"Thou shalt not kill."
I used to say: "What is the use of taking up a law like this in an
audience where, probably, there isn't a man who ever thought of, or
ever will commit murder?" But as one gets on in years, he sees many a
murder that is not outright killing. I need not kill a person to be a
murderer. If I get so angry that I wish a man dead, I am a murderer in
God's sight. God looks at the heart and says he that hateth his
brother is a murderer.
First let us see what this commandment does not mean.
It does not forbid the killing of animals for food and for other
reasons. Millions of rams and lambs and turtle-doves must have been
killed every year for sacrifices under the Mosaic system. Christ
Himself ate of the Passover lamb, and we are told definitely of cases
where He ate fish Himself and provided it for His disciples and the
people to eat.
It does not forbid the killing of burglars, etc., in self-defence.
Directly after the giving of the Ten Commandments, God laid down the
ordinance that if a thief be found breaking in and be smitten that he
die, it was pardonable. Did not Christ justify this idea of
self-defence when He said: "If the goodman of the house had known in
what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not
have suffered his house to be broken up?"
It does not forbid capital punishment. God Himself set the death
penalty upon violations of each of the first seven commandments, as
well as for other crimes. God said to Noah after the deluge--"Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" and the reason
given is just as true to-day as it was then--"for in the image of God
made He man."
What it does forbid is the wanton, intentional taking of human life
under wrong motives and circumstances. Man is made in God's image. He
is built for eternity. He is more than a mere animal. His life ought
therefore to be held sacred. Once taken, it can never be restored. In
heathen lands human life is no more sacred than the life of animals;
even in Christian lands there are heartless and selfish men who hold
it cheap; but God has invested it with a high value. An infidel
philosopher of the eighteenth century said: "In the sight of God every
event is alike important; and the life of a man is of no greater
importance to the universe than that of an oyster." "Where is the
crime," he asked, "of turning a few ounces of blood out of their
channel?" Such language needs no answer.