Thou Shalt Not Kill

FRI., FEB. 22, 1991, 6:27 AM
FARM, STUDY

This, of course, is one of My old Commandments. It is a negative one, commanding that you not kill, rather than what you should do instead, in situations where killing is possible, even desirable. It is a basic spiritual law, but you realize that it is broken rather often. How serious a sin is it?

You considered yesterday the dilemma that your president and his military people have – letting peace prevail when the Iraqi army is still rather strong. This seems militarily wrong, but one answer, at least, is killing more of these young Arabs before the war is declared over. As I have told you there are some good reasons for war, and the Iraqi leader is not a man of peace, but direct killing, just to reduce the strength of an army is certainly a denial of the value of individual persons.

In contrast a show last evening pictured the decision by a brother to end the life of his younger sibling because of brain damage in an accident. Pulling the tubes from this young man was an act of killing, but the alternative was continued life with much disability and little capacity to relate to others in human ways. Is death preferable to life with stark disability? Yes, sometimes death is a freeing action, and killing is the way toward this freedom. Yet there may be some merit in a partial life. I am aware of killings that were wrong and of killings that were acceptable… and the circumstances seemed much alike.

This seems to put this commandment in a relative state. This, of course, forces Me to look at the circumstances and the motives behind any killing. Was there a “good” reason for the killing? Was the killer’s motive a noble one… or one of malice? You see that these are relative also, for it may not be at all clear, even to Me, how “good” the reason was or how noble the motive.

Thus, the commandment remains in the stark form as a general rule of life. Yet actual killings will range from acceptable… even approaching noble… to blatantly selfish and sinful. War is a difficult situation to judge, for one of the obvious purposes of a war is to kill people so that one group of people will or will not dominate another. The present war is presumably about the invasion of a country, but it is also about the desire of one leader to dominate, his own people and others. He sends his troops to kill, and hence it becomes more acceptable to oppose this, which means killing the young men that he commands. The commandment is in place, but breakable.

Killing by withholding or not providing certain kinds of medical care is even more complex. It is true that some medical treatment prolongs a life beyond its natural, even its desired, length. Hence if I act to overcome such staying treatment I become, in effect, a killer. So I allow some people to live beyond “their time,” and rarely is this appreciated.

Now this gets Us to a strange dilemma – thou shalt not kill shades into thou shalt not die. This is true, spiritually, but it is sickness unto death for the earth and many of its forms of life when it refers to human bodily life. In a general sense, then, any human death gives the earth a better chance for survival. I do not condone killing, but I must now say, again, that death of bodies is part of My plan of life. Too much of even as precious a “thing” as human life becomes a pollution. And, yes, this situation does encourage some killing. And then I must judge.

As far as you know you have never killed another person, and you don’t expect to in this life. Yet you consider that you could, under certain circumstances. You don’t know if you could kill yourself, but you consider that this might happen, in an undesirable, painful future. You assume, fundamentally, that grace abounds, with forgiveness for a killing as there is forgiveness for not keeping a Sabbath holy. The basic truth is that when your hand is in Mine you do not act in sinful ways… and if you do you know this and accept My forgiveness and “setting it right.”