Journeys of the Soul
Journeys of the Soul
In this lesson we look at four of the questions or issues that underly a Christian's attitute to abortion, including abortion immediately after conception.
One of God’s titles is, "Thou God of the spirits of all flesh" (Num 16:22, Num 27:16). God joins spirit and flesh together, and he alone has authority to separate them. Nobody else owns a human life; God says, "All souls are mine" (Eze 18:4). Anyone who causes or contributes to a human death, whether in the womb or out of it, must be sure they are an instrument of God.
This first point does not answer the main question concerning abortion, but it certainly puts us in the right mood to consider it, knowing that we are each personally responsible to Almighty God in whom we live and move and have our being and to "Jesus who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing" (2Tm 4:1).
There is a belief widely held today about the unborn, a belief not found in the Bible, that in the early stages of pregnancy, a separate human life does not exist in the womb, but rather a collection of cells that may be regarded as just a part of the mother's body. It is believed that the mother is free at this stage to destroy this tissue, because it is not yet a child or a babe.
The Bible, in the way it describes conception and pregnancy, lends no support or credence to that belief. The Bible speaks of that which is conceived and developing in a pregnant mother's womb as a "child" or "babe".
We can scripturally add no more to that. What is conceived in the womb is a "child" — a baby human being-- right from the start, however small. We should understand that destroying what has begun to form in the womb is taking the life of a child. We could justify such action before God only in rare circumstances, some would go so far as to say in no circumstances.
The main reason why abortion is so common, is the belief that early abortion is not killing a child, but merely preventing one from coming into being. Abortion would almost cease if people came to understand the Bible teaching that a "child" is "conceived in the womb".
Consider carefully the example of Mary the mother of Jesus. The angel said, "You will conceive in your womb" (Lke 1:31). Luke uses the same terminology in the phrase, "...before he was conceived in the womb" (Lke 2:21). Look at this text carefully...
"And when eight days had passed for him to be circumcised, his name was called Jesus —the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb" (Lke 2:21)
The words "before he was conceived in the womb" are Luke's way of saying, "before he became a human being". That is the natural sense in which to take Luke’s words.
If you don't grasp that immediately, think about the point Luke is making. Luke is mentioning the fact that an angel gave the name Jesus to the Christ child before the child who was to wear that name had come into being. So when the angel gave the name, the name was waiting for the baby. Now ask yourself when did that situation change so that it was no longer the name waiting for the baby, but rather...
We might have expected Luke to say that the angel gave the name to the Christ Child "before he was born". But he said something else, quite significantly, that makes an enormous difference.
Luke knew that the baby who was to be called "Jesus" had come into being before he was born. Luke therefore pinpoints the exact event at which "Jesus" was no longer just a name waiting for the baby, but was now a baby wearing that name. The Word had become flesh. Luke understands that this took place when he was "conceived in the womb".
We are all aware, of course, that our Lord's conception was a special case, because Mary was a virgin. However you will observe that his conception itself is not quite the thing we are concerned with here, but rather his growth and development in the womb immediately following conception. In that process, there are no grounds at all for treating the Christ child as a special case. Indeed, to do so would be to tread dangerously near the quicksand of heresy regarding Christ's human nature. Rather than discard our Lord's conception and birth as a special case irrelevant to our purpose in this discussion, I would offer it as possibly the most relevant example of all.
In short...We will understand when any human life begins as soon as we understand when the baby Jesus came into being. Luke the physician pinpoints that for us exactly. The Word became flesh when he "was conceived in the womb". And that's when everyone who is a human being becomes one.
Lesson continued