Chapter One
The Gift of Lives
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being.
GENESIS 2:7
The foundation of hope for any human dilemma
or, in fact, for any human disobedience will always
be drawn from God's Word-not from human reasoning
or happy-talk philosophizing. The answer
to your deepest pain or most grievous heart cry
lies in Scripture. What then, should be your first
question?
Perhaps the best place to begin is with the
simple query: Was my unborn child, in the fullest sense
of the meaning, actually a human being? That question
must be settled with confidence and personal
certainty. God's answer gives rise to an amazing
basis for hope-an expectancy never before anticipated
as possible. So let's discover what the
Creator Himself has to say on the subject.
Our first objective is to establish a biblical
basis for the prenatal existence of the human
soul. Is a person a person before he or she is born?
Here is the crux of the matter, for if we are
only dealing with chemistry or tissue in examining
the nature of the fetus or the stillborn, there is
little at stake. But in most of us, an inner monitor
signals that there is something more involved
here than mere chemical combinations or complex
structures of tissues. Could it be that God
has given a conclusive and confirming witness in
His Word that the life of an embryo is eternal?
Without surrendering to either mystery or
superstition, we can say yes! The life of the child in
the womb is eternal. But please understand: This is
a statement based on far more than religious opinion,
occult dogma or human imagination.
The religionist may trumpet the reality of
and, therefore, the sanctity of life in the womb.
But so often these assertions lead to the leveling
of accusations. Too easily the focus falls solely on
the sin of life's sanctity having been violated, and
the hearer rebels. Even if the call to protect life is
worthy, it is a false victory to suppose that proclamation
is more important than the good news
of God's grace, love and healing forgiveness. Life
is sacred, to be sure. But many need to see sacred
truth that extends beyond that fact-truth that
offers other facts after human blindness may
have overlooked the first fact of life's sanctity.
On another front, the reincarnationist proposes
that all human life is merely the recycling of
personalities in new bodies, with the hope of continually
improving one's lot in life with each recycling
experience. But whatever the wish, hope or
pretended logic of such a proposition, honesty
requires that we immediately dispense with those
notions. God's Word abolishes the phantom
philosophies of reincarnation. According to the
final revelation of the Bible, life is a one-time
proposition for each of us as far as this world is
concerned. Life is an appointment that (1) has
God's divine purpose, and (2) requires our accountability:
It is appointed unto man to live and die but
once-after this comes his evaluation before God.
Contrary to the confused ideas of a few sincere
souls, Jesus' words "You must be born again"
do not have anything whatsoever to do with
another birth beyond this lifetime. Being born
again is clearly explained by Jesus Himself. He
clarified new birth as an internal renewal, and He
specified our need to experience it in this lifetime
by welcoming Him into our life as Savior and
Lord.
Another realm of error distills from the poetic
notion that while a baby is not a recycled personality
having lived life before, each baby had
existence prior to the womb. This scenario somehow
envisions God as a heavenly Father doling
out angel spirits across the earth, installing them
in baby bodies either before or at birth. This
unscriptural and insensitive idea is at the root of
the frequently parroted statement, so sincerely
spoken at the funerals of young children, that
God somehow knew better and that He took
back the life He had earlier given from heaven.
However well intended the thought, God
didn't and doesn't take babies because He needs
them in heaven. The pain and problem of death
exist on this planet because humanity has broken
its trust with the treasure of life. And the Bible
doesn't say anything at all about God making
independent decisions about the placement of
each life into each body. Let's see what the Bible
does say.
When God Breathes
Genesis 2 elaborates what chapter 1 introduces:
God, having created man, told him to be fruitful
and multiply. The Word of God then relates how
man's possibilities and capabilities for this multiplying
were given by his Creator. They are summarized
in these words:
And the Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became
a living being.
Literally, the Hebrew text reads that God, in
creating the father and mother of the race, placed
in them the capacity to beget life: He breathed into
them the breath of chayeem-that is, "lives." Notice
closely the use of the plural of the word for "life."
God gave mankind the gift of lives. The concept
transcends the obvious Creator-gift of life for each
one to experience and reaches further to the gift oflives placed within each one's capacity to beget.
First, this ability has been placed at man's
discretion. Each time the conception of a child
occurs, God does not have to take separate action
to infuse the fertilized ovum with life. Life is simplyinherently present-instantly, spontaneously,
always there-because God delegated "lives" to man
for propagation. The awesome ability to reproduce
eternal souls as well as physical bodies has
been given to mankind.
Second, until that union of sperm and egg
occurs, we as individual men and women are the
stewards of the life-begetting potential. No given
number of offspring is mandated by God to any
of us. God never indicates a requirement as to
quantity but only that there be a will to say yes-that
we will have children, in obedience to His
command "Be fruitful . multiply."
Contrary to the thinking of some sincere people,
the Bible does not say birth control is wrong.
God has given each of us-mankind-the responsibility
of governing the multiplication of life. While
He has commanded us to beget children, He has not
mandated an interminable abandonment to
chance or required a given number of offspring or
assigned us to innumerable ones!
What the Bible does say, however, is that children
are a blessing and should be sought:
Behold, children are a heritage from the
Lord, the fruit of the womb is His reward.
The Word of God employs the loveliest terminology
in describing the joy of childbirth, the
meaningfulness of parenthood and the desirability
of a family. But the Bible further implies that
since life begins at conception, the willful extinguishing
of that life is not an acceptable method of
birth control. According to God's Word, the frequency
of conception can be controlled, but life
once conceived cannot be taken at human will. In
short, (1) man is not to avoid begetting children;
(2) man is not to abort those who have been conceived.
So we see from the very establishing of the
creative order:
1. God has placed life immediately within
man's capacity to reproduce;
2. He has called him to exercise that life-begetting
capacity;
3. He clearly expects that once life is conceived,
its preciousness will be honored.
We do not need to go to the laboratory to see if
life begins at conception, nor are we at the mercy
of volatile emotions on the subject. Rather, the
cool, crisp words of God's timeless truth show us
created man, who from his beginning has possessed
the God-given ability to beget another
being created like himself. This kind of life is in
the loins of both the man and the woman since
each contributes his or her share toward the multiplication
process. In the instant those cells conjoin,
another life begins.
Chapter Two
When Does
Significance
Begin?
God obviously anticipated our inquiry
centuries ahead of time.
Not only does the Bible establish the fact of the
prenatal existence of your child as a human being,
it further teaches the worth, importance and spiritual
viability of every preborn life. David declares
this when praising God for how He creates and
protects the fetus:
For You [Lord] formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.
This text makes direct reference to the deepest
part of our being-the "inward parts." The
Hebrew term kilyaw is the figurative expression
used to represent the "foundation of being." Just
as we refer to the heart as the seat of our being, or
inner person, the Hebrew tongue referred to the
kidneys (kilyaw). The use in the Scriptures of this
expression, referring to a child in the womb,
unquestionably establishes biblical support for
the idea that a spiritual being, not only a physical
one, does exist in the womb.
And notice how God's personal attentiveness
toward each fetus is so beautifully declared: "You
covered me," David announces; that is, "You
came to my help." A close scrutiny of the verb
chosen by Jewish translators of this passage
reveals that the literal statement of the text is
that God is beside the child-to help it and to keep
it from its earliest beginning.
One can't help but wonder to what David
might have been referring. As a child, had his
mother told him stories of her being especially
protected-sustained by God's intervening grace-during
her pregnancy? Might David be saying
that he was spared by some providence, or is he
simply making a general statement about God's
care for the child in the womb? In any case, the
inescapable truth is that His personal attention is
declared; Jesus strongly affirmed God's personal
concern for each individual, noting His very real
Creator-care for a mere sparrow and then saying
God's care was multiplied for each child, each person,
each human being. Psalm 139 gives us
mighty insights: (1) God views life in the womb as
real and eternal; and (2) God shows us life in the
womb is desirable and worth protecting.
When in the Womb
Does Life Begin?
This question has captured the interest of
philosophers and scientists over the centuries, as
man has sought to define exactly when life actually
begins. More recently, debate has centered on
the question as to which trimester-that is, which
three-month segment of the nine months of
pregnancy-life may in fact become "human."
It seems that God anticipated this specific
question ages ago, for in the Bible we have a case in
which the most precise evidence is given, showing
us that viable, significant life in the womb specifically
exists during all of the first three months; that is,
from conception, fully meaningful life is present.
Of course, the biologist has shown the
poignant physiological evidence of life in the first
three months. In the third week, the lobes of the
brain are distinguishable; in the fourth week,
the head and face are recognizable and the heart
starts to beat; during weeks five and six, the eyes
are identifiable, and legs are putting on flesh and
muscle; in the eighth week, the embryo moves to
the fetal stage, and during the following weeks, sex
can be identified and the baby can begin to turn its
head, squint, frown, make a fist and even get the
hiccups: all of this is before the end of the first three
months in the womb.
As touching as these biological signs of
humanity are in the physical formation of the child,
look with me at the pointed evidence the Bible
gives of the personal, spiritual viability of that child.
An unmistakable statement is present here, as God
has placed at the heart of His Word a story which
reveals the fact of a baby's real, personal meaning-filled
existence during the first three months following
conception. It's the story that is among the
best known in the world. Although given to tell us
of the gift of our Redeemer, hidden within this
story is a precious fact concerning the Creator's
basic gift of life itself.
Mary, the young woman of Nazareth, has
received an angelic visitation announcing her
role as the mother of the Messiah. We pick up the
story in Luke, chapter 1:
Now Mary arose in those days and went
into the hill country with haste, to a city of
Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias
and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of
Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy
Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud
voice and said, "Blessed are you among
women, and blessed is the fruit of your
womb! But why is this granted to me, that
the mother of my Lord should come to
me?"
The words of Mary's cousin Elizabeth are astonishingly
relevant to the philosophical inquiry of
this twentieth century. The precision of the text
seems crafted by the Holy Spirit twenty centuries
in advance. Within the span of 20 verses in Luke's
Gospel (1:26-56), we are explicitly told that
• a child has been conceived in Mary's
womb;
• the child is present, alive, and "the Lord"
at the moment-no less a person for
being a fetus; and
• the exact chronology of the events.
In verse 36, the angel told Mary at the same
time as her conception, that Elizabeth was in her
sixth month of pregnancy. In verse 56, we are told
Mary stayed with her until the birth of Elizabeth's
baby: "And Mary remained with her about three
months." In other words, when Elizabeth was
filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied upon
Mary's arrival-the child in your womb is the
(Continues.)
