Abortion - Luke 1 – All You Need to Know

Luke 1 tells you all you need to know about abortion and a woman's right to choose.  Abortion in politically correct liberal speech is referred to as a choice today but I am far more concerned with scripturally correct speech than I am with politically correct speech and I think you ought to be too.  Our concern ought not to be how society views a matter or how those who have gained power view a subject but how God sees it.

I remind you that there was a time when the vast majority of German society was behind Hitler and I remind you there was a day in Jerusalem a couple of thousand years ago when the consensus was that a man who had done nothing other than good ought to be condemned to death.

When a society gets into its head that there is nothing wrong with an act then yes you can have gladiator games to the death and charge admission so people can enjoy watching one man kill another or you can do about anything else you want to do.  (I don't know whether or not they charged admission—does that matter?  I think not.  People wanted to see it whether they had to pay to see it or not.  That is how depraved a society can get.)

What American society or law, or this political party or that one, or this politician or that one, has to say really means absolutely nothing as to whether or not a thing is right in God's eyes.  God does not determine righteousness based on man's thoughts, opinions, or consensus.  Whatever it is whether living together outside of marriage, homosexual unions, abortion, or whatever, it makes no difference what public opinion polls say the majority believe and are willing to accept--not with God.  God does not care.

"'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the LORD." (Isa. 55:8 NKJV)  To the sinner in Psalm 50:21, God says, "You thought that I was altogether like you." (NKJV)  Mistake!  Big Mistake!!  Our Mistake? 

So what did Luke say about abortion that makes God's position on the subject clear?

Luke made it clear that that which was within the womb was a person, not just a mass of tissue.  When the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:19) came first to Zacharias who would be the father of John the Baptist and then later to Mary (Luke 1:26), the mother of Jesus, Gabriel spoke both times as though the child to be born already existed.  He spoke in prophecy but this tells us something in itself.  What?  In God's eyes both John the Baptist and Jesus in the flesh already existed when in fact neither had yet even been conceived in the womb. 

When a person is conceived in the womb has that person not already previously existed in the mind of God?  David said, "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them." (Psalms 139:16 NKJV)  God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, spoke about Cyrus the Great fulfilling God's will in Isaiah 44:28 on through the first part of chapter 45, even calling Cyrus by name (Isa. 45:4), when it would be many decades to come before Cyrus would be born.  Did Cyrus exist in the mind of God prior to his birth?  Was he just fetal matter in the womb after his conception or was he the baby Cyrus?   When a woman conceives whose doing is that if not God's?  (See Gen. 29:31 and Gen. 30:22-23 to find out.  No, don't be lazy, open your Bible and read.)

How many women are trying desperately to have a child but cannot?  If you as a woman have conceived then it was God's doing.  God is the only giver of human life.  He alone can make it happen.  How many times in the Bible does one read of women who gave credit to God for giving them a son?  I do not know but having been a Bible reader of long-standing I know it is many times beginning with Eve in Gen. 4:1 and who can forget Samuel's mother in Sam. 1:19-20 (another must read).  God is in the process of giving life in the womb while man is in the process of taking that same innocent and defenseless life in the abortion procedure.

If conception is of God's doing are we not taking on God when we try and destroy what he has created?

Abortionists call that which is within the womb a fetus (a sterile unfeeling term) in order to not have to refer to that which is within as a baby, as a human being.  Is that the way God sees it?  Elizabeth's fetus was, with God, John the Baptist.  Is there any rational way to doubt that?  The pro-choice people would have said it is just tissue and blood.  God, through Gabriel, said it was John (Luke 1:13).  John the Baptist was in the womb of Elizabeth, not just fetal tissue.  God named him before he was even conceived so it was John who was in the womb.

John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit "while yet in his mother's womb." (Luke 1:15 NAS, see also the HCSB, ISV, NET, NLT, and NRSV translations)  Some translations say "from his mother's womb" (NKJV and others) but if you will look down at verses 41 and 44 you will see that the NAS is most likely the correct translation.  Those two verses read as follows:

"And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit." (Luke 1:41 NKJV)   

"For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." (Luke 1:44 NKJV—Elizabeth speaking to Mary)

So what do we have here, two things.  (a) Elizabeth, speaking by means of the Holy Spirit (see verse 41), says that which is within her is a babe (see verse 44).  It is a baby.  Is it a mass of tissue only or is it a human being?  Pro-choice people do not like to talk about babies.  They much prefer the term fetus.  Shall we use scriptural language or shall we use pro-choice language?  Let us be clear about what is going on.

Had Elizabeth's fetus been aborted a baby, not a mass of tissue, would have died.  That according to Dr. Luke reporting on the words of a Holy Spirit inspired woman concerning the matter.  She said it was a babe (verse 44) as did the inspired writer Luke in verse 41.

Elizabeth, speaking by means of the Holy Spirit says the babe leaped for joy.  Can an unfeeling mass of tissue have joy?  Can you abort this which experiences joy and just say it was only a fetus, just some tissue and blood?

I cannot explain what goes on in the womb, the pre-birth experience, for who can declare the workings of God in creating human life?  David said in Psalms 139:13-14, "For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well." (NKJV)

God creates the baby in the womb, he forms the inward parts, he plants the ear and forms the eye (Psalm 94:9).  Shall we take that which God is in the process of creating and destroy his work in progress?  That is what happens in an abortion.  Maybe we ought to get out of God's way, what do you think?  The fact that it is a process means nothing for God has been in the process of making me an old man for decades.  We are all in the process of change everyday of our lives.  There is no such thing as a human body not undergoing continual change.

"Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; For shall the thing made say of him who made it, 'He did not make me'? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, 'He has no understanding'?" (Isa. 29:16 NKJV)  Who do you think is the potter and who is the clay?  If you do not know read Rom. 9:20-21.  A human life is God’s work. 

Jeremiah was told, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; And I ordained you a prophet to the nations." (Jer. 1:5 NKJV)  If with God we are a person before conception (he knows us before he forms us in the womb) then surely after conception we are a person, not just tissue.  

Yes, God no doubt knows beforehand which child will be aborted and which will not be but it is certain that which is within the womb, the baby (not just tissue and blood), is God's creative process which he is actively involved in.  Do not interrupt God's work and say there is no sin.  If there is no sin in it, and if it is indeed just a choice, then one must conclude God approves of abortion.  No other conclusion could be drawn in such a case. 

If that was true then Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Samuel, and a host of others could have been aborted before birth without sin.  Where is the person that really believes that who calls himself a Christian?

 Luke 1 tells you all you need to know about abortion.  Study and seriously think on verses 15 and 41 through 44.  That which was within the womb of Elizabeth was not something that could be aborted at will with God's approval and that which lay in her womb was more than just a mass of tissue.

I have to close with this, not knowing who might someday read it, sin needs to be condemned but Jesus came to earth to save sinners, not destroy them.  While abortion is a very serious sin it is no worse than the killing of Jesus on the cross.  As many of those people who were responsible for his death who were later willing to believe the gospel, repent of their sins, and be baptized were saved (read Acts 2).

If you have had an abortion God is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9) meaning you.  He will freely and fully forgive if you will but obey the gospel from the heart or having already done that prior to your abortion if you will but repent, confess your sin, and ask his forgiveness it shall be granted.  In any case, your aborted child is safe in God's arms.  May God be with you in making the right decisions in your life.   

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