Third, is “hands that shed innocent blood”;
God alone is the author and giver of life and
only He has the right to take a life. Here again, pride is a root cause
of murder. Anger and rage involve someone else doing something we don’t
like or we want to take from others who have more than we do. James equates
murder’s motives quite well in saying, “What causes fights and
quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have
what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask
God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that
you may spend what you get on your pleasures“
(James 4:1-3).
When do you think that the first murder took place? Most
people would guess that the first murder was when Cain killed Abel. However,
there was an earlier murder. When Satan took the form of a serpent and tempted
Adam and Eve to sin, he caused them to sin and with that sin, they died (Genesis 2:17). This is why Jesus called Satan a murderer from
the very beginning. (John 8:44).
Murder is something that is easy
to understand as being wrong. God has always opposed murder. It is listed as
one of the things that God finds abominable in Proverbs 6:16-19. The word abominable has an interesting meaning;
it literally means something that makes you sick to your stomach. God is not a
physical being who has a stomach to be made ill, but the word conveys the idea
that God finds murder a very disgusting concept.
Many sins that men commit carry
appropriate punishments for the sins. Even before Moses brought the Old Law to
the Israelites, God gave mankind a command that murderers were to be put to
death. “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for
in the image of God has
God made mankind.” (Genesis 9:6)
Some people
think that killing murderers, called capital punishment, is a silly holdover
from more primitive times that modern, civilized people should no longer
practice. However, since God has commanded capital punishment, it would seem
that a culture that does not kill its murderers shows a disrespect for the
wisdom of God.
To some people, killing a
murderer is just another form of murder. To these people any taking of a life
is wrong. Often, Exodus 20:13 is quoted, "You shall not kill." Some
translations do render this verse in this way, but most good translations
render the verse, "You shall not murder." The Bible makes a
distinction between killing and murder. There are times when killing must be
done, as in times of war, however the key word here is “innocent” blood.
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