When Life Truly Begins
Ryan Cox • September 24, 2021
When Life Truly Begins
Ecclesiastes 11:5, “Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.”
In this passage, the Hebrew word maw-lay’
is translated “pregnant” (“with child” in other versions). The word means, “full, fullness, fully” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance). We learn from this that the womb of a mother is filled with child.
As soon as fertilization takes place, a baby’s genetic make-up is complete (“Fetal Development”, clevelandclinic.org). From that moment on, a mother is fully with child. It is not a tissue mass, but a human being made in the image of God, filling his or her mother’s womb.
16 times the Old Testament scriptures use haw-reh’
to refer to a pregnant mother; it means “conceive, with child” (Strong’s). Again, the Word of God is clear that a pregnant woman is “with child”, not “with bio-tissue”.
One such passage is Exodus 21:22. In the very first chapter after God gives the Ten Commandments, the Lord says, “²² If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely…
²³ if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life”. The Creator God Himself declared that if someone caused the death of a child in the womb, it was just as much murder as killing a child outside of the womb.
It must also be noted that in verse 22, the word yeh’-led
is used to refer to the “fruit” or child. The word is used 89 times in God’s Word and denotes children both in the womb and out.
To God, it matters not the child’s location (whether in a womb or not); the child is a precious human made in His image.
In the New Testament, the Greek word brephos
is used 8 times and translated “child, baby, or infant”. It is used in reference to Jesus both in Mary’s womb (Luke 1:41) and outside Mary’s womb (Luke 2:12). The idea that a baby isn’t a living child entitled to protection of the law until it is outside of the womb breathing on its own is completely obliterated by this word referring to one who has the breath of life both in the womb and out.
However, we have not yet answered the question as to when life truly begins. Most often we hear the argument that is most scientific – life begins at conception. This, though, is not necessarily scriptural. The Scriptures teach that life does NOT begin at conception, but BEFORE.
Ecclesiastes 11:5 says, “you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.” And God states in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before
I formed you in the womb
I knew you”.
Life does not begin at conception – life begins in the mind of God our Creator! And since we “do not know the activity of God who makes all things”, we cannot be so presumptuous to think we know
when
God (who is outside of time) determined in His eternal plan for life to create each and every one of His image bearers.
Humanity, therefore, has no right, let alone authority, to take the life of another human outside of the purview of the Creator’s authority and His eternal law found in His Book – the Bible.
For more information about the abortion issue, consult the 3-part series entitled “America’s Molech Worship” recently posted at www.creationtruth.com/thescroll
As many of you may know, I appreciate space. Not space around me, although the older I get the more I appreciate that as well. The things in the heavens fascinate me and have for a large chunk of my life. I love working with our telescopes, allowing people to see for themselves objects that the Lord made on the 4th day of history. When I was younger I followed our Space Shuttle program, and over the years I have had the opportunity to see a couple of those shuttles around the country. Now it is great to see all the renewed interest in exploring the heavenly creation. I know most of it is for evolutionary reasons, yet over and over again something is discovered that points to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. After all, we are to study His creation as Genesis 1:28 states. On a recent trip to El Paso, it occurred to me that Blue Origin’s launch facility is in west Texas somewhere. After some quick searching I realized we were within an hour and half of it, and there was a rescheduled launch window during the time of our meeting. So, with some persuading of my colleagues, we arose early one morning to make the launch. We made it with just minutes to spare. It was spectacular! The whole launch to just beyond the Karman Line (space boundary, 62 miles/100km) and return of the rocket and capsule is about ten minutes total. While Blue Origin is best known for its New Shepherd rocket that carries paying customers to space and back with the biggest windows ever in a capsule, this NS-29 launch was purely experimental with a payload of instruments to measure simulated lunar gravity. Even though it was not a Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Starship or Falcon launch, it was great to hear and feel a launch for the first time, from blast off to the sonic boom return. It has piqued my desire to see a bigger launch now. As I began to reflect on what I experienced, the Lord reminded me of His design. Earth, our home planet, is so well designed for life. There is literally nowhere in all the universe like it. Yet He gave us the ability to discover creation beyond it. The only reason we can launch rockets and do space exploration is because He set it up in an orderly way. Physics works because He established it to work in a predictable fashion. As much as we may never understand everything in the universe from our position here, it works on an ordered reality that is reinforced by God’s Word. This is what drove Sir Isaac Newton in his understanding of physics. He wrote, “The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were by an intelligent Agent.” Evolutionists may come up with theories about the origin of things in the heavens, but over and over again they are being shown through experimentation and observation to be wrong. The Lord set the order of everything in the beginning and sustains it by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). So as you look to the heavens tonight, gaze into the depths of space and observe the different facets the Lord placed up there for our eyes (Genesis 1:17). Peer through a telescope at the lesser light of the moon with marvel and anticipation of further human study in the coming years. Check out the amazing observations being made by the James Webb telescope from deep in space. All of these place a perspective of how awesome our Creator is and how much we depend on Him. Our design becomes more and more obvious with every discovery, yet in our universe we appear so minuscule and fragile. Thanks be to God that His infinite focus has, is and always will be here on us! Blessings.
Moses & History (part 2)