The Scriptures as the Basis of Our Apologetic

 Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, with 176 verses. Of those verses, only three don't contain a word referring to the scriptures, such as law, commandments, or testimonies. The Psalm is 176 references to the benefits of God's Word in the life of the believer. I will focus on the section labeled "Waw," verses 41-48. 

"Let Your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, Your salvation according to Your promise; then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your Word. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in Your rules. I will keep Your law continually, forever and ever, and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts. I will also speak of Your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame, for I find my delight in Your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands toward Your commandments, which I love, and I will mediate on Your statutes" (Psalm 119:41-48).  

The Psalmist here uses the same encouragement that Jesus gave to His disciples: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in the synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for My sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Matthew 10:16-20). 

In both passages, it is the source of our answers that should give us confidence, because it is the very Word of God, inspired  by the Holy Spirit. The rest of Psalm 119 relays the means to this end, the constant study of, and obedience to, the Word of God. 

What is often forgotten in our apologetical confrontations is that there is no promise in Scripture that God will give success to our clever response. Rather, He promises His power to attend His word: "So shall My word be, that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). 

Is Rape a Justification for Abortion?

Rape is a horrible crime. Not only does it violate the physical wholeness of the victim, but it is also an assault on her mental wholeness. It often causes an unjustified sense of shame, and it always deprives her of a sense of security, especially around men. Some people claim that those consequences justify making rape an exception to the immorality of rape. Doesn't that baby cause the mother continuing emotional damage from the attack? 

And a moral person can agree with that statement. A baby resulting from rape is a constant physical reminder of the worst experience most people can imagine. However, the question of whether that justifies aborting the baby is a step beyond sympathy. 

"Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deuteronomy 24:16). 

This verse is an expression of God's justice, one with which most people would otherwise agree. Contrary to the custom in the ancient world, no person is responsible for the criminal act of his kin. In the example before us, that applies to the child of a rapist. No one claims that there is any moral culpability in the child from the circumstances of his conception. It is the father alone who should receive the legal penalty for the crime of rape. 

Therefore, from the perspective of God, rape is no justification for the additional act of violence against an innocent preborn child. This would apply as well to babies conceived by incest. 

God's Judgment on Abortion

"They [i. e., Israel] served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood" (Psalm 106:36-38).

I have been reading of  "progressive Christians" who claim that the Bible says nothing about abortion. Yet here we have God's wrath spoken against the sacrifice of the children of Israel to pagan deities. If that is not the essence of abortion, I don't know how we could put it more clearly. 

Are Americans not aborting our sons and daughters as sacrifices to something - the universe, maybe - as an act of worship in exchange for prosperity? Our jobs will be better, we will have more money, we will avoid embarrassment, however we justify it. It is that paganism which is judged by God, because it is the shedding of blood - innocent blood - as an exchange for personal prosperity, the ultimate act of self-involvement!

Book of Numbers and Sprinkling as the Mode of Baptism

Most Christians would say that Numbers is a book that they avoid reading. And I admit that the censuses of Israel, from which the book gets its name in English, are tedious, and I usually skip over them. However, to skip the entire book is to miss some hidden gems within it. 

What struck me recently is the rite of purification, described in chapter 19: "Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 'This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to being you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come. And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him. And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire burning the heifer... And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering'" (Numbers 19:1-6, 9, emphasis added). 

So we have a ceremony described by God, in which a heifer, that is, a cow that has not yet been bred or worked, is to be sacrificed. Its blood is to be sprinkled before the tabernacle, the symbol of God's presence among His people. It was then to be burned and its ashes gathered and saved for "the water of impurity." 

"'This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days... For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel. Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on whoever touched the bone or the slain or the dead or the grave. And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus, on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean'" (Numbers 19:14, 17-19). Reference to sprinkling can also be found in verse 21. Thus, the rest of the ceremony is that the ashes from the heifer would be mixed with water and sprinkled on the unclean person, and he would be cleansed. 

Finally, in Isaiah 52:15, part of the Suffering Servant passage, we read the words of the prophet to Israel of the coming Messiah who would cleanse His people from their sins. How? "He shall sprinkle many nations." The blood of Jesus is to sprinkled by faith on unclean sinners just as the ashes of the heifer were sprinkled on the unclean under the law of Moses. That is no coincidence! The one is a type of the other. 

To my Baptist brethren, I would also point out that the recipient of cleansing wasn't dipped in the water of impurity. On the contrary, it was the finger of the priest, who would then sprinkle both the blood of the sacrifice and the water of cleansing. This strongly refutes the claim of Baptists that baptism is properly done only by immersion. Rather, the type in Numbers indicates that the proper mode of baptism is by sprinkling (by which I do not mean that baptisms by other modes are, therefore, invalid). 

This Scripture points to what the Westminster Assembly would say on the subject of baptism some three millennia later: "Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person" (Westminster Confession of Faith XXVIII:3).