The abortion issue in America has again come to the fore with several unfortunate developments of late. I must stress that for those in the church who have had or consented to abortions, there is an unlimited store of grace for you at the cross of Jesus. His blood covers even this, and you can therefore live free of shame or fear of punishment. In Jesus, you are under no condemnation. And yet the church, or at least, those who strive to faithfully serve the God of the Bible, must respond to this issue more broadly with the heart of Jesus. And his heart is grieved. The heart of Jesus is not broken over limits on human autonomy, at least not in this case. Rather, it is broken over the unjust murder of the innocent, and over the vain attempt, like our first parents, to become “like God.”
It is a God-like act to determine whether a child lives or dies, to pass sentence over its existence and execute judgment. And like the despotic kings of millennia past, our democracy has lifted itself up as a god, sovereign over human life, and even congratulated itself for doing so. How else to describe the jubilation following the passing of New York’s Reproductive Health Act, which lifted restrictions on late-term abortions? Lighting the World Trade Center pink in celebration was eerily reminiscent of Babel, and I can’t help but think God will again frustrate this type of human exaltation.
This, and similar developments in Virginia, prompted Senator Ben Sasse to put forth the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which seeks to protect infants who survive botched abortions. Nearly all Senate democrats voted against the measure. To protect the autonomy of the parent, they voted to allow the child to be brought forth in violence and left twisting in its own blood until it dies, cold and alone. It is not received, as children are meant to be, in welcome, warmth, tenderness, and protection. This suggests the true issue has never been about “when” an unborn child becomes human, but “whether” the parent has a right to terminate the pregnancy at any stage…even after the child has been born.
The progressive drift toward abortion extremism has caused a shift in the abortion-rights divide. A recent Marist poll found an even split among Americans, with 47 percent identifying as pro-life and 47 percent as pro-choice. Only a few months prior, the split was 55 percent pro-choice to 38 percent pro-life. This suggests even many who don’t know Jesus find such legislation extreme and unpalatable. I believe through this God is peeling back the facade of sterile and softening “reproductive rights” language to more fully expose the evil beneath. Just as the idols of ancient paganism are alive and well in more “invisible” forms today (wherever we place our ultimate hope), so too the ancient practice of child sacrifice has taken on a more insidious and “invisible” form with elective abortion. Yet it’s becoming starkly more visible in our secularizing society.
But perhaps the saddest part of the debate is the fact that many who profess to know Jesus are firmly in the pro-choice camp, just as ancient Israel was itself led astray into the child-sacrifice rituals of its pagan neighbors. This is so against God’s nature that he emphatically said such things “did not even enter into his mind” (Jer. 32:35). It is a Satanic deception leading good-intentioned, educated, law-abiding people to call what is evil, “good,” and what is good, “evil,” and to persecute those who are appalled at such things.
Prior to becoming a Christian and even several years into the faith, I thought abortion was an unfortunate process, but that it was wrong to prevent others from seeking it. Who has the right to tell others what to do with their bodies, I thought? Over the years, as I grew in “the knowledge of the holy,” to cite Tozer’s classic work on the nature of God, I came to realize human autonomy is not (and can never be) the highest ideal, to be protected at any cost. It is a false messiah leading only to separation from God, with all the eventual sorrow and regret that entails.
For Christians, this is a matter of justice. True justice. And the stakes are literally life and death. Proverbs 28:5 says “the evil do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely.” We cannot make elective abortion justifications that hold true, Christ-centered integrity with our belief in human rights and the protection of children. If this all sounds fundamentalist, patriarchal, infuriating, misogynist, bigoted, and the like, I would like to ask you followers of Jesus, is God’s word a priority in your life? If yes, is it the absolute authority in your life? If God is God, his word should challenge and correct us at every turn. This includes our most fundamentally held beliefs and our precious ideologies – our precious “rights.” As Barry Web has said, “It is impossible to be in relationship with God unless we are prepared to be ruled by him.”
This is also why I’m not trying to appeal to the solipsistic unbeliever, one who believes humans are essentially self-created beings who belong to themselves. They cannot accept a line of reasoning beginning with a God who owns them, even if true. So why try to prevent someone from performing or obtaining an abortion if they don’t believe in the God of the Bible? To protect the innocent and helpless. And to prevent those who oppose abortion from being forced to pay for it. Many who would categorically oppose torture and capital punishment celebrate what is so obviously infanticide. They support an abortionist’s right to snip the vocal cord of an unborn child to prevent its dying screams from harming the parents’ emotions. But we can be sure that a holy God will soon silence the deceptive rhetoric of postmodernity, when the only sounds heard on earth are knees hitting the ground and global confessions of “Jesus is Lord” by all who have ever lived.
Jesus is the highest ideal, infinitely worth sacrificing for. He limited his freedoms to take on human flesh, being born as an infant in a cold manger. He further limited his freedoms to allow cruel men to nail his naked body to a cross, writhing in blood-soaked agony for hours until his own unjust and untimely death. He chose his own death to give us life. I urge those of us who profess the name of Jesus to deeply consider his own self-denial on our behalf. I urge us to allow his word to become the standard by which we understand good from evil; true justice from its Satanic counterfeit. And I urge us in the faith to stand up for the rights of the unborn, knowing it will certainly cost us. We cannot faithfully serve Jesus without significant cost, but it cannot be compared with the eternal weight of glory waiting for those who are unashamed to call him Lord.
For Further Reading:
//www.trillianewbell.com/2015/07/30/abortion-weeping-and-hope/
//www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/healing-trauma-abortion/
//www.desiringgod.org/articles/murder-by-any-other-name
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