Life Begins at God

Are you alive? Are you human?

Assuming you answered “yes,” praise God! He is responsible for both of those key elements in your existence: you are a living human being, since God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, things visible and invisible, also made you.

That seems rather pedestrian, doesn’t it? We say it every week in the Creeds, and it’s simple enough for even a child to understand. God is our Creator. Our, plural. As in all of us, every living thing, and especially human beings.

Some don’t believe that. It doesn’t matter. It’s the truth. (Side note #1: there is no such thing as “your truth” or “my truth;” there is only THE truth). Our belief or unbelief does not bring the truth of God into existence, nor does either spiritual condition of the human heart negate the truth.

For all the amazing developments in technology and science, we have yet to create life ex nihilo, out of nothing. Even in the miracle that is invitro fertilization, scientists use a living ovum and live sperm. Once they’ve expired, there is no resurrection. Once the egg or the sperm have wandered outside their God-given nest, they have relatively little time to fulfill their God-given purpose before they are, essentially, dead. Similarly, we have no cure to death, no medical ability to willfully, intentionally make the dead alive again.

But God can do all those things. He started with nothing and spoke everything into existence. He is the author, giver and Lord of all life. All things were made through Jesus: “Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:3-4). When it comes to life, we cannot replace God, nor can we eliminate God. He is Life.

This is most certainly true in His creating new life, when He forms and shapes another human being in a mother’s womb. This has prompted the somewhat philosophical question: When does life begin? I prefer to approach the entire issue theologically, through the lens of Scripture, which means the God’s-eye-view of life. (Side Note #2: All Scripture is God’s Word and binding on the heart and mind of the Christian. Jesus calls us to obey everything, not just the parts we like).

The question I propose is: When does God begin creating each new human being?
Consider Psalm 139:13-16:

13 For you created my inmost being;
       you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
       your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place,
       when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
       all the days ordained for me were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.
 
Clearly the Lord of Life is working long before the child’s birthday. But Jeremiah 1:5 takes it back even further:
       “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, 
    before you were born I set you apart;”

And He did a great job! God says that we are His workmanship – His masterpiece – “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

God does not distinguish between born and unborn as possessing more or less value, more or less humanity. An unborn child can feel joy, as did John the Baptist in his mother’s womb upon the entrance of Mary and unborn Jesus (Luke 1:41-44). According to the blessings of today’s technology, we know that unborn babies also feel pain.

And both God and science affirm that the child in the womb is a he or she as their own person, with their own body, their own DNA, and their own life, compliments of God.

An article by James Lamb, Executive Director of Lutheran for Life, adapted in the Lutheran Study Bible (p. 983), recalls the 1920 publication by two German physicians of a book called The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life. They argued that “death assistance” should be extended to “empty shells of human beings,” such as those with brain damage or mental retardation. They argued that money spent for “meaningless life” could be used by those socially and physically fit. “It was just a matter of determining which lives were worthy of life.” Then came the Nazi death camps.

In our own country, the “Three-Fifths Compromise” in the 1787 Continental Congress which brought forth the US Constitution declared that slaves were to be counted as “3/5 of a person.” Aside from the political wranglings of “it’s better than nothing” and “it led to the Union that ultimately ended slavery,” it is not a proud moment for America in assigning lesser value – or none at all – to another human being.

Pastor Jason Braaten provides an excellent viewpoint that truly focuses on the heart of the life issue in today’s abortion debate: “If the unborn aren’t human, then we don’t need a reason to commit an abortion. But if the unborn are human, no explanation for abortion is good enough."
(https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/glt8Rg49nJZGEh8kn899FLlzz5WIFdI0).  
 
We hear all sorts of secondary questions (though still important) in this debate:  

• Doesn’t a woman have the right to choose what to do with her own body? Her body, yes. Another human being’s body, no.  My rights end where yours begin. The key in this situation is to love them both, mother and child, as God does.

 

• What if a poor woman can’t afford another child? If she comes to that conclusion when the child is 2, is it then acceptable to “terminate” (read: kill) a 2-year-old? Her unborn child is still a living human being. (Side note #3: This is precisely the situation where God’s people should and do spring into action, particularly in provided multiple levels of support to needy families. God sustains and defends the “fatherless and the widow,” and He does so through us.) 

 

• Isn’t a fetus a bunch of cells? Yes. So are you. So am I. The value of human life does not depend upon what someone can or cannot do. God places supreme value on all human life, regardless of their stage in life. 

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• What about cases of rape and incest? This is tragic beyond words, and pastorally I will not use the heavy hand of the Law to heap guilt on top of victimization. I would gently encourage the woman to consider adoption, and to remember her Creator and Redeemer. (Side note #4: Neither Scripture nor I would have any problem with lawful government, as God’s servant for justice, initiating capital punishment for rapists and child molesters, but that’s another issue).  

 
You are certainly free to disagree with me; no harm there. If you are a Christian, you are not free to disagree with God. He is very clear on Who owns life, and it ain’t you or me.

Listen to what He says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God in your body.” Heed also the warning of Jesus, for those who want to clear the way for others to go against God: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6).

I am reminded of this every time I hear glittering atrocities like “reproductive rights” and “women’s healthcare.” I cannot bring myself to align myself with someone who dehumanizes a child created by and through Jesus Christ. That strikes me as idolatry.
 
This I know, from God Himself:  Life belongs to God, begins at God, and ends at God. Not anyone else.