13 “You shall not murder. - Exodus 20:13

THE MURDER OF DISORDERED PASSIONS

Embedded within the command "thou shalt not murder" is the understanding that it reaches far beyond the mere prohibition of physically taking another person's life. The Westminster Larger Catechism in question 135 elaborates on this brilliantly, stating that

"the duties required in the sixth commandment are all careful studies, lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes and by subduing all passions, which tend to the unjust taking away of any life." - Westminster Larger Catechism Q135

This catechetical exposition highlights that murder is not just the bloody and homicidal result but actually begins before the knife is drawn, before the gun is aimed and before the bomb is thrown. As the catechism teaches, murder begins with disordered passions. Before a person will ever dream of performing a sinister coup de grâce, their heart will have executed that person a million times through anger, malice, bitterness, jealousy, envy, and even a million micro-annoyances.

WE ARE ALL SERIAL-KILLERS

For this reason, the commandment not only calls us to be innocent of grabbing the Tommy gun and mowing down our adversaries and not only innocent of planting claymores in our enemy's tomato garden; it also calls us to a life of inward purity of heart. We are called by God to mortify our sinful passions and to beat them into submission so that anger no longer walks unchecked within our serial-killing hearts.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us full license to speak, think, and interpret this commandment in this way. He intensifies the understanding of what murder is by exposing the pickled and festering root lying dormant underneath it. And that, Jesus tells us, is good old-fashioned anger.

For instance, in Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus says this:

"21 "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." - Matthew 5:21-22

Contrary to many popular opinions of who Jesus is, He did not loosen the standard. In fact, he ratcheted it up so that even the sweetest, pillowy-handed grandmother can be considered (in some ways) on the same level as John Wayne Gacy and Jeffery Dahmer. Like those fiendish men, she has a pile of bodies that she has dismembered with a thousand glares, hacked with ten thousand razor-bladed comments, and buried with a million mental weapons like agitation, frustration, bitterness, and resentment. And while the societal fallout over her sins is far less egregious than the sins of the Son of Sam, in the eyes of God, she is no less guilty of murder.

In fact, by Jesus' standard, the entire human race is rendered as multi-count murderers. None of us are innocent on the just scales meted out by Jesus Christ. Instead, we have all become polluted and filled with violence, albeit a kind that our conscience is not so easily offended by. According to Scripture, the anger that rages within our hearts is on the same playing field as murdering infants, strangling someone over loose change, gunning someone down in the street, or grisly gangland assassinations funded by the Russian mafia.

THE REORIENTING OF OUR MURDERING

Although, as was said above, the fallout from these actions will differ wildly, the telos is all the same. Everyone deserves the fire of hell, as Jesus said. If left unchecked, if anger and mild annoyances are swept under the rug (as we are accustomed to doing), and if we go on sinning in this way without repentance, we should have no confidence that we belong to the Lord. Notice what I said. You should have no confidence if you continue, if you continue in these sins without remorse, without repentance, without struggling against your sin.

This is because a Christian repents. A Christian struggles against the flesh. A Christian does not say with their lips, "I'm really struggling" with this or that, yet without an ounce of fight to be found in the body and soul. A Christian fights to mortify their flesh. A Christian repents murdering others with their attitude and sass and picks up the cleaver to begin murdering the sin that caused it. A Christian is the one who picks up the bayonet and goes to war, as Romans 8:13 says, not one who continually succumbs to their hostilities and rage. Here is what I am saying, dear Christian, the good and the sweet confidences of our Christian faith (the assurance of salvation) are not for the sluggard and slothful but for those who are waging an all-out war against their sin.

It is through repentance that we turn away from our disordered passions so that we might have great confidence we belong to Christ. It is through the Spirit of God that we repent, learning to love the things that we once hated and beginning to hate the things that we once loved. Furthermore, we will not, nor ever will we, do this perfectly. By the end of this very day, you will have become a murderer once again, giving into some trifle annoyance that simmers in your serial killing heart. Many men reading this will murder their wives with harsh tones and demeaning language. Many women will murder their husbands with cold shoulders or bitiing criticisms. Many parents will murder their children with the aggrivated "you always'" and "you never's" instead of loving discipline. There will be children who murder their parents with disrepectful eyerolls. Employees murdering bosses with slander and gossip. Drivers commiting drive by murders with single fingers on the highway. Neighbors blowing eachother away over decade long property line disputes. Church members shenking one another behind their back, sowing discord and division, it's murder, murder, muder!

In each of these examples, we see how disordered passions lead us to what Christ calls murder. All of us have done it. Each of us, truth be told, have a hit list longer than Hillary Clinton (with many more excuses to boot). But we're Christians. And as Christians, we are told to lay our sins down at the foot of the cross and trust in the finished work of Christ to heal us and transform us as new creations.

Confess our sins to the only one who can forgive our sins. To trust in his Brothers and sisters, let us be a people who confess our sins to Christ, receieve His forgiveness, and (far from being a tre-hugging pacifist) let us turn our seraded edges away from others and pointed squarely at the flesh. For, as John Owen once said: "Be killing sin, or sin be killing you." Thus, if we are to be a serial killing people regardless, let us be a sin murdering, flesh slaying, iniquity killing people to the glory of God.