God is Pro Life

Introduction

Anyone who takes Scripture seriously will acknowledge (boldly and joyfully, I trust) that God is pro-life. That statement almost seems lame as one considers, that apart from God, there is no life.

God spoke the entire world into existence. He “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). I love that phrase: God “breathed into his nostrils.” That is very personal.

In all the previous acts of creation God spoke a word and, as theologians say, things appeared ex nihilo [1]. But when it came to human life, the pinnacle of creation (Psalm 8), God “formed man” as it were with His “hands,” and then breathed into his nostrils. At the risk of sounding sentimental, God kissed humanity. Such an intimate act by the Creator should answer all questions about whether human life is more special than all other life forms.

In the case laws of Exodus 23, we see another evidence of God’s value on life—even animal life. In one of the stranger sounding laws, Moses wrote, “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19). From this general observation of animal life I want us to focus on a particular application to human life. In keeping with much biblical revelation, we will argue from the lesser to the greater

[1] Ex nihilo is a Latin phrase that means “out of nothing.” This echoes the words of Hebrews 11:3, which says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”