You Shall Not Murder

24 Aug

Exodus 20:8-13, Genesis 9:1-5, Matthew 5:21-26

Kirrawee High School, 1980. A scrawny redhead in a new uniform, a Tiger bag over one shoulder, a hot dog and sauce from the canteen.

3:10 on the Oval. When two students had a disagreement, word spread. A circle formed. And the crowd chanted: fight, fight, fight. Nobody threw a punch from the circle. But everybody watched and egged them on. No one was neutral.

The sixth commandment — you shall not murder — is the one most of us assume we've ticked off. We've never killed anyone. We're fine.

But Jesus doesn’t let us settle there. In Matthew 5:21–22, he says: “you've heard it said, do not murder. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister, who calls them a fool, who treats them with contempt” — that's the same root. You've murdered them in your heart.

The commandment, it turns out, has always been about more than the act.

Every Human Life Is Sacred

Genesis 9 sets the foundation. After the flood, God speaks to Noah and makes something clear: human life has a weight that nothing else carries. “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed — for in the image of God has God made mankind.”

That phrase, image of God, Imago Dei, is the hinge on which everything turns. Every person you encounter is a representation of God. Not a reflection in a polished rock or a still pond, but the closest thing to a mirror image that creation has to offer. When you look at another person, you are looking at an image bearer of the God who made everything, and everyone.

That makes every human life precious in a specific way. Not precious because of what someone has achieved, or how they dress, or where they sit on the social ladder of Kirrawee High School in 1980. Precious because of who made them. Like a jeweller's ring that isn't for sale, not because it has no value, but because it's priceless. No ransom could cover it. Numbers 35 is explicit: there is no ransom for murder. The life of a human being cannot be compensated for, because it doesn't belong to us to trade.

The kids in the circle on the oval. The girl on the bus being goaded into a fight while the cool kids watched from the back seat. The person in the group chat. The colleague in the staff room. The family member at Christmas who's being talked over. Every one of them is made in the image of God. Every one of them is priceless.

The Circle Is the Punch

Standing in that circle at school, not throwing a punch, not jeering out loud, it felt like I was one of the good ones. But the circle is the punch. Take away the spectators and there's no fight. The crowd at 3:10 on the Oval made the fight possible. The people holding the cloaks while Stephen was stoned in Acts 7 were not bystanders, Paul later acknowledges he was there, approving of it.

Silence in the face of someone losing their dignity isn't neutrality. It's approval.

Jesus pushes this further in Matthew 5. It's not enough to refrain from violence. The heart behind the act is what God sees. Calling someone a fool, even in your head, even in the traffic, even without saying it out loud, is treating them as something less than what they are. And what they are is an image bearer of God. To dismiss them is to dismiss him.

The application isn't a neat list of what to do in every scenario. Every situation is different. Sometimes the right thing is to step in. Sometimes it's to speak to the person afterwards and say: “I'm sorry that's how they treated you”. I don't see you that way. Sometimes it's to leave the group chat. Sometimes it's to change the subject at the Christmas table. The question isn't which rule applies. It's whether the people who pass through your orbit leave feeling honoured, valued, and taken seriously.

The Gospel Makes It Personal

Jesus was binned.

At Kirrawee High School in 1980, binning was a ritual inflicted on younger students who wandered too close to the older kids' territory. Senior students would grab the offending Year 7 student, lift them bodily, and seat them in one of the steel bins that hung on poles around the quadrangle — arms out, feet dangling, bottom wedged in the bin, suspended above the playground for everyone to see. The kid couldn't get themselves out. Their friends were too small to reach. Teachers ate their lunch and watched. The point wasn't physical injury, it was public humiliation. You lost your dignity in front of everyone.

That's what happened to Jesus. A circle formed around him, the crowd jeered, the religious leaders mocked, the soldiers gambled beneath him. He was lifted up, publicly shamed, displayed for everyone to see. And he let it happen. Not because life was cheap, but because it was precious — and the only way to restore broken image bearers was for the one perfectly whole image of God to take the weight of what we'd done.

Blood for blood, life for life, but in reverse. His blood, his life, for ours.

There is a Japanese art form called kintsugi. It’s the practice of repairing broken pottery with gold. In the West, we try to hide the break. In kintsugi, the break is made beautiful. The repaired piece is more valuable than the original, not despite the fracture, but because of what filled it.

That's what the gospel does. Every one of us is broken, by what's been done to us and by what we've done. And the gold that puts us back together is Jesus. The break becomes part of the story. The repair is visible and beautiful and permanent.

So if you've been in a circle,as the one being watched, or as a watcher, here's what's true: you are not for sale. You are not defined by the crowd. You are an image bearer of God, precious beyond calculation, and the one who made you has already paid the price to have you back.

Pack that story around your heart. It will keep you warm.