Sanctity of Life

Intro: What is Sanctity of Life?

First a disclaimer. I should mention at the start that we’re going to talk about some sensitive topics, so those of you whose children stay in for the sermon should be aware. I will be talking about murder, abortion, and euthanasia this morning. Nothing gets graphic, but when it comes to talking about the value of life and the morality of ending it things can get a little heavy.

Did you know that today is Sanctity of Life Sunday before you came here today? I’ve actually never been a part of a church that observes the day, so I actually had to look it up when I was planning my sermon calendar. For all I know maybe you’ve done Sanctity of Life Sunday before, but I haven’t. So you may be asking, “Josh why would you choose to mark Sanctity of Life Sunday and preach on such sensitive topics if it’s not already a part of our culture or your habit?”

The honest answer is because what we’re talking about is a life or death situation. Whenever we talk about the morality of ending a life we’re talking about actions with major ramifications that cannot be undone. I think of Lord of the Rings when Gandalf and Frodo are talking about Gollum, a pathetic evil creature who has been following them intent on killing them and taking the ring that Frodo carries. When Frodo remarks that he wishes that his adoptive father Bilbo had killed Gollum when he had the chance Gandalf replies with a very wise and potent quote:

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

Or in other words we shouldn’t be too quick to make life and death judgments. Those of us who believe that God has spoken through His Word make our moral judgments based on God’s Word, so it is crucial especially when it comes to matters of the Sanctity of Life to reflect deeply on the Bible and what it says. Now what the Bible has to say about this matter is growing more and more unpopular. Call me a contrarian but I believe the more the broader culture despises and rejects God’s Word the more important it is for the disciples of Jesus to stand firm in what they believe and make God’s will known.

So for that reason I will not avoid speaking the truth from this pulpit no matter how unpopular it becomes.

So what is Sancity of Life? Sancity of life is the idea that human life is sacred. Every individual human is of immense value and should be treated with dignity and protected. We as disciples of God believe that life is sacred because God has made it so.

Genesis 1:26–27 (ESV)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Or in other words God created us to represent Himself on the earth. So when you end the life of another human being you are in a way destroying an image of God, so it’s an attack on God Himself to kill another person. God himself uses this logic to forbit murder after the flood of Noah in

Genesis 9:5–6 (ESV)

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

So God gives Noah the death penalty for a just punishment for those who commit murder. His reasoning? It’s wrong to kill someone who bears the image of God. You’ll notice this means that the killing of animals is not on the same plane, and this is clear also from God giving permission to Noah to eat meat and later on when God institutes a sacrificial system in Israel for the atonement of sins.

So we see clearly in scripture point one:

1. It is wrong to end an innocent human life

We’ve already seen from Genesis two passages which clearly forbid killing people because they are made in the image of God. Further in Exodus when God gives Israel a law for their nation you’ll remember one of the ten commandments is simply:

Exodus 20:13 (ESV)

“You shall not murder.

Short and sweet, to the point. In fact our english translations are wordier than the original hebrew, which is just two words. Literally translated this verse would be “no murder.” Now we talk a lot in Christian circles about how we’re no longer under the law, and there’s some debate about which laws we should still respect and which ones don’t matter, but as far as I know no one is arguing that the law against murder no longer applies. In fact this is one of the commandments that Jesus actually intensifies. In Matthew 5:21-22 Jesus says,

Matthew 5:21–22 (ESV)

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

So we have the prohibition against murder intensified to the point that even being angry with someone is compared to being a murderer. This is all the uncontroversial part of the sermon. I’m assuming no one in the room is upset with anything I’ve said at this point. To get a little more controversial I will say briefly that it’s important that I worded this point “It’s wrong to end an innocent human life.” That’s because the Bible does allow for circumstances where it is okay to kill. Earlier when we looked at Genesis 9 we see God instituting the death penalty for murder. This is before the law of Israel so we can’t escape that by saying that it’s a part of the old covenant and no longer applies under the new covenant. In the law though we do see multiple criminal offences that are punishable by death, showing that God is willing to give the death penalty, and we believe that God doesn’t change. We also see multiple places where God commands the Israelites to conquer wicked nations living in the promised land.

In the new testament we have Paul writing in Romans:

Romans 13:1–4 (ESV)

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

When Paul says “he does not bear the sword in vain” he’s talking about the death penalty. He’s saying that the government is given authority by God to punish evil with the death penalty.

So there are exceptions to the rule when it comes to the prohibition against ending life, but they come in extreme circumstances. So the question comes naturally about whether the two most popular methods of ending life in our culture count as exceptions or whether they are morally wrong, those two being Abortion and Euthanasia. Here’s where we really get ourselves into hot water.

2. Abortion ends an innocent human life

So is abortion an exception to the rule? Is it even in the same category as the rule? Personally I feel as though the immorality of abortion is clear even without reference to scripture. It’s a simple logical argument. It’s wrong to end an innocent human life, and abortion ends an innocent human life. Therefore abortion is wrong. The only way to defeat that argument is to either argue that it’s not wrong to end an innocent human life (an argument you don’t see very often) or to argue that an unborn child is not a human life.

I’d say 90% of the arguments I see and hear (especially on the internet) are actually just catchy slogans that in no way address either of those arguments.

Imagine for a minute that you’re busy working at home. You’re doing the dishes or bent over cleaning the tub or trying to fix something on your car and your child comes up behind you and says to you “hey mom/dad, can I kill this?”

How do you answer that question? Well you can’t answer that question unless you know what “this” is. If it’s a mosquito than by all means, kill the thing. If it’s your brother or sister than obviously not. That’s a Greg Koukl illustration btw, and I think Greg Koukl puts it best when he says:

“If the unborn is not a human being than no justification for abortion is necessary, however if the unborn is a human being than no justification for abortion is adequate.” - Greg Koukl

Every justification you’ve ever heard someone give for abortion fails if you just imagine the same or similar justifications being given for killing a toddler. This is because we all recognize the living humanity of a toddler. So you would never kill a toddler because he was conceived in rape. You would never kill a toddler because you weren’t capable of taking care of him. So on and so on.

So the only question that matters is whether the developing unborn child is a living human being. When Katie was pregnant with Owen every morning we would go to familyeducation.com on my phone and track his development day by day. It’s amazing the rapid and complex changes that a developing zygote and fetus go through. If you’ve ever done this or studied the development of an unborn baby at all than I think you’d agree with me that an unborn baby is alive. What does it mean to be alive? Well a biologist would tell you something is alive if it 1. Grows, 2: Responds to stimuli and 3. Consumes energy.

An unborn baby definitely does those three things. From conception to birth on average a baby grows from 0.1 mm to 508 mm. In otherwords 508000% growth in just forty weeks, if I did my math correctly. If they continued growing at that rate your baby would be 2580640mm tall, or 8467ft tall by the time they’re just nine months old. Take that with a grain of salt of course because math is not my strong suit.

As far as responding to stimuli from the early days of development the blastocyte (the first stage of development in the human life after conception) will exchange horomones with their mother to help facilitate its attaching to its mothers womb. Also as technology develops recently there was a study which showed that the unborn baby would respond with smiling or laughing faces after the mother had eaten carrots and with a scowl after the mother had eaten kale.

The secret to kale by the way is letting it sit covered in salt. Ask Katie about it it makes a world of difference.

Finally I’m sure I don’t have to convince any of the mothers or expectant mothers here that the unborn baby consumes energy. All that growth has to come from somewhere, and pregnancy requires an increase in caloric intake and nutrient intake so that the baby can grow in a healthy way.

Now I think that’s plenty of a good case to argue for the immorality of abortion right there. But as disciples of Christ we look to the Bible to help us find truth and morality. So if the Bible were to weigh in here against the argument I made than I’d have to come to terms with it and trust that God has a reason. However, that’s just simply not the case. The Bible is decidedly pro life.

Perhaps one of the more famously pro-life passages of the Bible is found in

Psalm 139:13–16 (ESV)

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

So David in this inspired by the Holy Spirit Psalm in the Bible expresses poetically God’s intimate hand in the formation of every individual who is born. There’s no reason to think that God intervened in a special way with David that He doesn’t with the rest of us. The human body is capable of amazing things but it’s God who truly gives life. Mortal humans cannot birth immortal souls. For this reason and for the reason that every human being no matter their stage of development is still made in the image of God, we should treat an unborn baby the same way we treat anyone else outside of the womb.

God’s law in Exodus reflects this attitude. While we are no longer under mosaic law we can look at the law of Moses and find the principles that God has behind those laws and see God’s heart in many places. In

Exodus 21:22–25 (ESV)

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

So if a man injures an unborn baby he is to be punished according to the damage he has done to that baby. The punishment fits the crime because God values that baby to the same level that He values every human being.

Even those human beings who feel that they are without hope. Which brings me to my final point:

3. Suicide ends an innocent human life (even if its assisted by a doctor)

I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to face true hopelessness and to feel as though your life is no longer worth living. If you or someone you love is in that place I want to first and foremost remind you that there are lots of people out there who care and are willing to help. Here are just a few:

CHIMO Crisis Phone Line 1-800-667-5005

Crisis Services Canada 1-833-456-4566

Kids Help Phone [phone]

The question is, is suicide included in the Biblical prohibition against murder? The answer I think is yes. Suicide is ending a human life. Just because it’s your life doesn’t mean that you have the right to end it. This is because as Bible believing Christians we believe that our lives are given to us by God and only He has the authority to take it away. Romans 14:7-9

Romans 14:7–9 (ESV)

For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

This applies also to Medically assisted Suicide, or as they’ve come to euphamistically call it in Canada Medical Assistance in Dying (m.a.i.d.) It’s becoming easier and easier to qualify for Maid in canada. No longer do you have to have a terminal diagnosis, or any particular diagnosis at all. In fact it’s been reported that some helplines have been recommending maid as an option for people who call in looking for help.

Think about that, basically people call a medical professional for help and they’re told “have you tried killing yourself?” Because that’s what it is. Asking a doctor to end your life is suicide by the hand of another.

This subject gets murky because many if not all of us can think of times when people were at deaths door and we knew they weren’t coming back. It’s incredibly difficult to say to someone whose whole life is pain and who will someday soon die that it’s wrong to end their life intentionally. Yet I can see no way around it.

Now to clarify I think there’s a major difference between intentionally ending someone’s life and deciding to no longer medically intervene. One is to decide that we have authority to decide when someone’s life should end, the other is to decide that further help would actually cause greater harm. I believe that there’s nothing wrong with removing life support and allowing someone to die of the disease that is killing them. I found a great video on this if you’re unsure of the difference.

The key here is to think about the value of suffering. Is suffering only worth going through if it gets you some kind of reward in this life? Or is there a purpose to suffering itself that means we should be willing to endure suffering when God allows suffering into our lives? I think that suffering itself is worth something and that ending our lives to avoid it is avoiding the purpose that God has for it. We read in

Romans 5:1–5 (ESV)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Because we believe that there is life after death we know that the character building nature of suffering counts even if that suffering is at the end of your life. This isn’t easy. This is a hard pill to swallow and I understand if you disagree with me on this issue. I have reflected on scripture and philosophical arguments and all I can say is that this is the conclusion I have come to see as the Biblical view.

Conclusion: God values every individual human life

Now these are very heavy things to talk about. Hence the disclaimer at the beginning of this sermon. No one much wants to talk about death to begin with, and its even harder to speak up against death when it seems like a great many people are going out of their way to promote it. But I don’t want any of you to miss that the overall message here is one of great encouragement, because the implication in all of this is that God values every individual human life.

That means you. That means your neighbor. That means the homeless man who sleeps in the TD atm vestibule. That means the unborn child in his mother’s womb. That means the woman who had an abortion. That means the man who feels like he has no hope.

In fact God cares so much about each of those people that He sent His one and only son to die for them. Every one of them. John 3:16

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

WHOEVER. And I wholeheartedly believe that the love of Jesus for each person is so huge that even if He knew that only one person would respond positively to the Gospel He still would have died on that cross.

So if God loves each of those people enough to die for them, shouldn’t we? If we who are disciples of God have godliness as our goal than our goal should be to love and cherish every single human life from conception to eternity.

So if Christ is willing to die for someone are we willing to share an unpopular opinion for someone? Would we risk losing our jobs? Would we risk losing this church building? Would we risk our lives?

Jesus said that whatever we do for the least of these we do for Him, and whatever we don’t do for the least of these we don’t do for Him.

According to the WHO 73 million abortions are performed around the globe each year. That means that if what I’ve shared today is true than that’s 73 million murders each year. Thousands die in medically assisted suicides every year just in Canada.

I urge you to consider whether we can in good conscience stand by and allow this to happen. This is a huge life or death decision, literally. I urge you as God did the Israelites in the desert:

Choose life.