 9:1-7
Numbers 35:9-34
1 John 3:10-15

Singing:  (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 145:3
Psalm 103:5
Psalm 36:2
Psalm 23:1,2,3
Psalm 68:3  and Hymn 53:1,2

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

At first blink, the sixth commandment –especially its literal wording- seems rather remote from our daily lives. After all, who of us has murdered someone? Or has plans to do so? Yet, congregation, this commandment confronts us with a number of very contemporary issues. Matters of safety, be it traffic safety or safety in the workplace, fall under the sixth commandment. In our country thousands upon thousands of babies are killed each year before they are born – abortion. Dr Nitzchke is attempting to legalize and sell his death machine – euthanasia. Never in the history of the western world have there been so many suicides among young people as in our age. As youth see no meaning in life, they give themselves to more and more dangerous activities; think only of the use of potentially deadly drugs to get a high. The selfishness of our society also produces more and more vengeance…. All these matters belong under the sixth commandment, and so it’s clear: this commandment confronts us with very timely questions.

Add to that the depth our Catechism gives to this commandment! In Question & Answer 107 the Catechism confesses that with this commandment the Lord instructs us "to love our neighbor as ourselves, to show patience, peace, gentleness, mercy and friendliness toward him…, and to do good even to our enemies." This is far-reaching indeed! This commandment remote from our lives?! In truth, it’s anything but!

Indeed, brothers and sisters, here the Lord of life teaches us how he treasures human life. And if He treasures human life so highly, we need to do so also.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

Society around us operates on the premise that the God in whom you and I believe is not real. This world came into being through a process of evolution, we’re told, so that people are in essence no different from dogs or frogs, and no different either from weeds or slime. So you get your animal rights activists, and you get your Save-the-Forests people; people and animals and plants are on the same level, and the rights of one should be accorded to the other.

The Lord God has revealed a different structure. He tells us that He created this world with its plants and animals and people, and set the human race above the plants and the animals. I read in Gen 1:29: "And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.’" The point is clear: already in Paradise God ordained that people may kill plants to eat them.

Concerning animals as food the Lord gave a parallel instruction. Gen 9: "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs" (vs 3). Here is special permission from God that people may kill animals as a source of food. Around us are vegetarians who would argue that we may not eat meat or fish. It’s a principle contrary to Scripture. The Lord has given mankind permission to eat not just plants but also animals. But notice: God adds right away that He forbids man to eat the blood of the animals. Point is: the animals remain God’s property, and He sets the rules that man must keep. That’s also why we may not kill animals –or plants for that matter- for the fun of it. Plants and animals are God’s creations and remain His property, and so need to be treated with respect and care.

As God gave His instruction to Noah about killing animals, the Lord spoke also about man. Vs 6: "whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man." People may kill animals, and people may kill plants, but people may not kill people. The reason is simple: God made man in His image. That is: God has created man with a task and purpose that no other creature received. Dogs can’t do it, and frogs can’t do it; only people can image God, can reflect what God is like. You see: God has given to man a unique place in all creation, different from other creatures. God has bound man to Himself, is pleased to let something of His characteristics be seen in creation through man. If then an animal kills a man, God wants that animal killed; that animal has touched God Himself by removing from the earth one who could image God. Gen 9:5: "Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it." But the same is true for man; if a man kills another man, the killer must be killed. Same verse: "From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man." The high position God ordained for man in creation –just under God as His image!- means that no one may kill a person. And anyone who kills a person, whether the killer be man or beast, must himself be killed.

The people of Israel were gathered around Mt Sinai. Those people at the foot of the mountain had particular experiences in their life’s histories on the point of life and death. They’d been slaves in Egypt, dirt – and treated that way. In fact, Pharaoh had insisted that all the baby boys of Israel be drowned; here was infanticide. How many of the parents at the foot of the mountain had lost their boys to Pharaoh’s soldiers? They had in Egypt been treated as worse than dogs! Though created to image God, they and their little ones in Egypt did not receive from the Egyptians the honor that belongs to persons created in God’s image! But God did show them that honor! With a mighty hand and abundant mercy the Lord brought them out of Egypt, brought them to Mt Sinai. At the mountain the Lord established His covenant of grace with this race of hounded slaves and told them that He was their God. Old people and young, talented and special, boys and girls: to all God said that they were His. To this people God now repeats the instruction of Gen 9, and tells them that they may not murder. God had honored them and so lifted them from their slavery to be His people; now they may not murder any other Israelite, indeed, may not kill any other person. As God honored them by treating them according to the status with which God created them –in His image- so they were to honor each other, honor all men. People were not to kill people.

Just how much God treasured life was pointed up for Israel with God’s instruction in Num 35, in the passage about the Cities of Refuge. Notice vs 16: "if he strikes him with an iron implement, so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death." So too if he hits somebody with a stone or a wooden weapon so that the other person dies; the murderer shall be put to death. But it’s specifically God’s instruction about the manslayer, brothers and sisters, that drives home how seriously God takes the matter of killing another person. You know how life goes: accidentally, with no intent to hurt or kill, the stone you dropped over the cliff falls on someone so that he dies. Or the head flies off the ax and hits your companion so that he’s dead. Or you came around a corner with your chariot and ran over another person on the road. Those are the hard, and cruel, realities of life. Then what? This: God permitted the next of kin of the dead man to pursue you and kill you – though you had not intended to kill his brother! For one created to image God had been erased from off this earth, and God took offence at that!

At the same time, the Lord was compassionate to the manslayer. For God ordained that the manslayer could flee to one of those Cities of Refuge. In that city you’d be tried, and if found innocent you could live. But even though you had not killed your neighbor intentionally, you could not return to your home or your family; you had to stay in that City of Refuge –in exile, in other words!- till the death of the high priest. You see the point? You’d done nothing intentionally wrong, but the very fact that you had shed blood required a penalty; you were grounded till the high priest died. And the high priest’s death foreshadowed the death of the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ. Blood had been shed, a person created to image God had been snuffed out, and so the Lord required blood to set matters straight – Jesus’ blood. See there how much the Lord hates the shedding of human blood; to kill one made in the image of God is to touch God!

In the years since the instruction of Mt Sinai and Num 35, our Lord Jesus Christ has come to die for sin. With His atoning sacrifice on Calvary, the Savior has washed away the sins of all those who believe in Him – including sins against the sixth commandment, yes, also sins of murder and of manslaughter. The result of His work is that Christ has opened the way for all sinners to be reconciled to God; people of every tribe and race, people of every background and track record, can be forgiven of sin. God after Christ’s work on Calvary did not destroy all ungodly people, including murderers. Instead, the Lord caused the gospel to go out to the ends of the earth so that evildoers of every sort might come to faith in Christ. For people were created in the image of God, and so God does not write off some people as beyond salvation. Romans 2: "do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" (vs 4). The point: though people are fallen and evil, God still treats people with the honor that belongs to being created in the image of God. So God causes the gospel to go out to all men.

But if that is so, brothers and sisters, how much more does the instruction of God in Gen 9 and Num 35 pertain to us today! May we kill another? May we destroy human life? May we treat human life as if it is on a level with animals, or even with plants? No way! By the ordinance of God people today need to honor life, respect life – not because human life is special in itself, or somehow because people have a ‘right to life’, but because God has created it, and created it in His image. More, Jesus Christ has died and risen to save sinners, and so God lets sinners live so that they may come to repentance. How imperative it is, then, that we honor human lives today and preserve them! That is also why the Catechism says right up front in its discussion on the sixth commandment that "I am not to dishonor … my neighbor by thoughts, words, or gestures, and much less by deeds."

But what happens in our society? One may not murder, says God, and those who do murder are themselves to be killed – capital punishment. Our society agrees: one may not murder, and if one does there’s a penalty to pay. But in Australia the penalty is not capital punishment; the evil doer instead gets locked away for some years…. With that refusal to shed the blood of the murderer, society shows that we no longer see the depths of the evil of murder, no longer see that with murder we touch God – and therefore need to shed the blood of the murderer. And that is no surprise, for –says evolution- we are not created in the image of God….

That society no longer sees the depths of the evil of murder is pointed up by the legalization of murder in our land. I refer to abortion; each year tens of thousands of people are killed in Australia before they are even born, killed when they are most defenseless – in their mother’s womb. A penalty for the abortionist and the mother who seeks the abortion? There is no legal penalty; by the laws of the land this murder is permissible. But the Lord, congregation, hears the silent screams of the dying infants, and He is hurt that persons created to image Him are robbed of their life. And make no mistake: God’s hand weighs heavily upon the mothers; so many end up troubled afterwards with a guilty conscience. There is one way only to relieve that guilty conscience, and that is to turn to the Savior God gave in repentance and faith.

Do I, with saying this, make light of the problems facing those girls in our midst who find themselves unhappily pregnant? Far from it! Let’s face it: it’s tempting to drive to the other side of town where nobody knows you…, and pay a brief visit to that abortion clinic…, and Mom and Dad never have to know…. But listen, congregation, to the word God spoke to the girls of Israel long ago, and it’s a word He still says to us in Jesus Christ today: "I am the Lord your God…." That reality is true for the Christian girl of today who falls into sin, and it is true of the covenant child she has conceived; "I am the Lord your God!" If God is our God, will He not care for all our needs? "He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how shall He with Him not freely give us all things?" Indeed, even the unwanted child has in Him a Father, for He makes His covenant with believers and their seed. Is abortion an option? Let it be fixed in the minds of girls and boys alike: it is not an option. God is emphatic in His command: "you shall not murder." And He is equally emphatic in His promise: "I am the Lord your God." That’s a promise we need to embrace, in real life. And this is the good news we need to share with those who don’t know God; for Jesus’ sake the Lord will be a Husband for all who trust in Him, and for Jesus’ sake be a Father for their baby also. This is the only hope for our land: faith in Jesus Christ!

The same is true in relation to suicide. Never before in the history of the western world is suicide among young people as high as it is today. That today’s youth would commit suicide is understandable; if there is no God, life has no purpose or meaning, and death is simply the end. Then when everything looks hopeless, and you feel so blue yourself, why not put an end to things…? I can understand the statistic. But here too the Lord says: "You shall not murder" – not yourself either. Then it’s true: Christians can feel very hopeless and helpless too, and suicide may appear to be the only way out the dark tunnel. But God has spoken: "I am the Lord your God!" That reality was signified and sealed to us in holy baptism, and God works faith in our hearts also so that we say with Lord’s Day 1: "I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ." Even gray skies cannot change that reality! That gives comfort when a loved one has committed suicide. More, it gives perspective when one is tempted to consider suicide. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with Me" (Ps 23). And what is my Father’s will for me? His will is that I do not kill, not myself either, but rather trust that He gives my life purpose and meaning, and preserves me in the darkest hour. And this gospel is the only balm for the hurting spirits of so many young people in our land; in their despair and hopelessness, they need to know that they are not just highly developed slime, on a level with a frog; they need to know that God created them in His image, and so for Jesus’ sake will be Father for all who trust in Him. Life need not be dark because God treats man with the honor befitting those created in His image; He in patience gives space for the gospel to go out!

And what of euthanasia? The Northern Territories government legalized it some years ago, but the federal government disallowed it – thankfully. On what grounds? Government and media generally reject euthanasia with the "sanctity of life" argument. One shouldn’t allow euthanasia, it is said, because there is something unique about human life; each person has the right to live. If you give people the right to die, the edges become fuzzy, and the fear is there that a monster will kill people he doesn’t want – as Hitler did to the Jews. Yet the sanctity of life argument, beloved, is weak, simply because people do not respect the Creator of life. If in principle there is no difference between a person and a dog (for we both descend from the same original bacteria so many millions of years ago), then on what principle can you maintain that its OK to put down an old and crippled dog but wrong to do the same with a person?

But the child of God recognizes that the Lord God has created people to image Him. Then yes, through the fall into sin our ability to image God was so terribly marred. And a person afflicted with Alzheimers demonstrates nothing anymore of the dignity with which God once endowed man. But this person was still created to image God, and therefore must be treated with honor. That is why the type of care extended to the frail at Fairhaven is exactly in line with the sixth commandment. Dignity, honor, respect: this is what God wishes us to extend to the infirm and weak. And He at His time will graduate these infirm and frail with the ultimate dignity and honor befitting the image of God; He will give them the Crown of glory. Meanwhile, we cheerfully return to them the care they bestowed on us in our infancy, love them as they loved us (cf 2 Timothy 5:4).

That brings us to our second point:

Actions have a root; they do not come out of the dark. Cain killed Abel, the Bible says, because he did not love him – and therefore could not stand Abel’s righteous works (1 Jn 3:11ff). That lack of love: that was the root of murder. When God forbids the outward act of murder, He forbids also the lack of love that produces murder.

This perspective has consequences. May I abort the baby I don’t really want? No, I may not; in fact, I must learn to love that baby, this neighbor God has put on my path. May I kill myself, commit suicide? No, I may not; in fact, the Lord wants me to love myself – not in a selfish way, but recognizing that God has created me in His image, more, has given His Son for my sins, has made Himself my Father. May I kill an unproductive, twisted, frail senior - euthanasia? May I help in the person killing himself? No, I may not; in fact, the Lord wants me to love this frail senior, and so to extend sincere care. That is the instruction of God behind the sixth commandment; God wants us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and so to show him patience, peace, gentleness, mercy and friendliness – as God does to us in Christ.

Must I show love only to Christian people? Not so! The Lord gave His Son for us while we were still His enemies, says Paul to the Romans (5:8). Jesus puts it this way: "But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you" (Luke 6:27f). The Lord God makes His sun to shine and His rain to fall on believers and unbelievers alike; it is for us to show the same kindness and love to believers and unbelievers alike (cf Mt 5:44ff). God keeps these people alive, and He gives good things to them day by day so that they might learn to know Him and His Son Jesus Christ. We are created in God’s image, and renewed to image Him through the Spirit; it is for us show through our words and works something of God’s care and kindness also to the ungodly. That requires positive thoughts about the people around us, not negative. Those positive thoughts will in turn translate into acts of compassion also to those who do not know God, including those who contemplate suicide or abortion.

That also cuts off thoughts of vengeance. People may do evil things to us, may make themselves our worst enemies. But retaliate in some way, sue to get even, is contrary to the sixth commandment. "Love your enemies," says the Lord, and so we echo in our Lord’s Day that we are "to do good even to our enemies." So we leave vengeance and getting even to God; that’s His department.

People kill people because they don’t see value in people. The Christian knows differently; the Christian esteems all people because he knows that God created us all in His image. So we treat all people with honor, despite race or gender or social standing, and so strive to show them all the riches of God’s redeeming work in Jesus Christ. Amen.