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!

God's Judgment on Human Sacrifice: Abortion

"Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I Myself will set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make My sanctuary unclean and to profane My holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set My face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech." 

-Leviticus 20:2-5 

There is a lot in this short passage. 

First, what was it to give one of ones children to Molech? Molech was a Canaanite deity. After the Conquest, he was adopted by the degenerating people of Israel, and that adoption flowered into a cult to an idol, marked by the sacrifice of small children, their own children, to the idol in return for material prosperity. Of course, no one walks into Planned Parenthood for an appointment with a priest of Molech, but the mindset is the same. The mother, at least, expects that her life will be better if she executes the child within her womb. The father may or may not be party to that choice. 

Second, what is the reaction of God, the true and living God of the Bible? His judgment is severe, demanding the public execution of the father of that child. And that itself is interesting, that He directs his judgment less toward the mother and more toward the father. After all, he conceived a child on this woman, and then failed to give her the material and emotional support necessary for her to sustain that new life. Not, of course, that we can assume that He places no blame on the mother. It is a matter of the greater accountability for fathers, the same fathers that are denied a legal right to block the murder of their children in modern America. Yet no law requires fathers to be silent. 

Notice, third, that God does not stop merely at the parents of the aborted child. Rather, He castigates the community which turns a blind eye to the horror of human sacrifice. Ignoring murder is a crime in its own right. Not as severe, perhaps, as the murder, but bringing, not material blessings, but rather material curses on that community. Do we not see this in America? As we have devalued life in the womb, we have devalued life everywhere in society, even as many act bewildered at the cheapness of death in these times. 

Abortion and God's Love of Life

"Do not boil a goat in its mother's milk" -Deuteronomy 14:21. 

I remember the first time I read this verse in an Old Testament course in college, a long time ago. It struck me as very odd. 

Another one was, "If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young" (Deuteronomy 22:6). 

Why, I wondered, would God put in His Scriptures such commandments about what we might have for dinner? And it has taken until now, my mature years, to understand what seems so plain now. 

There are many passages in Scripture that show God's concern for the family. They start with the creation mandate in  Genesis 1:28: "God said to them [i. e., Adam and Eve], 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" The welfare of the family is the concern of the Fifth and Seventh Commandments, and of such extended portions of Scripture as Ephesians 5:22-33. 

The two verses from Deuteronomy above reflect that concern. Notice that the command is not to avoid cooking a kid in milk, or to avoid eating eggs. In both cases the restriction is against the relationship between the animal mother and her offspring. The perpetuation of life is precious to God, both for mankind and for the animals. 

The reason that this has become clear to me in the past few years is because I have become more involved in the fight against human sacrifice in America, nicknamed euphemistically as "abortion." When a baby is aborted, that is the new generation murdered not just with his mother, as in the animal texts of Deuteronomy, but by his mother. What can more destroy the family than does mothers, often with the concurrence of fathers, who kill their preborn children. 

America's Apostasy and the Innocent Blood of Aborted Babies

In describing the apostasy of Israel, God gave these words through the anonymous writer of Psalm 106:36-39: "They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds."

In my own mind, I recognize in this description my own culture, 21st-Century America. True, worshiping idols has not become widespread. Wicca, Hinduism, and other pagan religions, both ancient and new, even explicit worship of Satan, are spreading and becoming more visible, as they are mainstreamed by the broadcast media, such as the TV shows "Charmed" and "Supernatural." These traditions are being mixed in fashion trends, such as the Goth movement. But they are still relatively small compared to the overall size of the American population. 

On the other hand, the sacrifice of sons and daughters is far more companion than any explicit idolatry. Sixty million Americans were murdered in their mothers' wombs between 1973, when the Supreme Court declared abortion a "constitutional right," and the overturning of that decision in June of this year (2022). Why? For about 99% of abortions, it was merely for convenience: "A baby would interfere with my lifestyle." Babies cost money, and parenthood interferes with an irresponsible lifestyle. Worst of all, a baby puts a block in a lifestyle of promiscuous sex. Thus we have both the prosperity and lasciviousness of the ancient human sacrifice cults. 

America is a land soaked in innocent blood. There has never been, and can never be, a just accusation of a capital crime against an unborn child. The mere suggestion of it is specious. Among humankind since the Fall, there can never be true innocence, but there can be justice. And capital punishment for someone who has never committed a crime is not justice, but is itself a crime.

I am writing this just after the 2022 midterm elections, so I am thinking especially of leftwing candidates who campaigned on the protection of the supposed right to kill the innocent. I have tried to warn them that the blood of those innocents will testify against them in the judgment, but they don't care. May God grant them repentance! Until then, if ever, the innocent blood drips from their hands  and stains every word they speak or action they take. And God holds this nation accountable for not removing that evil from our civil government. 

The Word of God Against Abortion Exceptions for Rape and Incest

In Ezekiel 18, that prophet gives us this rebuke to Israel from her God: "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine: the soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). This verse is often taken out of context to mean that sin causes spiritual death. While that doctrine is true, it has nothing to do with the prophet's message here. As the rest of the chapter goes on to tell us, this verse is about God's justice. The soul that sins shall die for its own sins, not the sins of another person. 

"If a man is righteous and does what is just and right -... he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord God" (Ezekiel 18:5, 9). "[Then] if he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood... Shall this son live? He shall not live. he has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18: 10, 13). So the prophet gives a hypothetical case of a righteous man with a wicked son. Shall the righteousness of the father preserve the wicked son from the just consequences of his wicked acts? No, it shall not. 

Now we are given the case the other way: "Now suppose that this man [i. e., the wicked son] fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewise... He shall not die for his father's iniquity; he shall surely live. As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity" (Ezekiel 18:14, 17-18). So now the wicked man has a godly son, the grandson of the earlier righteous man. Shall this son die for his father's wickedness? No. In fact, the wicked son, even though he is between two generations of godly men, is also not excused thereby, but is required still to receive justice. 

"Yet you say, 'Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father? When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all My statures, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:19-20). This was a remarkable statement at the time! It was the common practice to kill whole extended families for the crime of one member. God declares that the common system was not His standard of justice. 

We have moved beyond such primitive concepts as described here, haven't we? We like to tell ourselves that, but it just isn't so. Do not most prolife Americans take for granted that exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest must always be allowed? Why is that? Has the preborn child committed a crime worthy of death? I would say that he obviously has not. Rather, in either case, it was his father who committed the crime. So why do we grant that killing the innocent baby is a just response? 

I think that this passage from Ezekiel shows that God does not grant such injustice. 

The Spiritual Consequences of Abortion

"They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their 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. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds" (Psalm 106:36-39). 

Mothers, and sometimes fathers, are told that they will experience greater happiness and prosperity by killing their preborn babies through abortion. Whether it is because of poverty or fetal anomalies, or even mere convenience, a child will supposedly bring them down, while killing the child will bring them up. 

It is all a lie. 

Ancient Israel tried the same thing, sacrificing their own children to pagan deities, Moloch and Baal, and expecting greater prosperity in response. However, the only thing they found was judgment from the real God, the triune God of the Bible, who judged them and their land, polluted by the blood of innocents exterminated by their own parents. 

Even those who encouraged them, whether government officials or apostate religious leaders, are condemned by Scripture: "I will make a stormy wind break out in My wrath, and there shall be a deluge of rain in My anger, and great hailstones in wrath to make a full end... Thus will I spend My wrath upon the wall and upon those who have smeared it with whitewash, and I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who smeared it, the prophets of Israel who prophesied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her, when there was no peace, declares the Lord God... Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life... I will deliver My people out of your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 13:13, 15-16, 22). 

Abortion: "Christian" America's Covenant with Death

In his book Abortion Violation, author Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas cites Proverbs 8:36, in which the personification of Wisdom says, "All who hate me love death." In application, Thomas tells us, "[T]he rejection of God's wisdom leads selfish, autonomous men to love and embrace death. In the case of abortion, it is the death of innocent children made in the image of God" (p. 22). 

In the Bible, god calls this mentality a covenant with death. This phrase is found twice in Isaiah 28, in which God is castigating Israel for her adultery with pagan deities, for which she is to be judged. God quotes a personification of the whole people: "We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter" (Isaiah 28:15). The people of Israel had convinced themselves that their game of balancing a profession of faith to Jehovah with their secret whoring with demons would protect them from the judgment of Jehovah, the only true God, who had made them a people. 

However, the prophet tells them God's response to their confidence: "Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it. As often as it passes through, it will take you; for morning by morning, it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message... Now, therefore, do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord God of hosts against the whole land" (Isaiah 28:18-19, 22). 

America is playing this game. She is playing the whore, both literally and in the sense that Israel did. Sexual immorality is rampant, even among professing Christians. Yet abortion enables the immoral to practice their sensuality without consequences... or so they believe. I think we see the signs already of God's judgment on this imagined sleight of hand. The sacrifice of the innocent will never save the guilty, no matter what "freedom of choice" men may imagine that they have. 

Abortion as a Cover for Sexual Promiscuity

"Draw near, sons of the sorceress, offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman. Whom are you mocking? Against whom do you open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, the offspring of deceit, you who burn with lust among the oaks, under every green tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?" -Isaiah 57:3-5. 

Sometimes the Scriptures are quite colorful in their descriptions of human beings. This is one of those times. The prophet rebukes men and women involved in sexual promiscuity. But I want to point especially to the way such men and women try to avoid the consequences of their behavior: by the slaughter of their own children. 

Are we not seeing this in our culture? It has actually been said that the recent Supreme Court decision overturning the abomination of Roe v. Wade that it spells the doom of "hook-up culture." Oh, the horror! But is that not an admission of the reason for so many abortions? The people involved want to satisfy their lusts without consequences, even to the point of murdering their own children! Not because of poverty or abusive partners, but just to avoid the consequences of their own decisions. 

God's Judgment on Christendom for Child Sacrifice

Before starting, I want to mention that this post represents a major moment. It is my 800th post!

"The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I Myself will set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make My sanctuary unclean and to profane My holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set My face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.'"
- Leviticus 20:1-5

Molech was a prosperity deity of the Canaanites, worshiped by human sacrifice. In particular, a worshiper sought prosperity for himself by sacrificing his own infant by fire (see, e. g., Jeremiah 32:35). The Israelites absorbed this practice from the surviving Canaanites among them after they settled in the Promised Land. This was exactly the reason that God had ordered that no survivors were to remain of the Canaanites after the Conquest: "When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following Me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and He would destroy you quickly" (Deuteronomy 7:1-4).

What made this crime of Israel particularly heinous, even more so than among the Canaanites, was that God claimed the Israelite children as His own (Ezekiel 16:20). As evil as human sacrifice always is, the Israelites were sacrificing the children of God to a demon (Deuteronomy 32:17)! What greater act of sacrilege could there have been?

Roughly 70% of Americans profess to be Christians, yet almost three-thousand babies are killed by abortion every day in that same America. Why? Because the parents of those children believe that their lives will be better iF those children are dead. How is that not the same crime described by Moses roughly forty-three centuries ago? I see no significant distinction.

And that should bring each of those professing Christians bolt upright in his seat, because the God they profess warns of dire consequences for that ritual of child sacrifice. More importantly, He also warns of consequences for those who sit idly by as the crime of child sacrifice occurs around them. Silence is not innocence. Silence is complicity, and God judges it as such. In God's eyes, the silent Christian is the accomplice in every child sacrifice.

Abortion and Human Sacrifice in the Bible

"Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into My mind— therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its wounds. And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them."
- Jeremiah 19:4-9

In this passage, God is announcing His judgment on the people of Israel because of their idolatry, a literal idolatry of worshiping false gods. And what is worse is that part of their idolatry is human sacrifice, the burning of their own children as sacrifices to Baal, the Canaanite deity of storms and fertility. The Israelites were sacrificing their children because they thought that it would bring them rain and good crops.

The minor aspect of this fertility ritual is that an idol can do nothing to help our crops. It is the biblical God, Jehovah, alone who gives rain and makes the earth to be fruitful. As reward for faithfulness, He promises, "The Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands" (Deuteronomy 28:11-12). The Israelites had committed the irrational act of turning from the true and living God who could bless them, to a wood or stone idol which had no power at all.

But beyond the irrationality of their apostasy, the Israelites had accepted the horrific ritual of human sacrifice - and not just any humans, but rather their own children!

Compare this to our own day, in which Americans have largely abandoned the Christian heritage which had long underlain this country. And in its place we have erected many idols, not just of false religions, but also of quick riches, drugs, and entertainment. And for the sake of these idols, we sacrifice our children, washing them down the drains, torn in pieces, and removed from sight at the neighborhood abortionist's office.

What is the effect of such moral perversion?

Here is what God said to those ancient Israelites: "I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its wounds. And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them" (Jeremiah 19:7-9). Where the Israelites had fed their babies to idols who could never answer them, instead they will be forced to consume their own babies, just to survive famine. The curse would be on them and their land.

How will God judge America for the same abominations? I tremble to imagine.

Abortion: The Abomination of Shedding Innocent Blood

There are topics over which Christians disagree, whether God approves or disapproves of something. The use of alcoholic beverages comes to mind. However, when God says that He hates something, there is no room for disagreement.

"There are six things that the Lord hates,
     seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
     and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
     feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies, 
      and one who sows discord among brothers." 
- Proverbs 6:16-19

So here the Holy Spirit gives us a list of things which God not only hates, but which are abominations to Him. That is the strongest term used in Scripture for something which God opposes. Some of them might surprise us, such as lying. However, the part I want to emphasize is "hands that shed innocent blood." And it is key to notice that it is innocent blood, so we aren't talking about self-defense, or enemies killed in war, or the perpetrators of crimes deserving capital punishment. Rather, it is about murder, the killing of an innocent party.

Can there be anyone more innocent than an infant in the womb? Yet, we in America kill three thousand preborn infants every day. In God's eyes, that makes us guilty of innocent blood, and, therefore, abominations in His sight, apart from forgiveness by faith in Jesus Christ. This guilt applies to the mothers, the fathers, the doctors and nurses, and to the political leaders who stand by while the genocide continues.

Sovereignty and the Monotheism of God

"See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of My hand" (Deuteronomy 32:39).

The Bible is a thoroughly monotheistic book. This verse is just one of many such explicit statements by God that He alone is God. An even more-explicit example is Isaiah 43:10: "'You are My witnesses, declares the LORD, 'and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after Me.'"

The reason that I chose to emphasize the verse from Deuteronomy is that it doesn't merely assert monotheism, but also establishes one of the implications of the truth: "There is none that can deliver out of My hand." God not only declares Himself of singular status, but then warns men that, therefore, there is no opposing force that can rescue us from His judgment. He was addressing pagan deities then, but His declaration applies equally to the deities of our own age, such as science or "progress." Yet, we see even explicit pagan blasphemy, as in the picture above. Yet, God's hand of judgment cannot be restrained by any power outside Himself. That woman, appealing even to Satan, will be judged together with Satan, unless she repent.

The Bible and Sacrifice by Abortion

I recently heard about the person described in this news story. He claims to be a Christian abortionist who is doing God's work. However, according to the words of that God, the man is an apostate under judgment for pagan sacrifice. I am sad to say that the reason that the Bible addresses his remarks is that he is not the first to do so. His particular form of apostasy is an ancient one.

"They [i. e., Israel] served their idols,
     which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
     and their 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.
Thus they became unclean by their acts, 
     and played the whore in their deeds." 
- Psalm 106:36-39

In times of low spiritual condition, the ancient Israelites adopted the practice of their pagan neighbors of sacrificing their own children to pagan gods in order to gain prosperity for themselves. Instead of having children who would be a financial burden, they turned them into a supposed resource for purchasing economic advancement. is that not essentially what most supporters of abortion claim now?

Abortion Is Not Avoiding Pregnancy

When people talk about why some mothers abort their preborn children, the main reasons given are rape and incest, the most-horrific cases. In reality, those are only about 1% of abortions. They are used as a smokescreen to prevent a real discussion of the justifications for abortion. Rather, the main reason is convenience: the pregnancy will result in a financial burden, or interfere with the mother's career. Or worse still, the abortion is justified because the baby tests as having a defect or the wrong sex.

All of these real reasons boil down to convenience. A baby will crimp the lifestyle of one or both parents (you do remember that a pregnancy requires two parents, don't you?). While these supposedly-important considerations didn't prevent the act that created the pregnancy, they do supposedly justify avoiding the consequences of that act. Why do they get ignored in the lesser situation, but are paramount in the greater? If that were the real consideration, wouldn't a dollar for a condom be a priority expenditure, rather than waiting for the expenditure of a medical procedure that can cost as much as three-thousand dollars (barring complications)?

Let me put this in basic English: If an unplanned child will negatively affect a person's life, then there are far cheaper and safer methods of avoiding that circumstance!

Abortion, The Church, and Her Holy Calling

I write this just after the State of New York expanded abortion to any point up to birth. Christians are horrified by this step backward in the effort to end legalized infanticide. I am especially appalled that the effort was pushed by professing Christian Governor Andrew Cuomo, a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Where has been the voice of that church? She speaks often about the sanctity of human life. I have seen her priests at protests in front of abortion clinics. And no one can claim that Cuomo's pro-death views appeared suddenly out of the air. Could it be that Rome enjoys the prestige of being able to claim high public officials among her membership over real defense of the preborn? That is how this looks to me. 

It made me think of these words of God: "If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?" (I Corinthians 14:7-8). One of the callings of the Church is to be salt and light in culture: "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:13-16). However, I would suggest that Rome has put her light under a basket, lest she risk her social standing. 

Presbyterian Theologian James Henley Thornwell said this of the Church: "She is of God, and if she forgets that it is her divine prerogative to speak in the name and by the authority of God - if she relinquishes the dialect of Canaan, and stoops to babble in the dialects of earth - she must expect to be treated as a babbler. Her strength lies in comprehending her spiritual vocation. She is different from all other societies among men. Though, as a society, she has ethical and political relations in common with the permanent organizations of the Family and the State, yet, in her essence, her laws, and her ends, she is diverse from every other institute [sic]" [Theology as a Life in Individuals and in the Church].

The Connection Between Abortionism and Anti-Paedobaptism

The Bible says a lot of things about babies, both before and after birth. For example, they are creations of God (Psalm 139:13), and they are sinners (Psalm 51:5, Psalm 58:3), but they can also be regenerate (Luke 1:15). For the children of believers, we have the additional awareness that our children belong to God, not ourselves (Ezekiel 16:20, I Corinthians 7:14). Our children are very important to God.

Yet, in the face of these biblical truths, we have two egregious offenses against children in today's American society: the refusal to baptize the children of believers and the genocide of unborn children called euphemistically "abortion." (By mentioning them together, I do not mean to imply that they are at all morally equivalent.)

Both arise from an attitude of dismissal toward children as a gift from God (Psalm 127:3). Both as a church and as a society, we despise these gifts from God, and fail in our responsibility for them.

Can Kids Sin? The Age of Accountability

There are things in the Bible that can make a man uncomfortable. That is no criticism. It represents historical situations without modern parallel. We simply have no comparable experiences in our lives. We no longer live on farms, where we face the daily reality of, for example, the butchering of animals for our food. Meat is something we get in plastic wrap from the grocery store. We are completely separated from how that meat was prepared before that point.

One issue in particular is the Conquest, the period of time in which the nation of Israel, after having been rescued from bondage in Egypt, is called by God to take the Promised Land from its inhabitants. And not just to impose their rule over those inhabitants, as we think of a conquest, but rather to eliminate them: "We captured all his cities at that time and devoted to destruction every city, men, women, and children. We left no survivors" (Deuteronomy 2:34; cp. 3:6, etc.). However, that action was only as God had commanded them: "But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction" (Deuteronomy 20:16-17).

This offends our sense of justice, because God judges even the children to destruction. How can God do such a thing and remain just?

The problem is that we think of children as innocent. And, comparably speaking, that is true. Children haven't committed murder, for example (and even that is no absolute). We are justified in saying that, for example, abortion is evil, because it is exactly that, a genocide of the innocent. The relatively innocent. This has led to a manmade doctrine called "the age of accountability," according to which there is some age under which God does not hold a person accountable for sin.

The problem with applying that to God is that He doesn't judge on the basis of relativity. In His omniscience, He knows what is in the heart of every person, whether it is expressed in action or not. We cannot do the same because we are not omniscient. In addition, we judge as one sinner looking upon on another. That is why we are able to think only in terms of relative innocence. But God's commands to Israel show that He holds all humans to His holy standards, regardless of age, gender, or social status.

God, however, in His absolute knowledge and holiness says that even infants have wicked hearts (Psalms 51:5, 58:3). Therefore, He alone is just in determining to destroy the wicked, even children, in pursuit of His purposes. The doctrine of an age of accountability accuses God of injustice for the inclusion of children in His judgment on the Canaanites.

What the modern mind rarely grasps is that what Israel did to Og and his people or Sihon and his people is what He could properly do to every human in existence. Is it unjust that He exercised His justice in those cases but does not in our modern world? Of course not. That isn't injustice; it is mercy.

God and the Child in the Womb

Among professing Christians, there are people who give a pass to abortion because they have accepted that preborn babies aren't people, whether because they are "potential" individuals or for other reasons.

Let me first ask those people this rhetorical question: If, as Christians, you claim to receive the Bible as your guide in life, where in the Bible do you find any such concept? However, I won't leave the argument at merely the lack of biblical support. Rather, I suggest that Scripture allows no such detestable doctrine.

Consider two people in the Scriptures, one in the Old Testament, the other in the New.

In the Old Testament, we have an account of Isaac, the son of Abraham. He plays a major role, because he is the son of promise, through whom the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant would continue in the world. I assume that no Christian would be ignorant of that story. However, does every Christian believe that Isaac was more than potential before he was born? In fact, God placed great value on him before he was born, promising His blessings on Isaac before he was born: "Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him" (Genesis 17:19; compare Jeremiah 1:5). God knows this preborn child by name, and makes promises regarding him. Can anyone say that God treats him merely as a potential person? What, then, would have happened to God's covenantal purpose if, as in modern America, Isaac had been aborted? Would God have said, "Oh, sorry, Abraham. It was just a thought"?

In the New Testament, we have another preborn child, John the Baptist. John is unique in that he is the only human in all of Scripture who is described as regenerate in the womb: "He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15). If God tells us that He already had a saving relationship with this child in the womb, a mere fetus, how can any professed Christian say that the child was only a potential human being?

The problem here isn't merely a love of death, which one expects from unbelievers. We have professed believers who have adopted a doctrine of unbelief and claimed it as justification for their belief. Those two things are inconsistent: "To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn" (Isaiah 8:20). God's judgment is that the follower of an unbelieving worldview is an unbeliever, no matter what title that person may claim.

Pro-Life: The Relationship Between Abortion and Capital Punishment

Moses records some very important words of God in Numbers 35:31-33: "You shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it."

As can be seen elsewhere (such as here) on this website, I am outspokenly pro-life. That is, opposed to abortion. I have been told by some on the evangelical left that I must also be opposed to capital punishment in order to be consistently pro-life. I deny that assertion, because it fails to consider the necessary distinction

between guilty and innocent life. A preborn child cannot have ever caused any harm to another human being. A criminal on death row, however, is there exactly because he has committed some heinous act against at least one other human being.

Why is that so significant? Because God says that we are made in His image (Genesis 1:27), and to attack His image is to attack Him:"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image" (Genesis 9:6). that has two implications. First, anyone who commits murder has killed the image of God, and He takes that very personally. And second, the perpetrator, who is also an image bearer, must be treated with the moral character that this truth carries. Not only has he committed a heinous act against the image of God, but he has perpetrated an incomparable act of treason as the image of God. And logically, God says, only the taking of his blood, as he has taken blood, is proportionate both to the crime and to the criminal.