The term suicide -- which is generally defined as the "act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself"-- is not specifically used in the Scriptures; however, the injunction against killing embodied in the Ten Commandments, i.e., "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13), dealing with the unlawful homicide of another human being, would also forbid the murder of self. The very fact that the Almighty is the Giver Of All Life and "formeth the spirit of man within him" (Zechariah 12:1), tells us that it is not within our right to arbitrarily terminate our own life, against His permission. "Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:5-7).
To understand suicide to be sin against God and against self, is in keeping with the LORD Jesus Christ's statement concerning the Spirit of the Moral Law, where "love is the fulfilling of the Law" (Romans 13:10). "37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the First and Great Commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matthew 22:37-39). God requires, both in His Law and Gospel, that all moral agents choose the highest good of God, and of our being in general, for its own sake, as our ultimate purpose in life, i.e., a supreme love for God and an equal love of our neighbour as we would love ourselves. "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the LORD the Church" (Ephesians 5:29).
Neither the modern legal nor medical definitions of suicide entail the Scriptural aspect of suicide being the transgression of the Moral Law, where both God and man are denied the love that are rightfully due them. "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother [much less, himself], he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother [or, himself] whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen?" (1John 4:20). The supreme hatred of one's self and life, where a morally capable individual voluntarily terminates his own life, is also preeminent contempt of the "God [Who] Is Love" (4:16). Especially for True Christians, the very idea of disposing of our own lives as if we were the masters of them, is unthinkable. "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself" (Romans 14:7).
http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Fellowship/What.Bible.Says.Suicide.html [whatsaitht...ipture.com]
I always just thought "Thou shalt not kill" extended to self, but apparently there's more to it.
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