CAN PEOPLE WHO DIE BY SUICIDE BE SAVED? by William Boekestein for Core Christianity
There’s a reason we ask the question about the possibility of salvation for those who take their own lives. Suicide exposes the radical brokenness of the deceased. It rips the hearts and vexes the minds of those left behind. It subverts God’s interest in life. Can one die opposing God and still be saved? In thinking about the tragedy of suicide, biblical truth should both warn and comfort us.
Suicide Is Sin
Suicide is self-murder, the unlawful taking of one’s own life. It violates God’s desire for human flourishing and cheapens the value of humans as divine image-bearers (Gen. 1:26). God cares so much about human life that he enshrined its protection in one of the 10 basic laws—“You shall not murder” (Exod. 20:13)—imposing serious consequences for violation (Gen. 9:6). Suicidal ideation challenges God’s goodness and resists his promise to sanctify the suffering of his children. To use the language of a seventeenth century confession of faith, suicide is a serious, outrageous, and monstrous sin.[1]
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Still, human sin cannot cancel God’s grace in the elect.
Suicide Is Not the Unpardonable Sin
The sin for which there is no forgiveness is not self-murder, but a relentless rejection of the Spirit’s Christ-promoting ministry (Matt. 12:31–32). Converted people, true believers, can “by their own fault depart from the leading of grace, be led astray by the desires of the flesh, and give in to them.”[2] But even then, our merciful God does not take his Spirit from his children, cancel their adoption, or renege his decision to justify them. Through the gift of saving faith, God pardons true believers from every sin—past, present, and future. Believers’ eternal security is guaranteed by the Father’s eternal election (Eph. 1:5–6), Christ’s vicarious sacrifice (John 3:14–16), and the Spirit’s indwelling (2 Cor. 1:22). The murderer David knew the blessedness of one “whose transgression is forgiven . . . to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity” (Ps. 32:1–2). Death—even when self-inflicted—cannot separate God’s children from his relentless love in Christ (Rom. 8:39). To call suicide the unpardonable sin underestimates the radicalness of sin—even as committed by true saints, and the power of God’s grace over sin.
