Related Articles:
- Chapter 1 - Abortion: The Religion of Witchcraft and Child Sacrifice
- Chapter 3 - Abortion ... The Devil’s Mousetrap
- Chapter 4 - The Origin of Child Sacrifice
- Chapter 5 - The History of Human Sacrifice
- Chapter 6 - Modern Witchcraft and Child Sacrifice
- Chapter 7 - Witchcraft, Feminism and Child Sacrifice
- Chapter 8 - Do What Thou Wilt - Witchcraft and Satanism
- Chapter 9 - Defeating Jezebel
- Chapter 10 - Tearing Down the High Places
Chapter 2 – Abortion in Biblical Perspective
by Eric Holmberg and Jay Rogers
From genetics to ultrasound, fetoscopy to fetal surgery, modern science has granted us an unprecedented look into the development of a pre-born child. For example, only eight weeks after conception – around the time many women find out they’re pregnant – the baby’s heart – which has already been beating for two weeks – now has two chambers. Though less than an inch in length, she has started practicing movements, her face has begun to take shape, teeth have begun to develop, along with the legs, arms, feet, hands and eyes. It’s obvious that the developing fetus is no mere “blob of tissue,” as the abortion industry would like us to believe, but rather a remarkably well-developed baby boy or girl.
It’s no wonder that on the basis of the scientific evidence alone, many experts in the field will echo the opinion of renowned geneticist Dr. Jerome LeJeune:
“Life has a long history but each individual has a very neat beginning: the moment of its conception.”
But while genetic and other medical evidence certainly support the idea that human life begins at conception, the Bible, the very word of God – and not science – is our ultimate source for Truth. And the scriptures make it very, very clear that human life begins – and is sacred – from the very moment of conception.
In fact, it’s a fascinating though little known fact that one of the very names of God points to the sanctity of life from the time it begins in the womb.
In the 34th chapter of Exodus Moses appears before the LORD and intercedes on behalf of His people, asking God to reveal “His glory.” Part of the LORD’s response was to reveal to Moses the divine Name as well as key aspect of His nature:
The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord….“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious.” Exodus 34: 5
George Grant: “The Hebrew word that we translate here as “merciful” – rachuwm – has as its root racham – meaning to love or have compassion. That word also serves as the root for rechem – the word that is used in the Hebrew Scriptures for womb – for example in the famous passage describing God’s foreknowledge of Jeremiah and the manner in which he was lovingly knit together inside his mother:
Before I formed you in the womb (in the rechem) I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. Jeremiah 1:5
The womb then, in its original Hebrew context, was not only the matrix, the sacred place where a new human, an image-bearer of God was conceived, formed, nurtured and then born, it also was – and should be treated – as a place of mercy.
Jesus declared in Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” But the converse must also be true. When people, for their own convenience, send their swords into that place of life and mercy, defiling the sanctuary of the rechem – the womb – they would do well to consider Christ’s sober warning concerning the wages earned by those who use violence to accomplish their own ends:
“Those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword.” Matthew 26:52
Among the most profound, world-changing truths we can ever contemplate is that Jesus, the promised Savior of the world, God Incarnate, was: “conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary” (Apostle’s Creed).
When Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to conceive and give birth to the Messiah, she naturally asked how this could be — seeing that she was yet a virgin. The angel replied:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
Gabriel graciously went even further, citing the incredible pregnancy of her cousin Elizabeth as proof that supernatural pregnancies are no problem for God.
The once barren and old beyond-her-child bearing years woman was at this point six-months pregnant with her son John – who would later be known as the Baptist. Mary responded with perhaps the purest expression of faith to be found anywhere in Scripture:
Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)
But it is what happened next that provides us with the most powerful and irrefutable argument for the personhood and sanctity of pre-born life.
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1: 39-44)
Note several things here:
First, Jesus at this moment was well within the first trimester of His development as a fetus; perhaps only just a few weeks or even a few days old.
Second, when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting her baby, John, the one who would serve to prepare the way for Jesus, moved in some dramatic way while she was simultaneously filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now another verse of scripture comes into play here. When an angel announced to Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband and John’s dad, the miraculous conception of John, God’s messenger declared something very unusual:
“…he (John) will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.” (Luke 1:15) Likely the in-utero John was filled with the Holy Spirit at same moment his mother was: when they heard the voice of Mary, pregnant with the very, very small, developing Jesus.
Now a few critically important things need to be understood here. First, only humans, as image-bearers of God, can be vessels of the Holy Spirit. The in-utero John, as just such a vessel, was recognized by God Himself as being fully human. Note also that the scriptures refer here to John as the “baby” – the Greek word brephos – that leaped in the womb. In the next chapter of Luke, it refers again to a baby, a brephos, but this time it is Jesus, born and now lying in a manger. (Show: “And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby (brephos) lying in a manger.” Luke 2: 16) In-utero or extra-utero. it makes no difference. We’re still talking about a baby, a fact that if we are honest with ourselves is still the way we refer to the pre-born today.
The documentary film Lake of Fire provided a startling insight into this simple truth…as well as the mental gymnastics people who support abortion have to undergo to deny it. Famed attorney, liberal activist and abortion support Alan Dershowitz: [CLIP].
So according to this so-called logic – one that plays a big part in the abortion-on-demand movement – an in-utero person doesn’t really exist until her parents recognize her personhood and want her to exist. Talk about man playing God!
Back to the in-utero John being filled with the Holy Spirit: we can also see a surprising degree of sentience here on his part. John leapt because he recognized and understood at some deep, pre-rational level the presence of Mary and Jesus – a fact that modern neonatologists now recognize from a developmental perspective. In-utero children are far more aware of the world both inside and outside the womb than we would have every imagined – making abortion an even greater abomination.
Lastly, note again what Elizabeth said to Mary: And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43) Elizabeth didn’t say “future mother” or “mother of the one who will one day be my Lord.” Everything was emphatically present tense. Mary was a mother – “with child” is the common expression – and the Lord Jesus Christ was as fully present at that moment as He was when the Apostle Thomas said almost the same words as he beheld the wounds of the resurrected Christ: “My Lord and my God.”
Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
And there are other verses in scripture that make the full humanity of the pre-born child just as clear:
“For Thou didst form my inward parts. Thou didst weave me in My mother’s womb. I will give thanks to Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalms 139:13).
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5).
“… the Lord who made you and formed you in the womb …” (Isaiah 44:2).
According to Scripture, abortion is a sin against God – a violation of the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder.”
It is the wanton killing of innocent human life in the womb – a place designed by God to be a refuge of life and mercy. And that is precisely why in the Didache – a pastoral manual that represents the early Church’s understanding and practice concerning everything from baptism to the Eucharist clearly stated:“…thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide.” (Didache 2:2)
2 Comments
On my website, you will note I included Mary was called a mother before implantation.
How do I receive the study notes for Abortion Matrix? Just got the DVD in the mail.