The Sanctity of Life

The Truth about Abortion

Scripture calls the church “the pillar and ground of the truth.” This means that as followers of Christ, it is our responsibility to shine the light of truth into a world of darkness. As the body of Christ, we are called to speak the truth in love, ensuring that God’s will is clearly understood. We are not called to hide this light but to shine it brightly, even when the truth is unpopular and unwanted. As a pastor, it is my responsibility to preach God Word “in season, and out of season,” even when people don’t want to hear sound doctrine.

With this calling and mission in mind, we will be providing a new Sunday morning preaching series called “Truth for Today,” which will feature occasional messages interspersed throughout the year about important topics. These topics may be challenging and perhaps unpopular, but they are crucial for us to understand as we seek not only to know the “good, acceptable, and perfect will of God” for our lives as God’s children, but also to know how to engage, explain, and respond to these topics when they appear in our daily lives and relationships in this world.

Our first topic in this series is the sanctity of life, a category which can include a range of subtopics. These include capital punishment, war, self-defense, euthanasia, suicide, and more. But today, we will focus on the important and sensitive topic of abortion.

To begin, we should first acknowledge that this is a challenging and sensitive topic for several reasons. Some here may have chosen abortion at some point in life, others may have advised someone to make this choice, and others may have close relationships with people who’ve made this choice.

Because of these factors, simply hearing this truth may cause feelings of guilt and shame which may cause you to feel discouraged, judged, or misunderstood. So, from the outset, please let me assure you that as I share truth from God’s Word, I do so in love, desiring for you to know the truth so that the truth can set you free. And, even if you have made some difficult decisions or experienced some difficult things do to abortion, let me assure you that Christ understand your guilt and your sorrow and he stands fully ready to forgive your sins, remove your guilt, and heal your wounds. It was he who was conceived, was born, then lived, suffered, died, and rose again so that he could forgive your sins and give you a close, endless relationship with God forever. We also want you to know that as a church who represents Christ our community, we desire to come along side you to provide love and support for whatever you have gone through in this world.

In addition to these scenarios, we know that this is a topic at the center of a major political debate. This should not prevent us from speaking about the topic, though. They should, instead, raise the need for us to do so and to do so in a loving manner that provides a clear explanation of what God say about it. After all, if we abandon topics like these and leave them for unbelieving influencers, professors, pundits, and politicians to discuss, then the church is abandoning her role in this world to be the source of truth and light.

One more thing. In this sermon, I will not discuss the various methods and procedures for abortion. For those who are aware, the methods are horrible in every case and don’t deserve to be mentioned here. What we want to do in this message is simply ask, “How does the Bible teach us to think and behave towards abortion?” We know what our culture believes, but what about the Bible?

Scripture describes unborn children as living persons.

The question that we need to answer here is whether an unborn child in a mother’s womb is, in fact, a living person, or whether that child is not a child but rather an impersonal, lifeless fetus or blob of flesh and tissue. To answer this question, let’s consider some perspective from the Bible.

Luke 1:41-44 explains what happened when Mary, the mother of Jesus, visited her cousin Elizabeth (who was six months pregnant, herself) to announce her miraculous pregnancy with Jesus.

When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary … 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? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

When Mary told Elizabeth the news, her sixth-month child jumped in her womb. This is significant for two reasons. First, the child in her womb reacted to Mary’s voice the same way that a born infant would do when it experiences a happy, joyful emotion. Second, Elizabeth called this child a “baby,” using a Greek word that means an infant or young child. By doing so, she identifies the unborn child the same way as she would a child who has been born.

Psalm 51:5 is further helpful in which King David describes his personal human nature before birth.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

In the first line of this poetic couplet (or pair of lines), he states that he was a sinner from the moment he was born. In the second line of this poetic couplet, though, he makes his point even more emphatically by tracing his sinfulness all the way back to the precise moment of his conception. To be clear, he refers specifically to the start of the first trimester, nothing later. Since we know that only human beings have sinful natures and that animals, plants, or inanimate objects do not, this traces living personhood back to the moment a child is conceived.

In Psa 139:13, David elsewhere describes his preborn existence in a personal way, indicating that we should view our preborn state as being consistent with our born state.

You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb.

We are the same person before and after we are born, and we are – in fact – a person both before and after we are born. In this instance, David speaks of God as “forming my” and “knitting me,” which are poetic ways of describing his physical development in the womb as a divinely guided and personal process not merely a lifeless one.

And from a scientific, biological standpoint, it is at conception that the chromosomes from the father (as part of the father with the father’s DNA) and from the mother (as part of the mother with the mother’s DNA) come together to form an entirely new, genetically unique individual with its own new DNA. It is from this point forward, at conception, that this new being exhibits its own unique identity and is not merely a part of the mother’s body or something less than a human.

What’s more, the word “inward parts” refers to both his physical organs (such as heart and kidneys) and to his emotions and thoughts, as well. This is the Hebrew word kilyah, which Scripture uses frequently to describe our heart – our inner thoughts and emotions.

In Gen 25:22-23, God revealed to Rebekah – who was pregnant with twins, Esau and Jacob – that “the children struggled within her.”

The children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.”

Here God calls them the same thing that he and people throughout Scripture call born, human children. So, we see once again that unborn children have the same living, human identity as born children do. What’s more, the power struggle that these two boys experienced throughout their childhood and adult lives began in the womb, not afterwards, so their struggle in the womb was the same thing as what they experienced afterwards.

Finally, we should make note of an important observation about the birth of Jesus Christ. When Mary announced her pregnancy to her cousin, Elizabeth, Elizabeth called her “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43). She said this very shortly after Christ’s conception, very early in the first trimester, and by doing so, she acknowledged that Christ was indeed the Messiah and therefore a person in his own right at that very moment. Seeing this, we know that the incarnation of Christ did not begin at his birth, it began at his conception.

John Jefferson Davis, a minister, Ph.D., and former president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, said this in his book, Evangelical Ethics:

In the New Testament, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is a profound testimony to God’s affirmation of the sanctity of prenatal life. … His human history, like ours, began at conception. … The significant point is that God chose to begin the process of incarnation there, rather than at some other point, thus affirming the significance of that starting point for human life.

So, from this survey of Scripture, we see that both godly people in the Old and New Testaments and – most importantly – God himself identifies children in the womb being just as human as children outside of the womb. And we see that this similarity extends all the way to the moment of conception, the earliest moment of that person’s existence in the womb. Knowing this, how should we behave towards unborn children? In short, we should treat unborn children the same way that we treat children who’ve been born.

Scripture calls us to treat unborn children as living persons.

A key passage of Scripture is Exo 21:22-25. This passage explains a law to address what should happen when two men fight one another and one of them accidentally harms a pregnant woman standing by.

“If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

The law explains as follows:

• If there is no harm to the pregnant woman or the child, but the impact causes a premature birth, then that man would be fined whatever amount was deemed appropriate.
• If harm was caused, however, to either the pregnant woman or to her child, then the penalty was more severe – “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc.”

This law insists that the unborn child be given the same justice as its mother. If the unborn child died, for instance, the man who had accidentally caused it to die would also be killed (capital punishment). Such a severe penalty would make no sense if the unborn child were not a person. We call this involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide today.

To make this point even more clear, though, we should note that elsewhere in the OT law, accidental death (we call that involuntary manslaughter today) was given greater latitude. Rather than insisting upon the death penalty for such cases, they were confined within a city for a temporary period of time. This penalty resembles what we call “house arrest” today, only it was more like “city arrest.” But, from this we see that the OT law enforced more severe penalties for killing an unborn child or pregnant mother by accident than it did killing any other born, living person.

Theologian Wayne Grudem makes this related insightful observation:

Moreover, this law applied to a case of accidental killing of an unborn child. But if accidental killing of an unborn child is so serious in God’s eyes, then surely intentional killing of an unborn child must be an even worse crime.

So, since unborn children from the moment of their conception to the moment of their birth are just as human as after they are born, and since Scripture calls us to treat unborn children as living persons – and in a sense, even more importantly and carefully than most other living persons – how should we view abortion?

Abortion, then, is not merely the medical termination of some pre-life, pre-human physical process or mass of developing tissue, it is, instead, killing an unborn, living human being with its own unique DNA, identity, and life. This means that abortion is murder. And, since abortion is murder – the murder of an innocent, defenseless, unborn child, making it – from a justice standpoint – one of the more indefensible forms of murder deserving of the most severe punishments possible. As Exo 20:13 makes clear, “You shall not murder.”

Government should protect the lives of the unborn.

A primary reason governments exist is to protect the life of people in its realm of governance. A government must protect life even if capital punishment or force is necessary – that’s why governments employ law enforcement officers and recruit armies.

This was the primary reason God instituted human government (Gen 9:5-6), to prevent the people of this world from returning to the ungoverned, rampant violence which had preceded the worldwide flood. And in the NT, Paul teaches that this purpose continues all the way forward in human history until today (Rom 13:1-4).

Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.

And a government’s topmost priority must be to protect the lives of the defenseless, helpless, and weak (Psa 82:3-4). And who is more defenseless, helpless, and weak than an unborn child? How horrible it is for a government not only to abandon or neglect this duty but to actually promote and support abortion, instead. How egregious is that?

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isa 5:20)

But are there legitimate reasons for abortion? Sadly, in the name of freedom, women’s rights, and the idolatry of a comfortable life, people do offer reasons for why it is okay to kill an unborn child.

Counterarguments must be evaluated by Scripture.

Some people claim that abortion is acceptable because an unborn child lacks basic human functions which human beings otherwise possess. They can’t talk or make intentional moral choices, for instance. Such an argument is of no value, though, because the same things are true of infants, people in a coma, and other special cases, too – yet we cannot use this reasoning to justify killing them, too. As 1 Ths 5:14 says, “Uphold the weak,” and who is more weak and helpless than an unborn child among us?

People make similar clams about preventing people from being born with projected birth defects and physical or mental disorders. “Why should we let this future person enter a life of suffering and cause other people to suffer, too?”

First, these diagnoses are sometimes wrong, so what should we say if an abortion mistakenly killed a perfectly normal child? Also, we know that difficulty and suffering have a prominent place in our human existence due to sin in the world, and the outcomes of this reality even affect people who – though sinners – do not seem personally deserving of the degree of suffering which they endure.

As followers of Christ, we need a more God-focused view of physical suffering, trusting in God’s providence and sovereignty in all things, even when doing so is hard to experience, witness, or understand. To Moses, God said:

“Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?” (Exo 4:11)

And there was the time that Christ’s disciples asked him whether a blind man had been born blind due to his own sin or his parents’ sin. To this, Jesus answered:

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. (Jn 9:3)

With this answer, Christ made it clear that people who are born with physical abnormalities and deficiencies are created as they are by God for a special reason to reveal the works of God. So then, we should not view birth deficiencies as a reason to abort a child but rather as a special means by which that person may glorify God. Though such people may find life more challenging and uncomfortable and may make life more challenging and uncomfortable for others, this is no reason to kill that child or prevent them from living. They are no less of a human being than any other person and to cruelly deny them the opportunity to live is an unspeakable act, not a casual option.

Christian author, Randy Alcorn, once told the true story of a professor in medical school who presented his class with a difficult scenario:

The father had syphilis and the mother had tuberculosis. Of four previous children, the first was blind, the second died, the third was both deaf and dumb, and the fourth had tuberculosis. What would you advise the woman to do when she finds she is pregnant again? One student answered, “I would advise an abortion.” Then the professor said, “Congratulations. … You have just killed Beethoven.

You see, there were many so-called “justifiable” reasons for Beethoven to have been aborted according to today’s common medical advice. But following such advice would have prevented the world from experiencing the incredible gift of music that Beethoven gave to the world.

In the U.S. alone, abortions have averaged approximately one million per year and fifty million worldwide. Think of how many potential teachers, musicians, doctors, scientists, philanthropists, pastors, and so on have never even been given a chance to live.

Of course, some people may object to a biblical view of abortion and the life of an unborn child by saying that abortion should be permitted in the case of incest or rape. In this scenario, it is suggested that since the pregnancy was the result of a terrible and traumatic situation in which the prospective mother had no desire to participate, and because giving birth to the child would have lifelong effects on the life of the mother, that the mother should be given an opportunity to recover and reset her life – as it were – without the difficulty of raising a child.

Now, since an unborn child is just as much a human being as anyone who has been born, from conception onward, we must apply the same reasoning to unborn children as to born ones. Should a parent be able to declare “my life, my choice” as a justifiable reason to kill their child sometime after it has been born to alleviate the challenges, hardships, expenses, and discomfort that that child brings? Absolutely not! In the same way, is it justifiable for a mother to kill an unborn child due to the difficulties that carrying and giving birth to that child may bring? Definitely not.

In saying this, we must not minimize or make light of the difficulties that have already been endured and will yet be endured for such women to bring their child into the world and raise them. These are difficult situations to be sure. But even so, this does not and must not justify killing an unborn child.

Now, statistically, such circumstances account for less than 1% of all abortion cases in the U.S. and such cases should not be used to make a case for abortion for the remaining 99+% of cases. As difficult as such situations may be,

So, what is the scope of abortion in America? According to recent statistics:

• Approx. 15 to 20 percent of pregnancies in America end by means of abortion.
• Over 85% of abortions happen in the first thirteen weeks (first trimester) of pregnancy.
• Approx. 25% of women in the United States will have an abortion by age 45 yrs.

Without getting into a detailed analysis of the national and state laws and regulations regarding abortion, it is still accurate to say that abortions are happening at an alarming rate, and in fact, any abortions at all are a terrible feature of any society and culture.

When a society is willing to sacrifice the lives of their youngest children to the altars of their gods, that society has reached a critical place in its history. When the nation of Israel began to imitate the practices of pagan nations around them, one of the behaviors they began to adopt was child sacrifice – “burning their sons and their daughters with fire” (Jer 7:30-34). As a result of this growing practice, God announced that there was coming a day when the adults of the nation would themselves be killed. The scavenger birds would eat their carcasses in the same valley where they had sacrificed their children and the joyful sounds of business, life, and entertainment would be silent as their cities and homes became a wasteland.

We would do well to take this as a warning to ourselves, as well. Not only does the killing of countless unborn children lead to decreasing populations (something which is happening around the world), but it leads to a breakdown in society as less people are available to work, support, and care for their parents and those who are older while maintaining the economy, etc. Societies who discourage childbearing and growing families and who kill unborn babies to achieve their goals and maintain their lifestyle are selfish and shortsighted. They will eventually succumb to the consequences of their sins.

So, as followers of Christ, how should we respond to this biblical truth about abortion and the sanctity of life?

We should talk and teach about this topic, which requires both courage and kindness.

We should teach the value of life from conception onward and the evil of abortion to our children. We should share this truth with other people as well, especially those we teach within the church, but also elsewhere. We should not be argumentative, cruel, and insensitive in our approach, but this does not mean that we should refuse to talk about the truth. Whenever we’re given the opportunity, we should speak and represent the truth of the sanctity of life with dignity, clarity, and grace. We should give the unborn a voice and provide clear reasoning and sound doctrine, even in a time when such truth is unpopular.

One reason why abortion prevails in our culture is because we poorly understand the issue, poorly understand what the Bible teaches about this issue, and poorly speak about and explain this issue to others. We need to do better, resorting less to political talking points and focusing more on what God’s Word clearly teaches in light of the actual facts about what happens. My hope is that this message will be a help to that end.

We should support and vote for government officials who uphold prolife values.

Since we live in a free country in which we have the privilege and responsibility to select and elect our government officials, we should take this opportunity when it is given. We should do our research, nominate, and vote for candidates who understand the issue of the sanctity of life, who articulate the right position well, and who will stand up for this truth in their efforts.

We should also consider becoming a government official to uphold biblical morals and values, too. This will not be something most or many followers of Christ can do or even should do. But some should do this, for we do need believers in government wherever possible. We see examples of this in Scripture with Joseph, Esther, Daniel, and more. From within the church should come people who do get involved in our government to:

Give justice to the weak and fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

We should find ways to uphold prolife values through acts of intervention and love.
Consider the Hebrew midwives. Also, we can do this through adoption and foster care, supporting Christian adoption agencies and parents, supporting single mothers and their children (esp. when we know they have experienced a difficult or traumatic motherhood), supporting families whose children have special needs, being welcoming and inclusive of grown adults who have special needs, and supporting agencies and ministries which do related things which a single church or individual cannot do on their own.

If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (Jam 2:15-17)

In conclusion, the reality and sanctity of life from the moment a child is conceived onward is a clear and resounding reality taught by Scripture. As followers of Christ, we are called to uphold this truth not only in our personal lives but also within our communities through love, communication, and service and through political involvement.

Let us commit to speaking this truth with love, supporting those affected by abortion with compassion, and advocating for laws and leaders that protect the unborn. By doing so, we honor God's design for life, stand against the cultural tide, and work towards a society where every life is cherished from conception to natural death.