Published:
December 23rd, 2016
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In the final part of his abortion series, Wilberforce Director Dr Joe
Boot writes of the message of life throughout the gospel message, and how this
affects our worldview as believers.
We
have a cosmology of compassion, rather than killing, he writes – "we are
pro-life because God is life and the author of life". He urges us to be the
"alternative to death" in our families and churches, and meet the needs of those
in crisis.
In contrast to the pagan cosmology of death, Christians have a cosmology
of life and compassion. We are pro-life because
God is life and the author of life. God’s very being and nature is defined
by begetting.
The incarnation reminds us that the Son, though born into the world at a certain
point in history, is the eternally
begotten of the Father. The wonder here is that the unity of the Trinity is
a self-giving familial community of love. In the incarnation, where "veiled
in flesh the godhead see," we
discover this divine community. As creatures made in God’s image, his familial
nature is reflected in the human family, where out of the union of male and
female, made in the image of God, begetting takes
place and generation occurs
and brings life. To abort begetting is thus contrary to the very nature of God
who has revealed himself in the familial categories of Father and Son. In the
antithetical view, the cosmology of killing, there is no eternal begetting.
Ultimate reality is not the triune God, a personal divine community, but only an
impersonal, empty and lifeless unity of being or non-being. Hence death and
annihilation is the goal of existence in pagan thought. Consequently abortion
becomes logical in an anti-Christian worldview. We can see from this that when
opposing abortion we are not moralising, we are applying theological reality by
describing the true God and the nature of the world he has
made.
A further dimension to this must be added with regard to the nature of
the gospel; an aspect that the incarnation of Christ so clearly sets forth.
Christ is born into the world as a human being, as the second Adam and head of a
new race, a new humanity. God’s people would be ‘born again’ by the Spirit of
God and become representatives of the new creation. The character of our
salvation is therefore one of birth
and generation. Human birth, in Scripture, becomes a type of the new birth
– we must be born again. We are re-generated through
the work of the Holy Spirit, by the imperishable seed of
the word of God. By this we are given life and brought into the family of
God (1 Pt. 1:23). Thus to deny birth is to reject the new birth; to deny
creation is reject the new creation; and to deny the fruition of family is to
reject the family of God. So, not only God’s own being and nature, but the plan
of salvation itself militates, theologically, against abortion and contradicts
the practice.
In the cosmology of compassion, God is at work in all history by his
providential and salvific work to bring about his purpose of life. Jesus
said, "I
have come that you might have life, and life in all its fullness" (Jn.
10:10). John’s prologue tells us, "In
him was life and the life was the light of men." This reminds us that the creation of life is
God’s work, not man’s, and as such it is solely in his hands so that life is
always on his terms. God’s terms are set out in his word. The Sixth Commandment,
by prohibiting murder, brings with it the positive duty to promote
life and protect the innocent – in so doing we are fulfilling the law and
working with God’s purposes for creation.
King David, who meditated constantly on God’s law-order (cosmology)
in Psalm
119, was taken up with the cosmology of
life and compassion when he considered the mercy of God in his inscrutable care
for the unborn child:
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's
womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your
works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was
being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes
saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the
days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious
to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count
them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with
you.
The womb itself is God’s studio, poetically described as "the
depths of the earth," a place
totally hidden (v. 15). From conception through gestation, David recognises that
God knitted him together in his mother’s womb. It is particularly marvellous to
notice that the Hebrew word for mercy derives
from the word womb, which
helps us understand David’s exalted praise, ‘wonderful are your works.’ In verse
16 the Hebrew literally reads, ‘My embryo (golmi)
your eyes saw.’ This phrase means an incomplete vessel; the life is young and
unfinished. The rest of the verse then goes on to beautifully relate the active
creation of the human embryo, in terms of God’s predestination of the totality
of life. The sovereign Lord has ordained our days and our steps: "in
your book were written every one of them, the days formed for me, when as yet
there was none of them" (v. 16).
As if to reinforce this marvellous truth, the word ‘formed’ means the forming of
a plan prior to its enactment. God then is not just numbering our days in his
secret work, he is forming the future before our hearts begin to beat, giving
meaning to every breath. Every person is thus fashioned in terms of God’s holy
purposes. Both the Old and New Testaments provide specific examples of this
wonder. Consider for example Jeremiah
1:5: "Before
I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated
you," or St Paul
in Galatians
1:15-16: "he
who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was
pleased to reveal his son to me." As the Christmas season reminds us, this Son
was himself incarnate and born of a virgin’s womb – this was the manifest mercy of
God. Mary carried salvation in her womb. It was not her
choice that reigned (though she rejoiced in God’s choosing), it was not her
will that prevailed, but God’s, and her soul magnified the
Lord.
The womb is thus the creator’s studio for sculpting the future. The Lord
of life ordains life – that is the cosmology of the Bible. We worship and serve
the creator when we honour God and his will (not ours) and serve his purpose for
all creation. It is only when we have considered the womb as the mercy of
God that we can begin to appreciate the full evil of abortion. Nothing sets
forth that mercy more powerfully than the virgin birth and the reality of the
incarnation.
Given the cosmology of the Bible so prescient in the Christmas message,
the wickedness of abortion should be obvious to all Christians. But it is not
sufficient to hold pro-life principles, we must live the
cosmology of compassion amidst a cosmology of killing. John Calvin noted
regarding Psalm
119, "Our
attachment to godliness must be inwardly defective if it does not generate an
abhorrence of sin." We must hate
what is evil, according to St Paul, and cling to what is good! And we will show
our faith according to St James by what we do. We must speak out against a
culture of death and declare the gospel of life. Moreover, we must serve life in
our families and churches by being the alternative to death and meeting the
needs of those in crisis. The cosmology of compassion demands that we reveal the
love and mercy of the triune God. A love manifest, not only in his eternal
begetting and the incarnation of the Son of God, but also by the gift of life in
every womb. Could there be a more wonderful gift this Christmas than such a
revelation and the saving of a
life?
