VERSE 1
Beneath the cross of Jesus
I find a place to stand,
And wonder at such mercy
That calls me as I am;
For hands that should discard me
Hold wounds which tell me, “Come.”
Beneath the cross of Jesus
My unworthy soul is won.
VERSE 2
Beneath the cross of Jesus
His family is my own—
Once strangers chasing selfish dreams,
Now one through grace alone.
How could I now dishonor
The ones that You have loved?
Beneath the cross of Jesus
See the children called by God.
VERSE 3
Beneath the cross of Jesus—
The path before the crown—
We follow in His footsteps
Where promised hope is found.
How great the joy before us
To be His perfect bride;
Beneath the cross of Jesus
We will gladly live our lives.
It must be conceded that the topic of medical assistance in dying is first and foremost an ethical question that must be carefully considered. Is there a basis for morality? Is morality derived from public opinion? Lobby groups? The vocal minority? A God-given ethic? No matter how one answers that question, it must be conceded that the western world has been built on a Judeo-Christian ethic. God’s law was given in the desert of the Sinai peninsula where he said, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). This law, along with other biblical principles, still remains as the foundation for our morality in the western world. Should we be so quick to abandon it?
The prohibition against murder (frequently called the “shedding of innocent blood” [Ex 23:7; Deut 19:10, 13; Ps 10:8; Prov 6:17]) includes the elderly, the terminally ill, depressed, disabled, and those wishing to die.
Saul and Assisted Suicide
Saul, the king of Israel, was badly wounded in battle by archers (1 Sam 31:3). He commanded his armor-bearer to draw his sword and kill him fearing the enemy would find him and mistreat him. The armor bearer refused because of fear so Saul took matters into his own hands and fell on his own sword (1 Sam 31:4).
Later a man from Saul’s camp came to David to tell him the news of Saul’s death. This young man, thinking that David would be pleased to hear about Saul’s death since Saul had tried to kill David in the past took credit for ending Saul’s life. The young man explained that he came across Saul surrounded by the enemy and wounded and that Saul asked him to end his life (2 Sam 1:9). He claimed that he took Saul’s life and confirmed that there was no way Saul would survive his injuries (2 Sam 1:10). Upon hearing this news, rather than rejoice, David mourned.
After a period of mourning, David said to this young man, “How is it you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?” (2 Sam 1:14). The young man was executed as a murderer. The last words said to him by David were, “Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the Lord’s anointed'” (2 Sam 1:16).
What do we learn from this historical account? We learn that assisting someone in their death, even when they are mortally wounded is murder.
Why Is It Wrong?
Two main reasons are given in God’s word for why assisted suicide is always wrong.
1. The Image of God. All life is important, even the terminally ill, because we all are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27). We have dignity, value and worth as human beings that is categorically different than animals or other forms of life. Our value is not imposed upon us by society or any human invention, it is intrinsic, coming for the fact that we are made by God himself (Acts 17:28). For example, murder is wrong “for God made man in his own image” (Gen 9:6). This is the foundation for the doctrine of the sanctity, or sacredness, of every human life.
2. God Is the Author and Sustainer of Life. Life and Death are in God’s hands, not ours (1 Sam 2:6). I can’t choose when and where I’m born, this is God’s prerogative. Likewise, I can’t choose when and where I die. That is God’s right, not mine or any other person’s.
Practical Concerns
There is no higher authority than God and his word, as such medical assistance in dying is clearly wrong. Not only has God spoken on the subject, there are also a number of practical concerns. A few are considered here.
1. Impact on Palliative Care. Palliative care involves medical professionals helping the patient and family cope physically and emotionally with the distress of advanced illness. It’s an important field where today almost no patient is beyond the help of pain-relieving medicine. As medical assistance in dying becomes legal and people avail themselves of this “service” our palliative care facilities will suffer. It’s inevitable that less funds, research, medicine, and personnel would be directed toward palliative care. Medical assistance in dying is obviously more attractive for its lower cost and minimal burden on the health care system. Palliative care is a fulfillment of the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39, see also the story of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:20–37).
2. Moral Quandary. Why would it be morally acceptable for a doctor to assist in suicide but not someone else? Is it wrong to assist someone in their death or not? If the intention is to cause a person’s death at their request, how can it be wrong and illegal for one person to do it, but right and legal for another person to do it?
3. The Myth of Legislating Safe Guards to Prevent Abuse. Likely, the answer to the moral quandary mentioned above is that if medical assistance in dying is handled by qualified medical professionals abuse will be eliminated or minimized. However, there is simply no way to legislate safe guards to prevent abuse. How can legislation guarantee the absence of coercion? Quite simply, it cannot. It can attempt to minimize it, but it must be admitted that abuse will occur. How much abuse of the most vulnerable in our society is acceptable?
4. Protecting the Vulnerable. It doesn’t take a research paper to understand that many of our elderly, disabled, and terminally ill patients already feel like a burden to their family, nurses, and those close to them. They need our help and support, not medical assistance to kill themselves to alleviate what they perceive as the suffering of others.
5. Duty Bound to Die. Related to the previous point as the acceptance of medical assistance in dying grows, so will the expectation to avail yourself of that “right.” It will grow not only to allow people to die, but it will become the duty for people to die. The terminally ill, disabled, the elderly, the vulnerable people we’re called to love and protect will feel coerced and duty bound to end their life in this culture of death.
6. Never Enough Allowances and More Lives Deemed Unworthy to Live. As seen in other countries, legalizing medical assistance in dying will not stop with the current legislation. More and more allowances will follow. Why is this an issue? More and more abuses, less and less services for helping those in difficult circumstances, and a growing mindset in our society that those who qualify for medical assistance in dying are not worth anything alive. As these allowances increase we are in fact saying that there are more circumstances where a person’s life is not even worthy to be lived. If you were living in a state that qualified you for medical assistance in dying, regardless if you desired it or not, you will feel unworthy and without dignity since others have deemed your life of such a low quality that it’s acceptable to end your life. To have the right to die means your life is less worthy to live.
7. Religious Liberty of Doctors/Nurses. Canada’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms says, “Everyone has the fundamental freedom of conscience and religion.” Legalizing medical assistance in dying sets the so-called “right to die” on a collision course with freedom of conscience and religion. Allowances for doctors to opt-out of administering fatal medicine by forcing them to make a referral to another doctor is simply unacceptable. Whether one pulls the trigger, or sends you to someone who pulls the trigger is still murder and still violates the fundamental freedom of conscience and religion.
8. Personal Experience. It doesn’t take long to find stories of those who thought about dying with medical assistance but have been proved wrong.[1] Michael Wenham, having a rare form of motor neurone disease, has not found his life any “less valuable.” He says that for the disabled, chronically ill and the elderly, the campaign for weakening the law “feeds on and fuels our fear” of being regarded as “disposable burdens.” He also believes that for doctor assisted suicide would be an “intolerable reversal of their raison d’être.”[2] In another case, Martin, facing terrible pain and fearing “being a nuisance” to his hospice nurses, cancer stricken and dying, this ex-soldier asked a doctor to help him die. Instead she arranged for him to attend a parade of cadets he had trained who threw a party in his honor. His remaining days were transformed by new purpose and a realization of his own value to others. Martin died peacefully two days later.[3]
[1] For example, see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/locked-in-but-still-lost-in-music-uks-bravest-dj-7604143.html and http://matthampsonfoundation.org/about-us/matt-hampson
VERSE 1
The precious blood of Jesus Christ,
The covenant of grace
Unveils the wonders of God’s love
To Adam’s fallen race.
The Sovereign King who died for all
Redeems us from our sin
And makes us kings and priests of God
Where we shall reign with Him.
VERSE 2
The precious blood of Jesus Christ,
A new and living way,
Gives access to a holy place
Where we can boldly pray.
In trying times of grief and pain,
A throne of grace is ours,
Where mercy flows for every need
With God’s sustaining power.
VERSE 3
The precious blood of Jesus Christ,
The song of saints above
Who glory in the risen Lamb
And boast of God’s great love.
From every nation, tribe and tongue
One body all are we:
A people joined by grace alone
For all eternity.
VERSE 1
Jesus is the Son of God, the Lord of all,
The chosen One, the Son of Man,
The King of kings who gave His life for me
This Jesus, the Great “I AM”!
CHORUS
We bow down before Him who is worthy of worship,
Worthy of worship and praise.
We bow down before and humbly adore
This Jesus, the Son of God.
VERSE 2
Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Righteous One,
The Sacrifice who bore my sin,
The Prince of Life who lives and reigns on high
This Jesus, He’s coming again!
VERSE 1
Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of your holy word.
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us;
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness,
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
Speak, O Lord, and fulfil in us
All Your purposes, for Your glory.
VERSE 2
Teach us Lord full obedience,
Holy reverence, true humility.
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of Your purity.
Cause our faith to rise
Cause our eyes to see,
Your majestic love and authority.
Words of power that can never fail;
Let their truth prevail over unbelief.
VERSE 3
Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds;
Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us.
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time,
That will echo down through eternity.
And by grace we’ll stand on Your promises;
And by faith we’ll walk as You walk with us.
Speak, O Lord, ’til your church is built
And the earth is filled with Your glory.
VERSE 1
What astonishing mercy and power:
In accord with his pleasure and will
He created each planet, each flower,
Every galaxy, microbe, and hill.
He suspended the planet in space
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
VERSE 2
With despicable self-love and rage,
We rebelled and fell under the curse.
Yet God did not rip out the page
And destroy all who love the perverse.
No, he chose us to make a new race,
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
VERSE 3
Providentially ruling all things
To conform to the end he designed,
He mysteriously governs, and brings
His eternal wise plans into time.
He works out every step, every trace,
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
VERSE 4
Long before the creation began,
He foreknew those he’d ransom in Christ;
Long before time’s cold hour-glass ran,
He ordained the supreme sacrifice.
In the cross he removed our disgrace,
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
VERSE 5
We were blessed in the heavenly realms
Long before being included in Christ.
Since we heard the good news, overwhelmed,
We reach forward to seize Paradise.
We shall see him ourselves, face to face,
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
VERSE 1
His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange!
Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage.
Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified.
In Christ I live, for in my place He died.
CHORUS
I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost:
Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God.
Bought by such love, my life is not my own.
My praise-my all-shall be for Christ alone.
VERSE 2
His robes for mine: what cause have I for dread?
God’s daunting Law Christ mastered in my stead.
Faultless I stand with righteous works not mine,
Saved by my Lord’s vicarious death and life.
VERSE 3
His robes for mine: God’s justice is appeased.
Jesus is crushed, and thus the Father’s pleased.
Christ drank God’s wrath on sin, then cried “‘Tis done!”
Sin’s wage is paid; propitiation won.
VERSE 4
His robes for mine: such anguish none can know.
Christ, God’s beloved, condemned as though His foe.
He, as though I, accursed and left alone;
I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home!
VERSE 1
You are eternal, God of ages past
Alpha, Omega, You, the First, the Last!
None may compare, there is no god beside You.
Holy! Unchanging! There is none like You.
CHORUS
You are the Lord! You are our God!
Father, Son and Spirit! You are the Lord!
VERSE 2
You are Creator, God of everything.
You spread the heavens, You made the stars to sing;
You made the earth, creating man to know You.
Sov’reign! Almighty! There is none like You.
VERSE 3
You are Redeemer, God of boundless love
Father who chooses, Son who shed Your blood;
Spirit who grants new birth that we might trust You.
Gracious and merciful! There is none like You.
VERSE 4
You are exalted, God of endless praise
Saints from all nations praise You all their days.
Gathered around Your throne we will exalt You.
Worthy and Glorious! There is none like You.
Words by Horatius Bonar, 1861; Music by George William Martin, 1862; Copyright: Public Domain
VERSE 1
Not what my hands have done
Can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne
Can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do
Can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears
Can bear my awful load.
VERSE 2
Your voice alone, O Lord,
Can speak to me of grace;
Your power alone, O Son of God,
Can all my sin erase.
No other work but Yours,
No other blood will do;
No strength but that which is divine
Can bear me safely through.
VERSE 3
Thy work alone, O Christ,
Can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God,
Can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God,
Not mine, O Lord, to Thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest,
And set my spirit free.
VERSE 4
I bless the Christ of God;
I rest on love divine;
And with unfaltering lip and heart
I call this Savior mine.
His cross dispels each doubt;
I bury in His tomb
Each thought of unbelief and fear,
Each lingering shade of gloom.
VERSE 5
I praise the God of grace;
I trust His truth and might;
He calls me His, I call Him mine,
My God, my joy and light.
’Tis He who saveth me,
And freely pardon gives;
I love because He loveth me,
I live because He lives.
