1 Jn 3:12 7/7/81; Rev 11:7 3/15/83
A. Definition and Description.
1. Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being with malice of forethought, expressed or implied by the motivation of arrogance inside the cosmic system. The motivation comes from mental attitude sins, such as self-righteous arrogance, conspiracy arrogance, criminal arrogance, crusader arrogance, political arrogance, the arrogance of ignorance, the arrogance of unhappiness, or iconoclastic arrogance.
2. Hence, murder is both a sin and a crime related to cosmic involvement, and is often manifested in religion. All religions of the ancient world used human sacrifice.
3. Murder is the major attack on freedom and self-determination as a human issue in the angelic conflict. Murder is the invention of Satan and he is the motivator of murder. Murder is Satan’s genius to invent a system to attack freedom and self-determination, Mt 26:52.
4. All killing is not murder.
a. Capital punishment is taught in Rom 13:4 and Gen 9:5-6.
(1) Animals that kill people as well as humans that kill people are to be executed. We are responsible for any decision we make to murder someone else. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man [justice] his blood shall be shed [capital punishment].”
(2) Man has the right to slaughter animals for food, Gen 9:3-4. But this does not give man the right to slaughter people. Man learned to kill man by watching man kill animals.
(3) Capital punishment must be the result of due process of law, Num 35:30. There must be two witnesses. Homicide is first degree murder and must be punished by death, Num 35:16-18; Lev 24:17.
b. Another area of legitimate killing is in battle. The soldier represents his country while functioning impersonally and professionally. It makes no difference who the object is (Christian or otherwise), you do your job and kill impersonally, not emotionally. A soldier functions impersonally and professionally to preserve the freedom of his nation, Josh 6:21, 8:24.
5. Israel, as the first client nation, was commanded to be prepared for war. Much of the establishment truth found in the Bible is first mentioned in relation to Israel. The bonified modus operandi of warfare is declared in Eccl 3:8, “There is a time for war.” If you don’t make time for war by being prepared, then there will never be peace.
6. Our Lord’s rebuke to Peter in the garden was a warning against capital punishment because of criminal action (Peter’s), not a warning about military killing. Mt 26:52, “Then Jesus said to him, `Return your sword to its scabbard, for all who draw the sword [in crime], shall die by the sword [in capital punishment].’”
7. Killing in battle is not murder. Ps 144:1, “Blessed be the Lord who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.” 2 Sam 22:35, “He [God] trains my hands for battle.”
8. Jesus Christ Himself holds the record for killing in battle in Isa 37:36, when He killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. But our Lord will break His own record at the Second Advent when He returns to terminate the Armageddon campaign, Rev 14:20, 19:11, 15; Isa 63:1-6; Ezek 39:11-13; Joel 2:20.
9. God is the source of some wars. 1 Chron 5:22, “Because the war was from the Lord.”
B. The Origin of Murder.
1. Jn 8:43-44, “Why do you not understand what I am teaching you? It is because you cannot hear My word. [They were in the cosmic system and refused to listen to what He said because it condemned them.] You are from your father the devil, and the policies of your father the devil you wish to accomplish. He was a murderer from the beginning; furthermore, he [Satan] does not stand in the truth, because there is no doctrine in him. Whenever he communicates the lie, he speaks from his own person, for he is a liar and the father of it [the lie].” Those who reject truth are easily motivated to murder.
2. 1 Jn 3:12, “Not as Cain who was motivated from that evil one and consequently he murdered his brother with a sacrificial knife. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds [moral self-righteousness seeking to impress God] were evil, but the deeds of his brother were honorable.” Gen 4:5-8 gives the historical account of the first murder.
C. Murder, violence, and terror is always occur when man becomes involved in the cosmic system.
1. “The way of Cain” is the pattern for murder, violence and terrorism. Jude 11, “But these reversionists malign what they do not understand. Furthermore, what things they do understand by natural instinct [emotion] as unreasonable creatures, by these false doctrines, they receive corruption. Woe to them for they have gone the way of Cain. They have rushed for illegal profit into Balaam’s error. They have been destroyed in Korah’s revolution.”
2. The rise of crime and violence indicates national degeneration and the approach of historical catastrophe in the form of the fifth cycle of discipline, Jer 4:31.
3. Murder is always preceded by the mental attitude sin of arrogance. Rom 1:29, “Having been filled with all unrighteousness [lack of integrity] evil, greed, malice, full of jealousy, murder, strife, conspiracy, deceit, slanderers...”
4. This pattern of degeneration is developed into the destruction of the client nation. Hos 4:1-6, “My nation is destroyed from lack of knowledge of doctrine. Because you have rejected the principle of knowing doctrine, therefore I reject you from being a priest nation to Me.”
D. Murder is the only overt sin listed in the classification of the seven worst sins, Prov 6:16-19.
E. Murder is therefore prohibited, Ex 20:13. “You will not murder” is the qal imperfect of RATZACH, not QATAL. Deut 5:17; Mt 5:21.
F. Believers in the cosmic system are capable of murder.
1. David murdered in 2 Sam 12:9. Murder is a sin parlayed into evil through the interlock of the cosmic systems.
2. 1 Pet 4:15, “By no means let any of you suffer as a murder, or a thief, or a doer of evil, or one who sticks his nose in the affairs of others.”
3. 1 Jn 3:15, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that not every murderer has eternal life in him.” Believers are murderers, but not all murderers are believers.
G. Where guilt is established, the penalty for murder is death, Gen 9:6; Rom 13:3-4; Num 35:30-31; Mt 26:52.
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