Scripture Text

Abortion The Bible and The Christian

By: Rev. Donald Shoemaker

Excerpts from Chapter 5: The Bible and The Anti-Abortion Argument.

In the Old Testament, we find a strong tendency to deal with the unborn as a definite personality and to protect his life from harm. God is presented as intensely and intimately involved in the welfare of the fetus. It was Jewish belief that no child was conceived without the work of the Spirit of God. They felt that there were three partners in the production of any human being – the Holy One, and the father and mother. We wish to consider several Old Testament passages before turning to the New Testament.

Job 10:8-12

“Thy hands fashioned and made me altogether, and wouldst Thou destroy me? Remember now, that Thou hast made me as clay; and wouldst Thou turn me into dust again? Dist Thou not pour me out like milk, And curdle me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews? Thou hast granted me life and loving kindness; And Thy care has preserved my spirit.

Job is speaking here about the process of his formation. In poetic language his development passes before our eyes as he compares his formation to the pouring out of milk into a container, suggesting fertilization. Then God begins to “stir the milk,” to turn it into cheese, the finished product. This portrait of fetal development shows God’s direct involvement and interest from start to finish. According to verse 12, God takes our frame and develops it marvelously. The unborn is granted life and favor and possesses a personal spirit.

Isaiah 49:1, 5

The Lord called me from the womb; from the body of my mother He named me.”

“And now says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be His servant.”

Jeremiah 1:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

These two passages (the first being a prophecy concerning Christ) point to God’s ministry of grace and His purpose in behalf of the unborn. Just as God is actively at work in the process of physical formation, so He is earnestly at work preparing certain individuals for spiritual ministries.

It is true that the phrase “from the womb” can be a reference to God’s involvement while the individual is yet in he womb, or it can mean God’s involvement from birth onward, in which case it would be translated “out of the womb.” The key is that this phrase is connected with formation, and thus refers to the period within the womb, not the period beginning with birth. Jeremiah 1:5 emphatically bears this out, for it declares that God “knew” Jeremiah before birth and he was already set aside and designated a prophet.

In all these verses, personality is ascribed to the unborn. He is called to salvation, set aside for service, and made a recipient of grace-unlikely blessings for mere “tissue.”

Psalm 139:13-16

“For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou dist weave me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Thy book they were all written, The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.”

This fascinating psalm contains Scripture’s most complete account of prenatal development. Its basic theme is the inescapable presence of God. When David begins verse 13 with the word “For” he is about to tell us that God’s constant interest in man is simply the natural interest that a maker would have in a very special product!

He “weaved” man in the mother’s womb-a graphic reference to the process whereby the basic frame of man is covered and laced by series after series of sinews, muscles, blood vessels, and tissues. God seeks us now because He made us then, and from our earliest moments we were in His tender care!