Lights in the World - PH47-02

Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 2:14-15

Abortion

I read recently a legal document that was reporting a follow-through on the abortion effects. One of the arguments was, "Well, if abortion is legalized, illegal abortions (people who are not supposed to do it) will decrease." But strangely enough, the facts that are coming out is that illegal abortions are staying up at the same high rate that they were before (at the same level that they were before), and legalized abortions have simply added a monumental amount to the effect of about a million a year in this country. Also, around the world (this is not just the United States) there are many countries where more babies are killed before they're born than babies that are actually born.

People who favor abortion are really thinking in terms of terminating an unwanted pregnancy. It is very important in thinking about this subject to understand the minds of people, and to realize that when a person is in favor of abortion, that person generally is thinking in terms of, "I have a pregnancy; I don't want it, for one reason or another; and, I must stop it." Therefore, they look at the fetus as merely a piece of living tissue. It's like a tumor, and it's no problem to get the tumor removed--to have it cut out. They do not think in terms, in other words, of aborting a life sequence. They fail to equate an unwanted pregnancy with an unwanted child. That's the point. But when you think of an unwanted pregnancy, you must think of an unwanted child because the two are the same thing. But most people don't connect the two. When they speak about abortion, they're simply thinking in terms of an unwanted pregnancy.

There are no biblical or spiritual factors considered in that viewpoint. As a matter of fact, most people who talk about abortion, most who have very definite opinions, are very unqualified to speak about the subject from a biblical point of view. Most literature, as a matter of fact, that's written on abortion, both pro and con, is in the form of propaganda. It's merely propaganda. Somebody who's against abortion gets up there and he propagandizes with a certain thrust of emotions. Those who are for it, get up and they propagandize with a different thrust of emotion. But there is little basis of facts, both medical and theological, as well as sociological.

Remember that we're still in a relatively new thing in this country, in the abortion area, and we don't know what the long-range results are upon individuals who participate in abortions. The long-range facts on individuals and society as a whole are extensively unknown. What we do have indicates that the effects are bad.

So facts are the scarcest commodity in the abortion debate, and it is not my purpose here to add more darkness and more propaganda. What I hope to do is to cast some biblical light for your thinking. Obviously, this question is not a question for biologists to determine. It is not a question for lawyers to determine. It is not a question for judges to determine, nor even for doctors. This, first of all, is a biblical question. That's the point at which it must first be examined, and then the decision must be made on that basis.

So a lot of the flack that's going up comes from biologists and doctors and lawyers and judges who shouldn't have their noses in this business to begin with, because they're totally unqualified. They speak only from certain external factors which indeed come to bear upon the question. But as to the moral issue, it is a theological question, and therefore it is an interpretation of the Bible. It does not fall into the realm of the knowledge, let alone the decision-making mechanisms, of these other areas.

Conception is a Gift from God

So human beings involved, while essential to the process, and while participating with God in this creative act, are not the determining factors. It is God who is the determining factor. So we must remember in discussing abortion, first of all, that any pregnancy is the result of an act of divine grace. It is an act of God.

We have many examples in the Bible that demonstrate that this is so. For example, Eve, when she conceived and gave birth to Cain, declared that she had received him from the Lord. Genesis 4:1: "And Adam knew (that is, he had sexual relations with his wife) Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain and said, 'I have gotten a man from the Lord.'"

Sarah believed that her lack of conception was because God was restraining conception in her womb. Genesis 16:2: "And Sarah said unto Abraham, 'Behold, now the Lord has restrained me from bearing." So in Sarah's view, her inability to conceive was because God would not permit conception. Again, this is confirming that God is involved in every production of a human fetus in the womb. Genesis 17:19 further confirms this opinion on the part of Sarah as being correct, because God later spoke to Abraham and told him that his wife Sarah would bear a son, indicating that God had determined that conception would take place. This is the only way that conception ever takes place--when God determines that it will take place. Therefore, Genesis 17:19 says, "And God said, Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son indeed, and you shall call his name Isaac."

God looked upon Leah, the first wife of Jacob, and because she was unable to bear children, God looked upon her with pity. She had been barren, and God, who had determined that she was barren up to that point, now determined that she would conceive. So Genesis 29:31 says, "And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb." But on the other hand, it says that Rachel was barren. The second wife of Jacob was barren. In time, God also made it possible for Rachel to bear children. Genesis 30:22: "And God remembered Rachel. God hearkened to her, and opened her womb." It wasn't Rachel. It wasn't Jacob. It wasn't any human element that determined to open the womb of Rachel. It was God who determined to enable conception.

In the case of Ruth, in Ruth 4:13, we have again the same clear declaration that God gives conception: "So Boaz took Ruth and she was his wife. When he went in onto her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son." The Lord gave her conception.

Thus, conception of a human life is something that only God can bring about, which he does under varying circumstances, as per his sovereign wisdom and design. It is therefore not something which is within the province of man to terminate, as per his human viewpoint judgments. I grant you that conception takes place under circumstances that are not considered ideal or desirable, but the sovereign wisdom of God is involved even in those cases. It is not our place to try to override God's judgments and God's decision-making prerogatives in those respects either.

Job

Verse 9: "Remember, I beseech you, that you have made me as the clay, and will you bring me into dust again." Here Job is indicating that the fetus is shapeless like clay, and that God molds it into human form. This shaping takes place without the knowledge or the cooperation of the fetus, just as it does without the knowledge or cooperation of a piece of clay. God's work is done by God alone. But the result of divine power and divine wisdom in this shaping process of the fetus is a human being.

Verse 10: "Have you not poured me out as milk (referring to the male sperm) and curdled me like cheese?" "Curdled me like cheese" refers to the shaping; the developing; and, the forming of the fetus into human form.

Verse 11: "You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and have woven me together with bones and sinew." This is a description of the development of the embryo into a full-grown infant. He has woven the fetus together with all the bones; with all the veins; with all the sinews; and, with all the muscles. All of this is viewed as a work of God.

Verse 12: "You have granted me life." This happens to be plural in the Hebrew--lives--spiritual and soul life, just as we have in Genesis 2:7 and in Genesis 6:17. "You have granted me lives and favor." This is that Hebrew word that we've looked at before, "cheseth" which means "grace." "You have granted me life and favor (grace)." Job is remembering the kindness of God in the past. "And your care has preserved my spirit." "Spirit" is the Hebrew word "ruach" which means "human spirit." It means "breath." Our breath that we breathe in and out is indicative that there is a living human spirit within us.

So here you have a poetic description on the part of Job that describes God working within the womb of the mother, producing the fetus and shaping it. He not only saw that conception take place, but God himself is performing the work of shaping this fetus into a child. Therefore, to abort it is to interrupt a work of God's own handiwork.

David

Verse 14: "I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works that my soul knows right well." There is no question that the formation of a child, through this marvelous process that nobody can really explain, is an act and the work of God.

Verse 15: "My substance (or my bones) were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, and intricately wrought in the lowest parts of the earth." "The lowest parts of the earth" is a poetic expression for the darkness of the womb. It is a connection back to the fact that the first womb, the womb of Adam, was in fact the earth itself. He was born out of the earth. So it refers to the lowest parts of the earth here as a poetic expression, looking back to the darkness of the womb, connecting it back to Adam made from the earth.

Verse 16: "Your eyes did see my substance being yet unformed." "Unformed" refers to the fetal stage. God saw him and knew him as an embryo. "And in your book, all my members were written." All the construction; the way I look; the way I am; the way I am put together; and, how tall I am--all the features that are in the DNA molecule that determine our heredity in which God, working through His natural laws, puts together. God knew every bit of it because God programmed every bit of it. Even the particular two cells that come together to form the fetus are not accidental. That is the first act of God's creating and bringing about conception. Of all the possible combinations, He fits together that which is His intent and plan in order to bring you as an individual into being. Every conception is God's intent to bring a specific individual into being in the part of His decrees and the part of His overall plan.

Therefore, He determines all these physical features; all these mental features; all these temperament characteristics; and, all these psychological features. We know more and more, scientifically and biologically, that they're all programmed in the DNA molecule that spirals up within the chromosome. But we know that this is an act of God that's putting it all together.

"Which in continuance were fashioned." This is a poetic way of saying "the future of days." "Which my future was fashioned, when as yet there was no future for me, and when as yet there were no days." So the emphasis here again is that God has a plan for every life. He puts it together in an orderly fashion. He brings conception, and then He supervises the development of the fetus. So, again, abortionists are going to step in and abort a fetus that's in the process of developing. Please remember that usually abortion takes after a couple of months have gone by from the point of conception.

So what you have is a fetus which is not going to abort itself. You have something that is well under way. You have something that's well-developed. You have something that's in all likelihood, as long as it's not disturbed, capable of going on to full birth. When you step in and abort that, you are aborting what God is in the process of producing. And that is a very serious thing. I would think that that would require us to have second thoughts. On the one hand, God started this pregnancy. On the other hand, God is moving it along, and we are going to step in and interfere with what God is doing.

Well, it does raise another question, of course, that comes up in our minds. After all this is said and done, and this might all be agreed to, the argument is, "Well, we are not killing a human being, because a human being is not just a body. A human being is a body and a soul and spirit. Now, until that fetus has a soul and spirit, we can't call it a human being. Therefore, it is just tissue. It is just a growth, and it can be cut out and removed." So the question, of course, is: when is a fetus a human being? When do you get your soul? When do you get your human spirit? Abortion is defended on the ground that up to some point a fetus is not a human being. Every abortionist says, and even the Supreme Court ultimately made its decision on this, that up to some point a fetus is not a human being. Then at a certain point, it does become a human being. Usually that determination is made on the basis of the fact that as the fetus takes on more and more human appearance, and more and more human functions, then at some point it crosses over into humanity, and then it has the full rights of a human being before the law.

Personhood

Personhood has to originate when there is present all that is necessary for development into an individual human being. That's how we determine what is human. At some point, when everything necessary for this development to move on into full bonafide human beings--at that point, it is personhood. Of course, that's at the point of conception. At the point of conception, everything is there that that person will ever need to be a full qualified bonafide human being. It just has to start moving on through the stages of progression. Part of that stage for the first nine months is in the womb. For the rest of its life, its outside, but it's always progressing, even outside. We are told that until about the age 18, we're getting better and better all the time. Your life and your body is developing and expanding and improving. After you get to 18, you start dying off, and you're downhill. Some of you show evidence that you've come a long way baby, from 18, and that the process is working in eating away. But there's a continual progress, a continued progression, actually from conception to senility. It's all part of being human, and it's all there in the hereditary genes right from the very first.

The danger of this thing was well demonstrated in Hitler's Third Reich, because Hitler's Third Reich decided that the state had the right to determine who should live and who should die, and that the state had the right to determine whether a certain race of people was to live. So the Jews were to die. The Nazis decided whether a person at a certain mental level was to live or die, and certain people were, therefore, destroyed. They decided whether people who had certain genetic characteristics were to live or die. They decided whether people of a certain age were to live or die.

So millions of people were slaughtered in Hitler's Germany on the basis of this principle that the state has the right to decide what is humanness, and what constitutes humanity. How about a person who is on an operating table, and suddenly something goes wrong, and some function of life (some normal physical function) stops operating? Has he, in that instance, ceased to be human? And should the doctors walk away and say, "Well, his heart quit beating. He's no longer human. His blood pressure is falling. He's no longer human. You've must have a certain blood pressure or you're not human." What constitutes humanity?

These outward physical functioning factors cannot be used to determine what is human and what is not. So it's inane for somebody to point to a fetus and say, "Look at it. It's just a glob of cells. It doesn't even have the shape of a human being." Then they say, "Well, as it gets more and more the shape of a human being, then it becomes more human. And at a certain point it crosses over, and we say it's human." That is a very, very dangerous scheme.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a clergyman in Hitler's Germany. He felt as a Christian that it was his duty to seek to take the life of Hitler in a conspiracy against him. He was imprisoned, and near the end of the empire that Hitler envisioned, just before the Third Reich fell, and just before Hitler committed suicide, he ordered Dietrich Bonhoeffer to be executed. Bonhoeffer had some ideas that were not very good. But he has one quotation that I'd like to read to you, in relationship to his writings on abortion, that I think is well put. He says, "To raise the question whether we are here concerned with a human being or not (that is, with a fetus) is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being, and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. That is nothing short of murder."

The point is, it's not a question of what stage of development or what functions and capabilities this fetus has. The point is, what did God intend to do when he brought conception in this womb and began forming this fetus and developing it? You know what He intended. He intended for a human being, nine months later, to be born. That's all He intended. Therefore, all of the other discussion is basically beside the point. The human fetus is at most an actual living soul. At least, it is a potentially developing human soul. So the question in abortion is whether an unborn baby is important because that's what's being destroyed.

I remind you again, as I have told you before, when you think about abortion, think of it in terms of one of your children. That helps you to put it in perspective. That helps you to recognize that when you talk about an unwanted pregnancy, you're talking about an unwanted Jim, or John, or Susie, or Sally. That's what you're talking about. Put it in those terms, and you'll have it in perspective.

The question is: is an unborn baby important or not? That is what you're destroying. So even if a fetus has no soul or spirit until it takes its first breath, that is beside the point. As Bonhoeffer points out, it is destined to be a human being. That is the point. That's what makes it sacred.

The Origin of the Soul

So you go through a series of reincarnations--you, as a soul, coming from a former life. You can just sit and think about where you've been before and who you were before. You can go ahead and think anything you want to think. You might like to say, "I used to be General Patton." If that's a kick for you, then okay. But some of you may have been Hitler before too, and you're in a lot of trouble. A lot of people really take this seriously, and they look at their lives and things go great for them, and everything comes up roses for them. They say, I must have been a wonderful person last time. Whereas for other people, everything goes wrong and they have nothing but troubles and suffering, and they say, "I must have really been a rat in my last life. That's why my karma is so bad this time." So you get to judge for yourself this idea. Of course, there's no scriptural ground for this idea whatsoever.

The second explanation is called creationism. Creationism teaches that every time conception takes place, God creates a soul. Then the creationists divide. Some of the creationists say that God puts that soul into the fetus at the moment of conception. Some of the creationists say God puts the soul into the baby when it takes its first breath. So they are divided on that issue. But the point they do agree on is that every soul is created. This has the advantage that it explains how a soul can be free of Adam's sin, because Christ was free of Adam's sin. All of us are under the sin of Adam. He is our federal head. We share the guilt of that original sin, but we also share individual practices of sin. But this is not entirely necessary. God, just as He removed the old sin nature from Christ by His not having a human father, so He could have removed this guilt of Adam by his not having a human father. The Bible doesn't clarify that for us.

However, the problem with creationism is that it suggests that the body is evil. In other words, a soul comes from God good. God is not going to create an evil soul. Yet we are told that it's the soul that needs to be saved in man. It is the soul that has the old sin nature. So here comes a soul that God has newly created, and so it's perfect. It gets into the body and it gets an old sin nature and it creates spiritual death. It's an evil thing. Why did that happen? Well, the implication is because the body is evil. But we have no indication in the Bible that there is anything evil about the body at all. The body is not evil. So this doesn't fit. But this creationism concept does serve to separate the origin of the body and the soul, which was the case with Adam. First, God made Adam's body, and then God came along and He made his soul. So it does fit with that concept. Hebrews 12:9 does speak about your father giving you your body and God giving you your spirit. But this counters the scriptural statement that God has ceased from His creation work. That's one of the biggest arguments against creationism. Creationism suggests that God is still doing direct creation. But we read in the book of Genesis that after the six days work of creation, God ceased from direct creation.

Also, we cannot account for the fact that children have soul traits of their parents. Creationism wouldn't account for the fact that children reflect the soul traits of their parents as well as the physical traits of their parents.

So that brings us to a third conception called traducianism. Traducianism holds that the soul and spirit are propagated by the parents along with the body through conception, and that these are transmitted from the parents. God created the soul and the spirit life in Adam. But you will notice that when it came to the creation of the woman, God took Adam's rib; He formed a woman's body; and, He does not say that He put a soul and spirit into her the way He did into Adam. It does not say that He created, again, a soul and spirit. It simply tells us that He made the woman from the man. In 1 Corinthians 11:8, Paul definitely says that the woman is from the man. The implication is that all that the woman (spirit, soul, and body) came from the man.

So traducianism is a better concept. God has ceased from his direct creative activity, as Genesis 2:2 tells us. So it fits on that account as well. The human race is a unity. Acts 17:46 tells us that. Consequently, Adam's sin is imputed to all except to the Lord Jesus Christ who had no human father. Well, traducianism would cause the human race to be a unity. In other words, we have God here producing Adam, and then passing on from generation to generation right down the line to you. What God did, He passes on through Adam? What Adam became, Adam keeps passing on down from one generation to the other. So the human race is a unity. God does not come in and interject at each point a new soul.

The old sin nature is from the parents, the Bible tells us (Psalm 58:3, Job 14:4, Job 15:4.) All these passages imply that the fetus has a soul with an old sin nature during the development in the womb. These indicate that there is an old sin nature in the fetus while it's being formed, which indicates that it would have to have a soul because that's where the old sin nature is. It implies that man's immaterial nature, his soul and spirit, comes mediately; that is, from Adam down from one parent to the next parent to the next parent. That's what this is describing (mediately), rather than that your soul comes to you immediately; that is, directly from God. That's direct creation.

So Genesis 1:26 has Adam declared to be made in the image and likeness of God. As God has a common essence, so Adam shares a common soul essence with all humanity. As the Godhead is made up of distinct personalities, so man, with a common soul essence, yet has distinct personality. God has a common divine essence, yet with distinct personalities. So man is made in the image and the likeness of God. But Genesis 5:3 says that Adam fathered a son in his own image and likeness. Adam had a son, and that son was in his image and likeness, as Adam had been made in God's image and likeness: "And Adam lived 130 years, and begot a son in his own likeness after his image. He called his name Seth." The word "begot" is the Hebrew word "yalath." "Yalath" means to father a child. It implies fathering a human. So all that constitutes humanity is in there at the point of conception and then handed down. In other words, what Adam did was he begot that (his own image and his own likeness) in his sons. He passed on completely what was in him, in contrast to passing on something that was in an animal.

There are verses in the Bible that do speak in such a way that it sounds like God is creating the soul each time a person is born. We have this in Number 16:22, Numbers 27:16, Psalm 104:29-30, and Hebrews 12:9. These all sound like God is creating new souls, but all of these can be understood in terms of God creating mediately; that is, that He is doing it through Adam; through one father; down to the next father; and, down to the next father, one at a time. So you can understand these verses in the same way, and it would propose no problem.

There is one climactic passage in Psalm 51. This one gives us the best argument for traducianism. The importance of traducianism is that at the point of conception, the fetus has a soul. That's the point we're getting at. If this is the true case of where the soul comes from, then we have a case that settles it once and for all, and abortion can't be anything but wrong; evil; sinful; and, out of line, no matter how many Supreme Court decisions are handed down. If traducianism is the case, then here's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with a human life.

Psalm 51:5: "Behold," David said, "I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." David here said that he was sinful from the moment of his conception in the womb. He indicates that something more than his body was present since the body is not evil in itself. But he says, "I was shaped; I was formed; I was curdled; I was put together; I was cut out; and, I was designed as a fetus, in sin. As a matter of fact, my mother conceived me with a quality of sin in me." So the old sin nature is here in the fetus, which would be indicative that there has to be a soul in the fetus. What he is doing is actually tracing his sin of adultery right back here to the fetal source.

Verse 6 says, "Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part, you shall make me no wisdom." Verse 6 says that even in the fetal state, the moral law of God was present in him. For the moral law of God to be present, again, this means that there has to be a soul to receive the impressions of right and wrong. The words "inward parts" and "hidden parts" do not refer to David's body. This is not talking about his inner life or his inner personality. They refer to his mother's womb. Get that. That's important. When he speaks about the fact that God desires divine viewpoint in the inward parts and in a hidden part, he's talking about in his mother's womb, literally "the covered-over parts," or "the bottled-up parts."

The Hebrew professor at Dallas Seminary translates this as, "Look. Truth you desired in the inward parts, and in the secret part, wisdom you were teaching me." Truth you desired in the womb, and in the womb, wisdom you were teaching me. That is saying something fantastic, because David has in mind, not his inner life as a man, but his innate endowment with a sense of right and wrong from his mother's womb. While he was being formed in the womb with an old sin nature in his soul, he also was being inscribed as a fetus with the moral law of God. So in David's embryological state, he was taught divine wisdom and discernment of right conduct. And he says, "And yet I sinned. Even though, God, you had been influencing me with divine viewpoint from the time I was even a fetus."

If you don't have a soul, you can't be influenced with God's wisdom. You can't be influenced with divine viewpoint. This is a very critical significant passage. It's a strong evidence that the image of God is already present in the fetus. Therefore, it is a living soul. And if you kill it, it's murder.

In the next session, we'll pick up a few more things about the practice of abortion; its implications; and, how this is really functioned in our society. But I hope that this session has cast some light upon the fact that God is involved from the very beginning, right on through, even to the point of giving instruction to the fetus before it is born, inscribing upon it God's moral law. That requires a soul and spirit, and therefore, you are dealing with a genuine human being from the point of conception.

As I say, if you want to debate and say, "Well, it doesn't get that soul and spirit until the first breath," it really (as Bonhoeffer has pointed out) doesn't make any difference. It is still destined not to be a horse or a dog or a cat. It has in it all the full qualities of humanity right from the first, and that's what God intends it to be. Therefore, there's a sanctity upon it, and you cannot interrupt with impunity the design of God.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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