When we talk about “Euthanasia”, we have to make one thing perfectly clear.

It’s very simple. “Euthanasia” is a Euphemism, defined as “The act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive.”

What is offensive about Euthanasia? It is the act of murder, ostensibly conducted either at a person’s request, or for “their own good”.

That is what is offensive about Euthanasia. Permit me to be Southern Baptist for a moment, and let you know what I’d call it: “A stench in the nostrils of God.”

My thesis? Euthanasia has no Biblical basis, nor does it even remotely fit God’s will, in any way, shape, or form.

Get the picture? Good. We’ll move on.

“Voluntary” Euthanasia.

There are a plethora of arguments people use to promote the “right” to die. (ie: commit suicide – with assistance – thus, compounding their sin)

Let me give you a sampling, culled from Gospelcom.net.

“Own Body”
“Quality of Life”
“Pain”
“Burden”

There’s more. That’s a small sampling of them, though.

There are, to be blunt as many arguments as there are equivocations. They all come down to one thing – murder, and the justification of the same.

The “Own Body” argument fails on the Biblical test. “The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it” says Psalm 24:1. On a more personal level, Ezekiel gives us this: “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine.”

The “own body” defense can have no justification before God.

The “Quality of Life” fails the Biblical test. Would you care to remember the man blind from birth? The lepers? The cripples? Or, heaven help us all… LAZARUS! Quality of life? All life belongs to God. Every breath we take is a result of the common grace God gives to all. Not the specific grace – the grace that allows us to breathe, to live, and to die, once our years are complete.

Jonah comes to mind here. Jonah’s “quality of life” is at stake. He was sent to preach to the heathen Ninevah – who, in Jonah’s eyes, unfortunately repented. Even so, he sits and waits for the judgement of God to fall on them. He is disappointed. What does he ask God?

Glad you asked.

“Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”

Oh ho! “Assisted suicide” indeed!

God ignores his whiny pity party, by the by.

“Do you have good reason to be angry?”

In fact… God causes a vine grows up, to shade his head, while he’s watching Ninevah and pouting.

“…And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant.”

Yeah, funny how little things matter, when we’re suicidal, isn’t it?

Then, poor Jonah… his plant dies. He whines… again.

“Death is better to me than life.”

Ha!

God says: “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?”

Jonah says: “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”

God says: “”Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know {the difference} between their right and left hand?”

When someone asks to be killed: Do they know the Lord? Most probably not. Do they need to go see Him right away? Most definitely not.

Anyway… on to the next. (I just had to give the Jonah example. He makes me laugh. Almost as much as I make myself laugh when I’m being particularly whiny about something. Jonah, dear friends, is the perfect example of how not to act. Not to say that people who genuinely suffer are funny – they are likely serious. God’s response is the important part, in that instance – don’t you think?)

For the problem of Pain, we can look at Job. Noone, noone, NOONE we can look at, in the Bible, has more of a reason to die than Job. Noone whatsoever. Every single one of his children die. Almost simultaneously. Everything he owns is taken from him – and he was very rich. He is covered with boils, and suffers terribly. His wife is a harridan, and actually, and I quote, tells him: “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” His friends accuse him of a secret sin, which has caused all of this. He has nothing, and I do mean nothing, to live for.

On earth. Job, you might remember, is the same one who gives us the following messages, which I think applies to everyone in a similar situation:

“Be silent before me so that I may speak; Then let come on me what may. Why should I take my flesh in my teeth And put my life in my hands? Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.”

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another.”

What was it that evoked these heart-rendingly poignant expressions of faith and love? Pain. Satan tried him to the limit of human endurance – and still, per God’s trust in His servant, he proclaimed the goodness and love of God. That is why our self-deceiving attempts at “putting someone out of their misery” is misguided, at best, and downright murderous, at worst.

God uses pain to show His power. Don’t forget that. Pain is only a barrier to the glory of God, if God is not in you.

The Burden defense falls, as the rest, on the rock of Biblica truth, and is shattered.

God says:

“Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.”

“Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, The God {who} is our salvation.”

God carries the burdens for those who are unequal to the task. Jesus told us, you remember, to “come all you who are wary, and heavy laden – and I will give you rest!”

In the Christian life, the care, or service for another, is never a burden. It is a service as unto the Lord. We are to bear one another’s burdens!

Never, ever, tell me that another human being is a “burden”. Never.

So, there is a Biblical defense for the “Right to Live”. There IS no “right to die”.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants

See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Murder is murder. Suicide is no different.