I read this article from John Piper recently (Doing
the Right Thing Never Ruins Your Life: A Belief That Prevents Abortion |
Desiring God) and I was struck by two of the key points that he makes in
the article.
The first has to do with a statistic he quotes that is
simply based on the reality that 83% of abortions are by unmarried women who
have an unwanted pregnancy. He draws a simple and clear conclusion from this:
83% of abortions are due to fornication. It is fashionable in our time to decry
the teaching of the Bible as ‘oppression’ and as an assault on liberty. So long
as there is “consent” (as if consent were a matter of complete clarity) then
there is no problem, it is considered a “victimless sin”. The 51 million abortion victims due to
fornication since Roe v. Wade make it very clear that this is no victimless
crime, and that is without even considering the lifelong emotional and
psychology scars on many of the mothers involved.
Yet the Scriptural teaching for Christians is very clear:
·
1 Corinthians 6:18-20
o
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a
person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against
their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy
Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
·
1 Thessalonians 4:3-4
o
3 It is God’s will that you should be
sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should
learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable
Both of these passages involve the fact that our personhood,
our being, involves our bodies as well as our spirit and mind. We are made in
the image of God, the Imago Dei, and as personal beings our personhood involves
body and soul, not just our soul or spiritual self. The incarnate Christ, the
perfect image of God in bodily form, is the ultimate example of this.
That gets at the second impact this article had for me:
Piper points out that our cultural laws on abortion declare that a woman takes
the place of God in the matter of personhood. If she wants the pre-born baby,
then she effectively declares it to be a person; if she does not want it, she
declares it a non-person. Personhood is reduced to a mere declaration by a
woman. Piper quotes specific statutes in his home state of Minnesota which
declare it a crime to kill an unborn baby when the mother wants it, but not a
crime when the mother does not (please use the above link to the article to read
this: it is powerful). He concludes this:
“Here’s the implication:
It is illegal to take the life of the unborn if the mother wants the
baby, but it is legal to take the life of the unborn if she doesn’t. In the
first case, the law treats the fetus as a human with rights; in the second
case, the law treats the fetus as nonhuman with no rights.”
“Humanness — existence as
a human being — is decreed by the will of the mother. The baby is young and
weak and cannot cry out, “I am a human being!” Therefore, the will of the
older, the stronger, holds sway. By her will, she may, under the law, confer
human personhood on her baby or not. If she does, no one may kill the baby. If
she does not, the baby may be killed with impunity. That is legally
enshrined self-deification.”
“The strong decide which of the weak are persons. We reject this
in the case of Nazi anti-Semitism. We reject this in the case of Confederate,
race-based slavery. We reject this in the case of Soviet Gulags. But in the
case of the unborn, millions of people, even in the church, embrace this
self-deifying principle: the human will of the strong confers personhood. If
she wants the baby, it’s a baby. If she doesn’t, it’s not. But according to
God’s word, both inside and outside the womb, only God confers life and personhood.”
As
Piper points out, this is sheer idolatry, idolatry of self. It is making
ourselves into God. That so many of the church have accepted this kind of
idolatry must be a stench in the nostrils of God.
