Today is “sanctity of human life Sunday,” a day that that pro-life Christians mark in protest of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. We add our voices to that protest, rejoicing that a generation of bloodshed has not been able to shut down the conscience of the church. We lament that our protests have not been successful (yet), but we rejoice that a testimony against this vile practice has been lifted up, and continues to be lifted up.
Although I don’t want to quibble about words, I would prefer to call this “dignity of human life Sunday.” One of the things we need to recognize is that apart from the word of God, apart from His revelation, human life does not have any inherent sanctity. We were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. It would be better to talk about the sanctity of God’s law, and the consequent dignity of human life. The standard does not arise from human life; the standard concerns human life.
That said, mark this well. In the book of Proverbs, Lady Wisdom declares that all who hate her love death (Prov. 8:36). Covering this death wish over with euphemisms does not alter the reality. Those who are pro-choice are actually pro-death, which is to be anti-wisdom, which is to be pro-folly.
In our headlong pursuit of fruitlessness and folly, we have abandoned right reason, and have rebelled against the kindness of the Word of God. Because of our corporate death wish, God has given us over to our desires as a nation, and this is why everything that used to be stable is disintegrating around us. We are a bloody and a disgraced people. Because we have shed so much innocent blood, blood that cries out from landfills and laboratories, we have tried to compensate with insane moralistic crusades elsewhere that will somehow establish our righteousness. But this will not serve.
The only thing that can deal with our bloodguilt is blood. The blood of Jesus Christ, sacrificed by corrupt human authority, of the very same kind that we suffer under now, is the final and complete and only answer. Jesus shed His blood so that we might be forgiven for this great national sin. Outside of Him, apart from Him, there is no forgiveness.
This was really well said. I like the idea of the dignity of human life, much better than the sanctity. What sanctity? We’ve already blown it there in a million different ways. God however, does ask that we perceive human life with some dignity, that we respect and love one another, and honor what life really is, people created in His image. God really treats us with some dignity, a concept that sometimes gets lost, but consider the power He has versus how gentle He often is. All in good humor here, but he put Adam to sleep before ripping… Read more »
Thanks Doug. I will engage your quibble here and suggest that “sanctity” might actually be the better word, as no human life is ever entirely apart from the word and revelation of God. In fact, it could be argued that human life, itself, is part of the revelation of God, as we are each made in His image (albeit badly disfigured by the fall). Much of His perfect law is written on every human heart and is demonstrated by our natural ability to do the things in the law (sometimes, anyway). Rom 2:14 I dunno, sometimes I think the Reformed… Read more »
Someone dark and cynical once said, “the sanctity of life is nothing more than the sentimentality of men.” Therein lies the problem, what one person calls Holy, sanctified, another person will claim is nothing more than sentimentality over a clump of meaningless cells. Without that “doctrine of irresistible reprobation,” the worth and value of human beings becomes a subjective thing based on our own (and society’s) perception of whether or not we are worthy. As it stands right now, some are apparently more worthy than others, so we wind up creating the precise opposite of what we intended. If instead… Read more »
As I read this, I have a subdued, contented gratefulness for your consistent faithful candor, especially on this subject. I am so glad to be reminded of my need of a savior and so glad to be reminded of His amazing grace. Thank you for not pulling any punches and calling sin, sin. So, I’m 39, raised in evangelical churches, and have always taken for granted the “no-duh-abortion-is-murder” mentality of God-fearing evangelicals. With that being said, I was shocked and confused to find that, apparently, the evangelical attitude toward abortion at the time of Roe v Wade was somewhere between… Read more »