The Sixth Commandment

“Thou shalt do no murder.” — Exodus xx. 13, This second commandment in the second table of the Decalogue is the first that deals purely and simply with the relation of man to man. So closely allied is human inter-relation to the relation existing between God and man, that this first word conditioning the former is based upon the latter. At the very foundation of the social fabric lies the fact of the sovereignty of God over every individual life. Before defining the laws which are to condition the well-being of society, the realm in which there may be no action based only on human will is clearly defined. Human life is emphatically declared to be sacred. It is a Divine creation, mysterious and magnificent in its genesis and possibility, utterly beyond the control or comprehension of any human being. It is, therefore, never to be taken at the will of one, who can by no means know the full mean- ) ing of its being. The revelation of God made to man I proves that He has purposes for every individual and for the race, stretching far beyond the present moment S or manifestation; and to terminate a single life is to set i up the wit and wisdom of man as superior to that of God. The immensity of the issues of death is so great that there can be no sin against humanity, and, therefore, against God, greater than that of taking life. In this brief commandment, therefore, is contained a statement of the first principle of human life, so clear and so vital as to demand the closest attention. Notice, then, first, the command; secondly, the application of the principle it contains to the present day; and lastly, its application in thi Kingdom of God.

I. — The Command.

Man’s first relationship is to God. He is His offspring. He is, and he is what he is, by Divine volition and power. All other relationships grow out of this first one, and are, therefore, subservient to it. Subsequent commandments dealing with blood, social, and civic ties, are all binding upon men, because they are included within this first and highest relationship of life. The sacredness of marriage, the right of property, the importance of reputation, and the supremacy of character, all gain their force and value from the nature of life. They mark, in fact, the unfolding of life in its varied possibilities. The giving of life includes all. The cessation of life ends all. Every power of the individual is due to the power of God, and all the possibilities of the race are to be traced to the same original source. It follows, then, of necessity, that life, being a gift of God, is in itself the most wonderful relationship, that of man to God. This commandment, therefore, in simplest words, and yet in sternest manner, flings a fiery law around the life of every human being, reserving to Him Who first bestowed it the right to end it. The change in translation which the Revised Ver-

/sion has given is significant and important. Instead of “Thou shalt not kill,” it reads “Thou shalt do no murder,” and there is a difference in the thought suggested. It is possible to kill and yet not to murder; it is necessary, therefore, to have a clear understanding

of what murder really is., Under the old economy, cities of refuge were provided, inlb which a manslayer might pass and find protection from the avenger of blood. A careful perusal of the account of the institution of these cities in Numbers xxxv. 9-34 will throw light upon the difference that may exist between killing and murder. All murder is, of course, killing, but all killing is not necessarily murder. In the passage referred to, the word “unwittingly” (R.V.), “unawares” (A.V.), reveals the difference. The man who, through error, unintentionally took the life of his fellow-mai* was allowed to take refuge withlfi one of these cities. It is, however, explicitly stated that if the deed were done intentionally the city of refuge itself did not offer sanctuary.

Here, then, is the difference between killing and murder. Killing is unwitting and unintentional taking of life; murder consists in the intentional taking Df human life on the alone responsibility of human will. Let it be dearly noticed in passing that killing unwit-Hngly was not looked upon as a light offence. The man who took life in this way was denied his liberty for an indefinite term. His safety was to be conditioned in his abiding in the city of refuge until the death of the High Priest. If he ventured from the safety of those protecting walls he also might pay the penalty of death at the hands of the avenger of blood. For the murderer, however, the man who of malicious intention, took the life of his fellow-man, no sanctuary was to be found on the face of the earth.

The simplicity of the commandment reveals its far-reaching application. Whoever is murdered, and whomsoever by, the law of God is against the act. This, in common with every utterance of Divine government, is no piece of class legislation; but human life is of value because it is human life, whether its days are being passed in the purple of the court, or in the rags of the dunghill; and the claim of man to safety from death at the hands of his fellowman is based upon the life he has received from God, not upon the accidental circumstances that are so largely the outcome of human arrangement.

In the same way the person taking the life of anothef is a murderer, whatever the social position may be. Taking human life is never made legal by the privilege of power, or plea of poverty. God clearly declares life, thinking, acting life, to be outside the realm where the will of man has any right to act as to its continuance or cessation.

This at once marks as murder the intentional taking of human life, whether by the individual, by society, or by the nation; and brands as a breaking of the commandment the act of killing, capital punishment, and all war, save where such act, such punishment, such war, immediately and unequivocally follow the clearly-expressed commandment of God.

In the history of the ancient Hebrew people God delegated His right to men for the maintenance of a social order based upon righteousness. The death penaltywas visited at His express command upon certain forms of sin, and wherever the hand of man took the life of his fellow-man under the clearly-marked conditions of the Divine economy, killing was not murder, but the carrying out of the Divine will through a human instrument. Achan, stoned to death, did not lose his life by the volition of his fellow-men. It was forfeited by the will of God at the hands of men. The executioners were but carrying out the express order of heaven. No leader of the old time, whether he were judge, king, or prophet, had any right of his own will, even in the interest of the nation, to take human life. The matter was very different when God made man the agent of His act. That the death sentence was never passed at the caprice of human will is most certainly proved by a careful study of the Mosaic economy, in which the sins which were punishable by death are minutely described, and the laws of their detection and judgment carefully expressed.

The same line of argument applies to the question of war under the old economy. The only justifiable wars in human history have been those undertaken immediately and directly in obedience to a definitely express Divine command. In such cases God chose to make man, instead of plague or of famine, the agent of His act of judgment. The history of the ancient people proves that when wars were undertaken only under i these conditions the loss of life was almost entirely upon the side of those against whom God sent His hosts. When, as was often the case, God’s people entered into war upon their own initiative, they were routed with slaughter. The whole history of the Hebrew people proves that the sixth commandment was of abiding importance. Human life in every divine economy has been held sacred from the attack of man upon his own initiative.

II. — The Application of the Principle to the Present Day,

This sacred basal law of human society abides until this hour. The only difference between the Christian era and that of the Hebrew dispensation is to be found in the fact that with the advent of Christ the law became absolute. From that moment through the centuries there has been no delegation of the Divine righV to any human tribunal or court. “God having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son,” and the speech of the Son magnifies the law in this particular respect, and is of such a character as to make all killing murder, save that which is purely accidental. No person will be prepared to say that murder by an individual is justifiable to-day for purposes of revenge. The destruction of life for public ends the Master rebuked in His own disciples, when they would have called down fire from heaven upon those that refused to hear Him. War was condemned absolutely by the teaching and action of Christ when in the garden He rebuked Peter for using the sword, commanding him, “Put up.., thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and when before Pilate He said, “My kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight.”

It is often argued that, in defence of the weak and oppressed, war may be justifiable; and that, surely, ist plausible argument. It is not for us, however, to take our standard of conduct from the most refined and cultured paganism, but from Christ Himself, Who speaks to this age. It is, therefore, of the supremest importance to remember that the point at which, in the quotations already given, the Lord denounced war, was when its possibility was suggested for His own defence against the malice and wickedness of the unholiest coalition that the world has ever seen. In His case, not by the punishment of evil-doers, not by conflict against oppressors, but by suffering, and through death, tri- ( umphs were won; and whoever is prepared to justify war under any circumstances, must do so at the cost of calling in question the wisdom of the Lord’s action.

The same line of argument applies to capital punishment. Men may have their modes of government, and the world may still attempt to discover through policy and philosophy new methods of creating a nobler society, but in the purpose of God there is but one King, His anointed Son; and one code of ethics, the speech of that Son; and one principle of government, the grace of that Son; and within the economy of that kingdom all punishment inflicted by man on man is remedial and redemptive. Not merely for the salvation of the wronged, but also for the reclamation of the one who wrongs was the cross uplifted, and when man visits y man with death, he exercises a form of punishment ’ which shuts out the possibility of a remedy. -, In the light of the Christian era war finds no justifif cation, and capital punishment has no place.

There are other forms of murder in these latter days, which are peculiarly the product of the age, and which are hardly ever named murder, because it is difficult sometiwies to detect the hand that strikes the deadly blow. The oppression of masses of people in the hunt for wealth is murder, and though our laws are so feeble that they are unable to detect the wrong-doers and punish them, this keen, swift word of God traces every murderer to his home, and the God Who hears the cry of His suffering people will call all such to account. The victims of lead-poisoning in the potteries, and of “phossy-jaw” in the match factories, are murdered by the men who, claiming to be free from all blame, too often des:?crate the tabernacle of God by unholy gifts. The death of the little child in the over-crowded hells of the slums is murder by the man who gathers his wealth from the rack-rented houses, without a care for those who perish that he may gain. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a very popular sentiment even to-day; but men seem to forget that the lips that first uttered the words do not recommend the sentiment.

The Infinite Love has found its fullest expression In this Christian age, and therefore human life is more than ever sacred. God has not for the last nineteen hundred years delegated to a nation His own right over human life, for among the records there is none proving that He has ordained war, since His Son decHned the use of the sword for the winning of His victories.

III. — The Application in the Kingdom of God,

So far the subject of the application of the law to the whole age has been under consideration. In conclusion it may be asked in what sense the commandment is binding upon those who are actually within the kingdom, claiming that Christ is absolute Monarch in their lives.

In the law of the Kingdom enunciated upon the mount of old, He said, “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time. Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire.” Here murder is tracked to its lair, anger; and the King declares that if anger be in the life of one of His subjects, such subject is in danger of judgment; that if anger find an expression in contempt, “Raca,” such subject shall be “in danger of the council,” that is, of discipline. And if such subject shall say “Thou fool,” that is an expression that marks condemnation, such subject shall be “in danger of the hell of fire.”

There is no room here for a question as to whether a man in the Kingdom may take the life of another. He is not to be angry with his brother. The Revised Version has omitted the words “without a cause,” for while many ancient authorities insert it, the weight of opinion is in favor of the view that Jesus did not use these words. Anger itself in the heart against a man is contrary to the genius and spirit of Jesus. Anger there will be, and must be, against sin; but, as in the case of the Lord Himself, anger against sin is not anger against the sinner. All the aggressive force of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ is to be directed against sin, and none of it against the men who are In the grip of sin. The Church of Christ has always been renegade from the Spirit of Christ when she has attempted to carry on His warfare with the weapons that are carnal; and when in the name of the Prince of Life, life has been destroyed. He has been insulted, and this sixth commandment has been broken. Under the kingship .|1 of Jesus, if the possibility of murder lurk within the heart of man, it is counted as murder. Whenever He triumphs in human life He creates the man, in dealing with whom all other human life is reckoned sacred.

The nation, the society, the individual which takes life of set purpose is guilty of murder. This is hardly the age in which such a sentiment will be popular, but it is getting to be time that the Church cease debating the sophistries of the age, and find her way back to bed-rock principles, refusing absolutely to be frightened or cajoled into complicity with movements that are in their very nature contradictory to, and subversive of, the teaching and the Spirit of Christ. As yet there has been no answer to the philosophy of Russell Lowell’s satire:

Ez fer war, I call it murder,

There you hev it plain and flat;
I don’t want to go no furder

Than my Testyment fer that.
God hez sed so plump an’ fairly,

It’s ez long ez it is broad,
An’ you’ve gut to git up airly

Ef you want to take in God.

‘Taint your eppyletts an* fethers

Make the thing a grain more right;
‘Taint affollerin’ your bell-wethers

Will excuse ye in His sight.
Ef you take a sword an’ dror it,

An’ go stick a feller thru,
Guv’ment aint to answer for it,

God’ll send the bill to you.

There is a vast amount of highly respectable, cultured, and most interesting paganism abroad in the world; and it is, after all, much to be preferred to the barbarism of the past; but, in the name of God and Christ, let the line of demarcation between this paganism and Christianity be clear and distinct. The Divine word was given on Sinai, amid the thunder and the lightning, “Thou shalt do no murder.” That word in gentle speech, far more searching and binding, is breathed through the Christian era, from the lips of Him Who died to save life; and whenever a human life is slain upon the field of battle, or taken in the name of societyi or murdered in the interests of the wealthy.

*j6 The Ten Commandments.

His wounding is repeated, and His teaching trampled under foot. The simple facts should be kept in mind. Life is of God. To take it, as to give it, is His prerogative. Man has no right to do so, save where immediately delegated to the work by the express command of the Most High. In this dispensation of grace, God never delegates this right to man. Those, then, who are His, must decHne to have any complicity with war, raise their protest against punishment which takes life, refuse to have profit or pleasure at the cost of human life, and so live in communion with Him, that anger shall be destroyed within, save as it moves in the power of His infinite love against evil in every form.