Continuing in a series designed to allow God’s word to shape our clarity and compassion regarding the critical issues of our day that so often overwhelm us. More than a series…I believe it’s a season in which God is restoring our hearts with both His conviction and compassion. My prayer is that this morning we could do the same as we come to the issue of the SANCTITY OF THE WOMB…and the question of life itself.
Throughout this series the Lord has been making each of these issues very personal…revealing new depths of personal conviction and experience…and in a very positive way He’s really outdone himself on this topic…
While I am excited and thankful for how real this makes our topic of the sanctity of the womb this morning, and what a positive back drop it provides for looking to God’s Word regarding what we are to make of this life. I am addressing these issues to help face a far more controversial and complex issue…that of ABORTION. Likely the most difficult subject to address publicly because it is undoubtedly the most passionate, political, and polarizing subject of our day. Difficult because it is a subject often reduced to slogans and simplistic assumptions about “the other side.”
One side views the other as having no convictions, and the other side views the opponents as having no compassion.
I am well aware that there are SEVERAL AUDIENCES this morning with sensitivities I may offend, and I want to offer a word to each:
Pro choice… or perhaps uncertain …I am clearly pro-life, but it will never be a banner here…always welcome. However I do want to challenge you to come and reason with me.
Pro-life …It’s not just about positions but people; not just convictions but compassion.
Which brings me to a third audience…those who have experienced an abortion.
You know better than I, the real struggle of conscience…the hard choices that may never have been settled peacefully with God.
I care more about you than anyone else I’m addressing. As we look to God’s Word for clarity of convictions, I pray that such clarity will be the start of a process of healing and forgiveness for you. With that, I want to address two issues related to the sanctity of the womb;
First, this week, the question of life…its beginning and value, second next week the question of choice…How are we to sort out the rights that surround the womb with both the clarity and compassion of Jesus at work within us?
Let me begin with…
I. THE CURRENT QUESTION: Is human life endowed or achieved?
The practice of abortion first came into public discussion in ancient Greece, during what many refer to as the first “age of enlightenment.” A rampant sense of freethinking was in the air and abortion was given place for many of the same life style reasons as today. Along with the practice of abortion came preferential treatment to male babies and abandonment of babies who were undesired.
The early church fathers remained opposed…Tertillian, Ongin, Ambrose, Augustine…all maintained every life was sacred. This conviction eventually won the day and was adopted following the emperor’s conversion to embrace Christ or at least the teachings and worldview. This conviction has stood throughout Catholic history, and was held strongly by every reformer of Protestant tradition. (Calvin, Luther, later Karl Barth, Emil Brunner and Bonhoeffer.) A general unity of conviction didn’t change until the late 1960’s in America. Freedom was once again in the air, and with it came a new approach to reasoning about life.
Originally, the question posed was one of biological life itself. Little was known of the development process so something less than human could be imagined. But quickly technology revealed just how complete life was.
· In my wife’s womb is a life, whose entire makeup has been present in DNA since conception.
· Since the third week the lobes of the brain have been distinguishable and organs begin to form.
· Since the 4th week the heart is beating, the head and face are distinguishable, and arms and legs begin budding.
· By the 7th week, sex can be identified (but don’t ask!) By approximately the tenth week, the nervous system is transmitting messages to and from the brain; skin is responsive and the child will move if touched. The brain itself has approximately the same overall structure as it will have at birth.
· Scholar Jerome Lejeune, a professor of fundamental genetics in Paris testified to a Senate committee. “Life has a very long history, but each individual has a very neat beginning, the moment of its conception.”
The result of such knowledge has shifted much of the debate surrounding abortion; shifting to higher qualities of life. Few are trying to deny the humanity of the unborn, now a distinction is being made using terms such as…
· human life vs. human being
· biological life vs. personhood.
The debate is whether human life is endowed or achieved.
Some have proposed that there is a unique quality of viability outside the womb…but no child can survive more than a few minutes outside the womb on there own. Some have proposed that the quality that distinguishes a life as worthy of value is the social-relational quality that uniquely comes after birth. But such a distinction negates the relationship that every mother knows before birth. And such a distinction would question the value of every life which has mental disabilities. It becomes difficult to find any quality that perfectly distinguishes the inherent quality of a child before and after birth.
II. The Testimony of Scripture: The inherent sanctity of human life.
Psalm 139:13-16
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
[14] I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
[15] My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
[16] your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
This recognition of God’s hand on life in the womb speak for itself in regards to the testimony of Scripture. Some might note the metaphorical nature of the Psalms…but metaphor uses non-literal images to declare literal truth. (Cf. Psalm 23) And in fact we find, Scripture confirms and expands what the Psalmist recognizes about life in the womb.
1. Life begins at conception
The “seed” is understood as the sacred and spiritual means of passing on life. (Eve and Serpent-Genesis 3:15;38:9; David’s throne - 2 Samuel l7:12-16.
Some forty times Scripture refers to conception and life in the womb in referring to the beginning of life.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel.” (meaning ‘God with us.’cf. Isaiah 7:14; cf. Luke 1:31; Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:39-43.) When God chose to enter humanity…He did so not as an adult…not as a young child… but as an unborn child. When Mary had just conceived life by God’s Spirit…she visits Elizabeth…and refers to the unborn child as “the Lord”…in only the first couple days of pregnancy! If life begins at conception what value does God give to such life?
So God created humankind in his image
2. God’s image is inherent to creation of human life.
“Then God said “Let’s us make humankind in our image…Genesis 1:26-27
So God created humankind in His image.”
…The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.” Gen. 2:7
“breath of life” = plural, “lives”; God created life in his image with the capacity to create this life in an ongoing manner through conception.
…The bearing of God’s image is not connected to an attribute.
It’s a Greek dualist that looks for a functional attribute to give value of life.
God’s Word maintains that our sanctity of life is derived, not developed.
3. God’s relationship to life in the womb.
· “Thy hands made me and fashioned me.” Psalm 119:73
· Not only in developing but in calling and purpose. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before your were born I set you apart.” Jeremiah 1:5
· Samson’s mother was told not to eat unclean foods “for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” Judges 13:3-5
· Paul writes that God had set him apart “from my mother’s womb.” Gal. 1:15
None of you are an accident. God’s sovereignty holds a place for every life…with plans and purpose.
Let that truth declare deeply in your soul that your existence is intended, and let it declare value to every life conceived.
4. Destruction of life in the womb is the loss of sacred life.
“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take a life for life, eye for eye…”Exodus 21:22-23 (cf. Amos 1:13; 2 Kings 8:12; Hosea 9:14-16.)
III. The Hope of Heaven
· David upon the death of his newborn…”I shall go to him but he shall not return to me.” 2 Samuel 12:19-23
· Jesus on the special relationship of the child in their innocence…”See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” Matthew 18:10
Therein lies our hope.
Not by denying the sanctity of life, but by declaring it, as well as the healing and hope that awaits all who seek God’s forgiveness…even the forgiveness of having allowed a sacred life to be taken.
