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What Does The Bible Teach About Euthanasia?

In 1976, a young girl lay in a hospital bed in the state of New Jersey, the doctors having just pronounced her to be in an irreversible coma. Supposedly she was being kept alive by artificial life support while her parents were given the option as to whether they wanted to continue to maintain her "life". The doctors favored keeping her alive on the machines but her parents were not of the same mind. The controversy reached the courts in New Jersey, reaching to the state Supreme Court which decided that Karen Ann Quinlin should be given the right to die. The plug was pulled on her respirator and to the surprise of the whole medical community, she did not die. She continued to live apart from the artificial life support that they thought was keeping her alive for a period of nearly nine years. Karen Ann Quinlin's life, or rather her death, set in motion a series of debates and court decisions that continues to this day. Probably one of the most interesting cases that occurred along this line happened in June of 1986 when a lady by the name of Marie Odette Henderson, a school teacher in the San Francisco area, admitted herself to one of the area hospitals, complaining of severe pains in her head. She was diagnosed as having a brain tumor through a series of tests that was performed on her. Apparently the tumor was inoperable. Six days later the doctors pronounced her brain dead. There was however, one very important consequence of Miss Henderson's death and that was the life of the child she was carrying, for at the time of her death she was six months pregnant. The doctors had determined that the baby had about a 10% chance of living at this point in its development is born by a caesarean section on its mother. Unwilling to take these odds, the doctors decided that they would keep the body of Miss Henderson alive to allow the baby time to mature until it reached a point where they believed that it could survive outside the womb of its mother. At seven and a half months, only six weeks away, the baby would have about a 75% chance of survival. A battle was fought in the courts between the parents of Miss Henderson and the doctors and the courts decided that the parents had the legal right to discontinue the life support system. But the boyfriend, who was the biological father of the baby, interceded and obtained a court injunction to prevent the termination of the life support system. The baby then, was allowed to grow inside the womb of its mother who had been declared brain dead until it had reached the maturity of 36 weeks. At this point the doctors operated and gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby and at the same time, terminated the life support system of Marie Odette Henderson, causing her body to stop functioning.

Stories like these have set our country, as well as our world, on end, for our scientific abilities have increased to such a point that we can now keep just about anything "alive" indefinitely. The problem is that our medical ethics has not been able to keep pace with our technology, at least that is, from a secular viewpoint. Apart from the instruction of the Word of God, our society finds it is able to maintain "life" but unable to define life. We struggle with the question of when life begins and hence the abortion debate, and when life ends, and thus the controversy over euthanasia. Two questions need to be asked and answered. Actually it is only one question but from different angles. One question is, "How long should we prolong life?" and the second is from the opposite perspective, "How long should we prolong death?" In other words, does a person have the right to terminate their life "prematurely"? This "right" is primarily being fought for by Dr. Jack Kevorkian in the state of Michigan, but he is not alone in his quest. Dr. Kevorkian, who has been called, "Dr. Death", believes that people with "terminal" illnesses should be allowed the right to decide how much suffering they will endure and should they decide that they can no longer bear the pain, be allowed to terminate their own lives with the assistance of a physician. According to Dr. Kevorkian, he is performing a "service" to his patients.

This subject of the "right to die" is technically known as "euthanasia". The word comes from two Greek words, eu meaning good and thanatos meaning death. Therefore, euthanasia literally is a good death. Often this is referred to as a mercy killing or death with dignity. Actually there are two types of euthanasia. Active euthanasia is the activity of purposely ending one's life apart from natural causes. Then there is passive euthanasia which is the activity of allowing one to die, not going to heroic efforts to save or maintain life. We need to determine the extent of our efforts to maintain life for undoubtedly we will in our own experience be one day faced with this dilemma, whether it be with our own life, or that with the life of a family member.

It is absolutely necessary for to begin this study with an understanding of biblical thanatology, that is the biblical study of death. In order to understand what death is and when it occurs, we first must understand what life is. We may safely and simply say at this point that death is the absence of life. Therefore, if we understand what constitutes life, we then can determine when death takes place. Now in order to understand the essence of life, we must understand what is the constitutional nature of mankind.

What is man? How is he put together? What makes him tick? You and I, regardless of our physical differences, are composed of the same two basic substances. The first is the material substance which is our body and the second is the immaterial substance which is called our soul and/or our spirit. There is a great debate between theologians whether the soul and the spirit are the same things or two different entities. We will not resolve the issue here. Nonetheless, there are two basic substances that constitute a man, a material and an immaterial substance.

We will first look at the nature of man from a material aspect. We begin in Genesis 2:7. At this point in the creation narrative we are at the end of the creative week. Moses is filling in some details that were not included in Genesis 1. At this point everything is created but mankind. We read,

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Unlike the rest of creation, when God created man He took of already existing materials and formed them together to make a man. With these materials He made a body complete with hair, fingernails, arms, legs and internal organs. Even with the possession of every vital organ and feature that composes man's physical nature, there was one thing missing... life. It was not until God breathed into Adam the breath of life that man became a living being. This is foundational to our study. Science and medicine try to determine life and death by observing the operation of physical aspects of man's makeup. This is what has led to the great problem in the abortion issue. Those who desire the right to an abortion do so believing that the baby inside the womb, which may not have fully developed "parts" is not living. But we see from this verse, that the operation of bodily organs is not the determining factor as to whether one possesses life or not. Conversely, the non operation of certain parts of the anatomy does not declare a person to be dead. Life, according to Genesis 2:7 exists with the possession of an immaterial substance. Death then, is the absence or departure of the immaterial part of man.

I personally believe that this immaterial part of man exists in two entities. The soul which is the seat of the emotions is the first of these parts. The other is the spirit, which is the seat of the intellect. Generally the Bible refers to the heart as the seat of our emotions, but when the Bible does this it does not necessarily mean the physical organ, just as we do not do so in our usage today. In the same manner, the seat of our intellect is the brain, but actually the seat of the intellect is the mind and there is an important distinction to make between the two.

Let us briefly examine the soul from a biblical perspective. What does the soul do? There are a number of passages that we could examine, but we will only examine one for this study. Let me list though a few others. 1 Samuel 18:1 says that the soul loves. If it be possible for the soul to love, it must be possible for the soul to hate which 2 Samuel 5:8 declares. In Job 23:13 we read that the soul desires. The key passage that we want to examine is Matthew 26:36-38. It states, Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here and watch with me.

Here the soul is suffering and sorrowing. It is important to notice that it is the soul that is suffering, not the physical organ of the heart as in the expression, "my heart is heavy with sorrow". Genesis 1:26 says that man is created in the image and likeness of God and part of that image is that God has emotions and so does man, and these emotions reside in the soul of man. When God breathed into man the breath of life, part of what man received is a soul.

The other part of what man received is his spirit which is the seat of the intellect. Again we could examine many passages on the spirit of man such as Romans 8:16 which says the the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Or we could examine Job 32:8 or Proverbs 20:27 which also deal with the spirit of man and his thinking capacities. However, we will deal with one passage which is needed to understand the spirit, that being 1 Corinthians 2:11. We read,

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

This verse says that it is impossible for us to know what is going on in the mind of someone else. Only the mind of a person thinking their own thoughts can know for certain what they are thinking. Now we can measure brain activity, but we can not understand the mind of another as to what they are thinking. How can we know about God. From observable data we can know something of God but we can only know his will (mind) by His revealing Himself to us. Unless someone else tells us what is going on in their mind, we have no way of knowing. Notice the distinction between the brain and the mind found in verse 16 of this chapter,

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. (emphasis mine)

Here is an important consideration to our subject. The Bible declares that God is without a physical body, yet He possesses a mind. Nowhere does the Bible say that God possesses a brain. God also is a living being. Therefore, in order for something or someone to be considered living, they must possess a mind even if the brain may not be functioning properly. At this point we return to Genesis 2:7 where God creates man. He creates a physical body, which may have had a heart that was working and a brain that was functioning, but man is not declared to be living until God breathes into him an immaterial substance which is his soul and/or his spirit. Therefore, in order to declare a person to be alive, he or she must possess a soul and/or spirit. With this in mind, it then becomes very easy to state when death takes place. Death occurs when the soul/spirit leaves the body.

Death, biblically, always speaks of a separation. Two aspects of separation take place. First there is a separation of the dead from the living. Psalm 115:17 says that the dead do not praise the Lord and are silent. In Ruth 1:17 Ruth says to her mother-in-law, Naomi, that only death would separate them. When a person dies, they are separated from the living so that they are no longer in contact with them.

Not only are the dead separated from the living, but the actual cause of death is that the soul/spirit is separated from the body. James declares that the body apart from the spirit is dead, just as faith apart from works is a dead faith. Ecclesiastes 12:7 is a verse of Scripture that is usually spoken at the graveside during a funeral service, but unfortunately the words are usually forgotten there. Solomon says that at death the dust shall return to the ground where it came from and the spirit shall return to the Lord who gave it. When the body is laid in the grave it decomposes, but the spirit of the person has already departed and gone elsewhere. One preacher once remarked that at his funeral he wanted the mourners to be told that as they viewed his body all they were seeing is a shell, the nut had gone to heaven.

We can conclusively say that biblically speaking, death occurs when the soul/spirit departs from the body. But the question now is, how can we determine when this takes place? Is there any way of detecting when an invisible, immaterial soul/spirit departs from the material?

Here is where medicine can be a help to us. Historically, death has been determined by the cessation of the activity of the heart and the lungs. In days gone by, if you were in a hospital and you died, a nurse would come into your room and put a stethoscope on your heart and listen for a heartbeat. Secondly, they would lean down close to the face with their ear and listen for any sign of breathing, or a mirror would be placed near the mouth to detect any vapor from breathing. If the heart had stopped and also the breathing, a person would be declared dead. However, as our technology has increased, our ability to keep alive people has also. For example, years ago if you suffered a heart attack where your heart stopped and also your breathing, there was nothing that could be done for you. Today that is not so for through the use of CPR and other measures, we now can bring people "back to life". We must conclude that a person does not die immediately after the heart ceases to function or breathing is discontinued. There are reports of people who have fallen into lakes and were trapped underwater for up to 30 minutes and when they were recovered from the lake, they were kept alive. The point is that the heart can stop beating of the lungs can stop breathing and yet we can keep a person alive and revive them to a full, normal life. Because of these things, modern medicine has been forced to reevaluate when death occurs.

Today medicine defines death not by the lack of activity of the heart and lungs but the lack of activity of the brain, and this is in keeping with our theological understanding of life, for evidence of the activity of the spirit and soul can be accounted for by brain activity. Instruments such as an electroencepholograh can determine brain activity even if the heart and lungs are not functioning. Because of this the following requirements are needed to declare a person dead:

1. There must be irreversible structural damage to the central nervous system.

2. Nothing can be depressing the brain stem's function such as alcohol and barbiturates, muscle relaxants, hypothermia, or gross metabolic imbalance. By this it is meant that there can be no artificial restraint on brain activity that will cause the brain to "slow down". For example, when a person becomes intoxicated, their reactions become impaired. It is not because the muscles cannot react as quickly, but that the brain is not functioning as quickly, it has been artificially restrained.

3. Brain stem reflexes - corneal, pupillary, gag, and oculovestibular - must be absent.

4. There must be no respiratory effort during a satisfactory trial period.

Basically from these 4 statements, medical science now says that if there activity in the brain, there is life. If there is no brain activity, there is no life present. How does this definition of death agree or disagree with the case of Karen Ann Quinlin? In her case, they said that her heart and lungs were not functioning. Therefore they supplied artificial respiration which supposedly kept her alive. But all the time there was brain activity and she was alive, which explains why, when they removed the artificial life support, she continued to live. The story with Marie Odette Henderson was that she was declared brain dead, and as soon as they removed the artificial life support, the body followed suit. Let us now draw all these things to a conclusion. No matter what science may do to the body, if the soul and spirit have departed, which will be indicated by a lack of brain activity, the person is dead and will never physically live again. On the other hand, if the soul and spirit are present, which will be indicated by brain activity, no matter what is done to the body, it will be living.

What then, should be our response to these things? Should we live and die with a “que sera sera” attitude, whatever will be, will be? Should we live and die with the idea that God has my days numbered and there is nothing that I can do to change that, so that if I take my own life, I am only dying when God wants me to anyway? If we adopt this attitude we should not bother with medicine at all for there is no need of it for we will recover if we are going to recover, and if we are not to by the plan of God, what good will medicine do? On the other hand, if our days are determined by ourselves and not God, then we should do everything possible to preserve life, or if we prefer, to end it when we desire.

Fortunately for us, the Bible gives an understanding of man's and God's role in determining the length of our life. There are certain Scriptures that indicate that God has already determined the length of our days and nothing can be done to alter that. Over in Psalm 90:10, Moses says that man's days are 70 or 80 and that is about it. In Psalm 39:4, David writes, Lord, make me to know my end, and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am.

Probably the most clear verse as to the determination by God of the length of our days is found in Job 14:5. There Job says,

Seeing his days are numbered, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.

Apparently, God, in eternity past, determined for each one of us how long our days on earth would be and there is not one thing humanly possible, that can be done to exceed those days. But hold on, there are some other passages of Scripture that seem to indicate just the opposite. Proverbs 3 begins this way,

My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: for length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

This one verse seems to indicate that our longevity is determined not by God, but by what we choose to do in it. Seemingly we can add days to our life. There seems to be an example of that taking place in Isaiah 38 where Hezekiah was sick unto death and Isaiah came to him and said, "set thy house in order for thou shalt die and not live." But Hezekiah reminded the Lord in prayer, that he had been obedient to God's law and walked in it. In response to his prayer God added 15 years onto the life of Hezekiah.

These verses seem to contradict the previous verse that speaks of God's determination of the length of our lives. How do we reconcile this apparent contradiction? The answer to our dilemma is this. God in His omniscience and omnipotence has sovereignly determined the length of our days which is unchangeable by any activity of man. But God has given to us a free will to exercise how we will live those days and in the exercise of our wills, we will determine the length of our days according to the will of God. An analogy can be made here to God's sovereign will in salvation and the exercise of man's free will.

From this understanding, we can draw some practical applications concerning the prolongation of our lives. Let me first illustrate the conclusion and then declare it. Suppose you had a child who was about 10 years old. Under normal circumstances, we would expect that child to live for another 60 to 70 years. But what would we do if that child appendix burst. Well, knowing that his days were determined to be about 70 years we could say that it was not necessary to do anything. No, on the contrary, knowing that his life had a great expectancy to it, we would rush him to the hospital and have his appendix removed in order that he might experience the years that are determined for him. Now suppose that instead of him being a 10 year-old son, he was a 75 year-old father. Once again his appendix bursts. Once again we could say that since his life expectancy is about used up, we should do nothing and just let him die and once again we would be wrong. Who knows how much longer he might live and it would be our responsibility to do everything possible for him to recover from that medical problem. But let us now change the scenario to that of a medical problem that is untreatable and terminal. Now what do we do? If we accept the philosophy of Dr. Kevorkian we would say let's end it now and forego all the suffering. Or, if we go to the opposite extreme, we say that we will do everything possible to maintain life, we will hook up gadgets and gizmos that will cause the physical organs to operate indefinitely, but will we be preserving life? How do we determine how long to keep someone alive? Now here is the practical application. As long as there is hope that the person will be able to continue to exercise the mind and the heart, not the physical organs, but the seat of the soul and the spirit, we need to give them every chance to live. But recognize that there is a point where God says that He is removing the soul/spirit from the body and the mind cannot be exercised any longer, and there is no use keeping a body going under those circumstances for it does not, and will not possess life.

Now that may be "easy" for us to say, but what about the pain and misery that a person must suffer if we do everything to keep them alive and they will not be able to function as a "normal" person? Why should we prohibit someone, Dr. Kevorkian would ask, the freedom to skip the suffering which produces no apparent good? The answer is given to us in Philippians 1:20-25 & 29. Here we find two other principles that will form our rationale to determining the needs we have in maintaining life. When Paul writes this letter, he has neared the end of his life. In a letter written to Philemon, Paul calls himself, "Paul the aged". When Paul wrote this, he was imprisoned and quite uncertain of the duration of his life for he was facing capital punishment for his faith. Not only that, according to 2 Corinthians 12:7, Paul had been carrying around a thorn in the flesh, a physical impairment, for some time. With that in mind, look at what he writes,

According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I shall choose, I know not. For I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart, and be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith... For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake...

Here Paul writes that the purpose of his living is that Christ might be exalted in his body. That, too, would also be the purpose of his death. But how can a person who is suffering, or better, how can a person who is a "vegetable" exalt Christ? How can a person who is unable to communicate with us, who is unable to take care of their own bodily functions, exalt Christ? Would it not be better for them to be dead? I suggest the answer is no! For if that person has brain activity, then they possess a soul/spirit which is part of man's being created in the image of God. And if they bear the image of God, then their life has purpose. If that person is a Christian, then that person has the ability to commune with God, even if they can not communicate with us. And if that person can commune with God, then they have the opportunity of accomplishing much. I am very thankful for the good health that I possess. But sometimes I believe that I just might be a little better off if the demands of life were not so great, that I would not need to be in three places at once, or that here were more things to attend to than was physically possible for one person. If only we had the time to really concentrate in prayer, my, what we could accomplish. That is, unless you believe that prayer accomplishes nothing.

But what about the suffering, why not avoid it when it becomes more than we can bear? My answer is that there never is a time that we bear more than we are able if 2 Corinthians 12:9 is true for God says that his grace is sufficient for us. If God's grace is not sufficient, we might as well end life early. The solution to man's problem is not ending his life early but appropriating God's grace to handle all of our suffering. Paul says that the purpose of our living is to exalt Christ, not to please self. The problem with euthanasia is that its motivation is selfish and therefore it is ungodly.

The second principle here is in the form of a question. Have I completed all that God has given to me to do? Paul was in a pickle. On one hand he desired to die and be with Christ for that was far better than anything we can imagine. But there was a need for him to remain on the earth and that need was the Philippians. Later in 2 Timothy, as Paul was only moments away from his death, he wrote that he had finished his course, his work was done, now he was ready to die. May I say that one does not need a well-functioning body to do the work of God. As long as God gives us life, we should be about His work.

Is there ever a time when a mercy killing is unmerciful? I suggest to you there is. The most unmerciful thing that anyone can do is to end the life of someone who is unsaved. No matter how much pain a person may be in in this life, if they die without Jesus Christ they will be in an infinite more amount of pain in eternity. When the rich man of Luke 16 died, he awakened in eternity not in torment, but in torments. The most unmerciful thing that ever happened to the rich man, was allowing him to die. No matter what pain a person may suffer today, the most unmerciful thing that anyone can do is to allow that one to die without Christ. If you, who are reading this paper today, do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior from the penalty of sin, do not boast of tomorrow, for you have no guarantee of it. Instead, consider seriously the precariousness of your life. Right where you are, why don't you ask Jesus to save you. Believe that the blood that He offered on Calvary's cross was sufficient for all of your sin and invite Him to come into your life and be your Lord. If you do, you will have life that no one can end and life that makes every worth living.