A Study by Tom Giesecke, M.D.
God is Pro-Life
By Tom Giesecke, M.D.
What is life and when does it begin? These questions are vitally important to answer correctly. How one behaves is determined largely by how one answers these questions. One’s ethics are determined by what one believes. At the root of a person’s beliefs is his belief regarding life, and specifically human life.
My source is the Bible, the Word of God. Though the Bible is not a medical textbook, it is accurate about biological—and all— facts. The Bible states repeatedly that it is authored by God, who cannot lie. Following are a few Scriptures that state that God’s words in the Bible are true and reliable. All Bible quotes are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statues of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes
(Psalm 19:6-8).
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105).
I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word
(Psalm 138:2).
“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar” (Proverbs 30:5-6).
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God be thoroughly equipped for every good work
(2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21).
To clearly discern what the Bible states about human life, it is appropriate to begin in the book of beginnings: Genesis. In His conversation with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, God the Father spoke:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”….God saw all that he had made, and it was very good
(Genesis 1:26-28, 31a).
Because God made humans in His image, we can reason that every human life is considered by Him as valuable and precious. God Himself declared that all that He had made was very good. Whom God values as very good so should we. This means every single living person, because every single living person bears the image of God.
This becomes clear in God’s blessing and command to: “Be fruitful and increase in number.” By this, God blessed man and woman to reproduce. His command, “Be fruitful” implies not only physical but also spiritual reproduction. God wants godly offspring to be raised up and bear the fruit of the Spirit:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23a).
The LORD God gave us all an eternal promise regarding the extreme value of the woman’s offspring when He cursed the serpent who tempted and deceived the first woman Eve.
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
From the rest of the Bible, we know that the offspring of the woman who crushed the serpent’s head is the Lord Jesus Christ. (See Colossians 2:15, Revelation 20:10) Jesus Christ is the infinite God who became a man to bear our sins when He died in our place to pay the penalty which we owed for them. By His death on the cross Jesus Christ crushed the devil’s head, and the devil struck Christ’s heel with the spike nailed through His feet. The fact that Jesus died to pay the price for each person sets an inestimably high— even infinite— value on each human.
But when precisely does human life begin? These next quotes clearly state the answer to this question.
“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (Exodus 21:22-24).
The above command is one in a series of laws spoken by the LORD to Moses to set before the Israelites, God’s people. In the law above, if a baby is born prematurely due to an injury inflicted on its mother and the baby sustains a serious injury, the penalty to the man who injured the baby was to be the same as the injury the baby sustained. We see here that a premature baby is a human being in God’s eyes.
The next Scripture was spoken by King David of Israel in prayer to God regarding his own life.
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me”
(Psalm 51:5 NASB).
In this prayer, David called himself “me” from the moment of his own conception by his mother.
David also prayed the next verses to the LORD:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 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, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be
(Psalm 139:13-16).
Here David affirms that God knit his body together in his mother’s womb. His body was formed by God from the chemical elements while David was growing in his mother’s womb.
The following Scripture written by Doctor and Evangelist Luke describes two pregnant women meeting each other. Mary had just been told that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that she would be with child and give birth to a son Jesus. Her relative Elizabeth was also pregnant with John the Baptist. It actually was the meeting of not just two but four people.
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy”
(Luke 1:39-44).
Elizabeth called Mary “the mother of my Lord.” So it is clear that Mary was already then bearing Jesus in her womb. Luke further reports that Elizabeth was “filled with the Holy Spirit” when she made the declaration. This statement offers additional perspective for the following reason:
The Greek word translated “filled” is the same word used in Acts 2:4 describing what happened at Pentecost: “And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit….”
Note that in the Gospel of John, the apostle recorded what John the Baptist also stated when he saw the Spirit come down and remain on Jesus the day John baptized Him:
“I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God” (John 1:32-34).
Remarkably, from this, we can reasonably infer that this same Jesus, when He was still in Mary’s womb, baptized Elizabeth with the Holy Spirit!
From these above Scriptures, we can see unequivocally that God created and creates human life which begins at the moment of conception.
Some may argue, “This argument as to when life begins is a religious belief. Why should our government be involved? This is a private matter between a woman and her doctor.”
But our government has already weighed in on this matter, at its very foundation, on the principle stated in our Declaration of Independence that:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And that furthermore: “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Since these rights are ascribed to all men, and we have just seen from Scripture that God considers all men to have been men from the moment of conception, we can clearly see that our own government is founded on the belief that God is pro-life, and that it has a duty to protect the right for each human born to live.
We should seek to uphold human life in every way we can. For we who are American citizens, it is our privilege and spiritual and moral duty to God and our nation to vote for candidates and measures who and which stand for and promote human life. Human life is sacred. Each of our lives is of eternal value for each of us is made by God in the image of God. Let us live out the pro-life message of the Bible by the grace of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
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