Origin
Origin
Disarming Deception: Life Begins at Birth
When does life begin? This is pervading question in our culture today. Science is trying to pinpoint the exact moment in a baby's life that we can actually say this is a viable life. Politicians argue about it. People protest over it. Join us at the table of Origin as we discuss the various lanes of thought and examine God's creative plan surrounding LIFE.
We're back around the table of Origin. I want to say hello to my friends, Jina McAfee and Kyli Rose. We're disarming deceptions by speaking truth to lies. The deception
we're disarming today is this:Life Begins at Birth. Oh, wow, that's a hot one! It's pertinent to note, as we're starting today, that the enemy is working under the radar and even using those that are Christians to not only pick and choose what they want to believe as truth in the Bible but speaking of God's Word as if it is not relevant for today and in our culture. Christians really are some of the loudest voices. We're watering down the Word of God and questioning the Word of God as our absolute truth. We're letting culture and society speak into the application of God's Word, but we're called to speak the truth, not in a harsh or mean way. The truth is meant to set us free. It's meant to bring us life. I believe now more than ever, we need to do that. Things have become unclear. There needs to be some clarity. Today, we're going to dive into the truth that life begins before conception. Listen to the whole podcast before you start making arguments with what we're going to say or turning a deaf ear. I think you'll find that we're speaking truth. We're going to look into the Word of God and look at some Scriptures, and then we're going to divide it into three sections. We're going to hear the deception, we're going to hear the truth of God's Word, and we're going to see proof. So we're going to start with the deception. This
is my statement, the deception:Life begins at birth. So Jina, let's hear some truth quickly before someone turns off their podcast. Let's hear some truth regarding this deception.
Jina McAfee:We are going to look at the deception: Life begins at birth. That's the deception. We want you to see that some have actually used Scripture to make the point that life begins at birth, but we want you to see the whole truth. You have to look at the whole truth. One of the verses people
use is Genesis 2:7, "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." So we see that God did breathe into Adam. He breathed the breath of life into Adam. A skeptic would say, "See, the Bible teaches that life begins at birth when God breathed into Adam, and Adam became a living being." Isn't that just like Satan, to take a Scripture and twist it so that it sounds like truth, to use it for his advantage when speaking the lie and the deception? So here's what is really happening in this verse. This is the story of creation, when God created the very first man, Adam, and this is how He did it. So we're going to look at verse seven a little more closely to see what is really happening here. It begins, "Then the Lord formed a man from the dust of the ground." This is what happened before God breathed the breath of life into Adam. God took His own hands, and out of dust, began to form the first man. What an intimate moment that is. We see a visual of the potter in this verse where He is taking and shaping the man. This is how Adam came into being. This is a one time occurrence. God does not form each man out of the dust, right? And make each man with His hands out of the dust and then breathe life into him. That happened with Adam. So it's important to look at the entire Scripture, not just the second part of the verse. I just want to speak it one more time. "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." So saying that Adam came to life at His breath is true. Adam did. But the Bible does not say that this happens every time. It's a one time occurrence.
ReGina Johnston:Right. It's unique, about creation. So the author of Genesis, once again, is describing what God did in this unique circumstance of creating the first man. He's not telling us how all men and women come to life. But speaking of women, in the beginning of humankind, we see how Adam was created, but we see how women were created differently. How did that happen?
Kyli Rose:So we see that the Bible doesn't teach that all men are created in this way from the dust of the ground with God breathing in the breath of life any more than women are conceived from the rib of a man as Eve was taken from Adam's rib. We know that's not how we all came to be. There are three women at this table. We weren't taken from the rib of a man. We know that. This was a special case, and Regina even used the word "unique." This was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, a unique occurrence in Scripture. It's not describing how all human beings come to life. It's a special case. Genesis 2:21-24 says, "So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. And the man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called"woman," for she was taken out of man.' That is why a man leaves his father and his mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." So this is the creation of woman, right? And we've said it over and over and over again. We want you to understand that this is a one-time occurrence that happens only at creation. And in all reality, we see that the Bible doesn't describe God as having breathed life into her. It actually gives no specifics about that at all. If we're only
going to use Genesis 2:7, then that description would involve all men. Well, what about the girls? What about the women? It doesn't really give us any details for that. So you can see how you have to do some digging in the Word. I think what we often times do is come to the Word with the judgment already made. We've already decided what the truth is. And then we go to the Word, and we look for things in the Word that will be supporting evidence for what we've already decided is true. This is really dangerous. We don't want to do that. We actually want to go to the Word to spell out the truth, and then go to the Word to find more and more evidence for that truth. We don't want to get the order backwards. If you're learning how to study the Word, two terms you need to remember are"prescriptive" and"descriptive." Whenever we read the Bible, we try to determine if something is descriptive, describing something that's happening in that particular time. Or, is it prescriptive? Is the Bible prescribing something that should happen within culture, within our community, within our relationships? The creation of the first man and the creaton of the first woman are descriptive moments. This is what happened. But this is not something that's replicated over and over and over again. We've said it a zillion times, but it really matters. It's kind of the linchpin of this whole idea. It
ReGina Johnston:So if we want to know what the Bible's was a one-time occurrence. teaching about when life begins, we're going to have to look elsewhere. This is not enough. We're going to have to find where the Bible actually speaks about life in the womb and not the creation moment. When we do, we find that the Bible consistently speaks to the status of unborn humans as valuable individuals. Now, I want you to think about that. I love that. We're not reduced to just cells. There's value. There's forethought. There's a plan. There's a destiny. I love that. So in other words, the Bible recognizes personal life before the first breath. So, Kyli, when does life begin?
Kyli Rose:I want us to dive into Psalm 139. We're going to look at verses 13 through 16. The Psalmist, the songwriter, is David. And he says, "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 made in the secret place, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; [even there in my mother's womb. Yes, God, You saw me.] in Your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them." So we see here, the Bible is actually affirming the truth that we exist in the womb as ourselves before we were born. So one of the truths is that God is present at the first moments in a person's life. While they are being formed in the mother's womb, the conception, all of it, He is in the middle of it. And what David is doing here is referring to God many times throughout the Scripture, and he is trying to illustrate this idea that God is present from the very beginning to the very end. There is not one moment of your life, or my life, that God has not been present. And not only just around, but active. He actually already has a plan for your life. While you were just what culture would call a clump of cells, He says, "Oh, no, I am intricately weaving something." I have a plan for that woman. I have a plan for that man there. I already know. There's a calling already on their life. There's purpose. And so we see this really intimate relationship between the baby being formed and the Creator forming the baby. You see referenced throughout the verses the word "You." He's actually talking about God here. He says,"You formed me, You knit me together." David is also making a connection between who he was in his mother's womb and who he is as a fully formed adult man. So what is true of us now as adults, that we have value, we're humans, we're deserving of life, is also true of a baby as it's forming. There's not some magical place in that process where they now have value and before they didn't, they are now a human and before they weren't. He is saying, "No, You were there from the beginning to the end." You established that I had value in the moment of my conception and to my last days here on Earth. I matter because You say I do. You made me. So we see the connection of identity and David's language between himself as an adult and the unborn child. We can conclude from all of this, that this first me is not a representation of a fully formed person. When he's talking about me in this Scripture, he's talking about himself being knitted together together in his mother's womb, and that matters. Jina, you were telling us something before we pressed "start" on this podcast, and I thought it was really cool. What happens at that moment of conception?
Jina McAfee:I actually studied the science and the legal aspects of when life begins. When the sperm and the egg join at the moment of conception, science has recorded that there is a spark of light, a "burst of light," that happens. The article calls it "the mysterious light." It's unexplainable in the natural, but as people who know the Lord, we would say that God is doing a divine work, a
ReGina Johnston:Take that a little bit further. That's God doing a supernatural work in a dark place, in a secret place. We could go so many rabbit trails on that, but if you take that even into your intimate time with God, your secret time with God, there are things He births in those secret times that bring light and life to our lives, but it happens in the secret place. I divert. I digress and really not digress; it's progress. You can just take that analogy into so many places. That is who God is and how He works.
Kyli Rose:If you're listening to this, and you don't feel like your birth was celebrated, maybe you've even been told that you were an accident or that you weren't wanted, and you have carried that lie, we just want you to know that from the very moment that you were conceived, there was light in that moment. God loves you. And He says in His scripture that there is a plan and a purpose for you. Even if you were wanted by no one else in this world, He wants you to know, you were desperately wanted by Him. And if you are carrying a little one, and maybe the circumstances around the pregnancy aren't ideal, you don't get to maybe experience the bow and the bassinet and the baby showers and all the preciousness, we are so so sorry. We're sorry that that's not your experience. But when that precious life that you're carrying was conceived, regardless of the circumstances, there was light that took place in that moment, and you are carrying life inside you. And it matters. That little boy matters, that little girl matters. And you are going to have everything. God is going to make sure that you are not alone in this process.
Jina McAfee:And who knows what God's plan is for that baby boy or baby girl. It could be anything. It could be anything. Yes. And just like we said, it matters, you matter.
ReGina Johnston:It's not just matter. It matters. You matter. Each baby is important. Each is valuable.
Kyli Rose:If the enemy can get us to keep it clinical and political, and it never becomes personal, it never becomes light, it never becomes human, it never becomes intimate...
ReGina Johnston:He is robbing from us.
Kyli Rose:That is the recipe for the deception. Everything God does, there is life woven into it, everything. Nothing is clinical or political with Him. It's all centered around life.
ReGina Johnston:If he can keep it there, we're devalued as humans. All of us are devalued as humans. When we read this Scripture about God knitting us together in the womb, it's not like this obvious physical thing where He gets there with a sewing needle or knitting needles, but it does show this intimacy that God has. We know there's a biological process that takes place and DNA and cells grow, but there's this communication of the fact that God has His hand on every birth. He is somehow mysteriously involved in the making of each unborn child that makes that womb sacred. It's a divine work that brings forth that burst of light. I just love that. So tell us more about that mystery, Jina.
Jina McAfee:It is a mystery. Life is a mystery. It's impossible really to explain the depth of everything, but we want to give you a taste for the depth of what God's doing. There's a verse in Ecclesiastes 11:5 that says this, "Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother's womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God who does all things." So God is telling us it is a mystery. It is a mystery how a baby is knitted together and formed in its mother's womb. We want you to see that there are multiple places in Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, where we see this same idea. Another scripture in Ecclesiastes talks about how God put eternity in our hearts. We know that our life is more than just something clinical. We know that there is a divine purpose. He put that inside of us. There is a longing to know our purpose. There's a longing to step into that because He wants you to step into it. So it speaks to God being involved in the process. But it's not for us to understand every single aspect of it. It's God who does all things, and it is supernatural. We don't want to get caught up in the debate with biological explanation versus divine explanation, but realize it's both.
ReGina Johnston:Right. Both and.
Jina McAfee:The same picture that's found in Psalms 139 is
also found in Job 10:11 where Job says to God, "You knit me together with bones and sinews." He's referring to bones and muscles and painting this picture of God again being involved in each child being formed. I love the fact that with Adam, we see God involved and forming, with David and with all of us. That is prescriptive. God is involved in each child being formed in its mother's womb. Here's another Scripture,
Isaiah 49:5, "And now the Lord says, 'He who formed me from the womb to be His servant.'" That speaks of purpose. God has purpose for every single man and woman, every single baby.
Kyli Rose:I think that's part of the mystery. We know how a baby is formed biologically, but there is mystery in that. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding that baby's conception, heaven is still celebrating, and that baby is still marked with purpose. There is so much mystery and wonder and awe in that. I think that's remarkable. It's so cool.
Jina McAfee:I think that too. When I hear that I am fearfully
ReGina Johnston:And we have further proof in an in-utero and wonderfully made, or if I say to you, "You are fearfully and wonderfully made," those words spoken bring value. They bring some depth of what God wants you to know. He wants you to know that. He loves you. He cares for you. You belong to Him. You are His creation. encounter that we find in Scripture. Kyli, take us there.
Kyli Rose:This is a really cool moment in Scripture. We're in
Luke 1:41-44. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is pregnant with Jesus. We don't actually get a whole lot of details about her pregnancy or even His childhood, but we get this really cool moment here in Luke. Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth is pregnant with John; you might know him as a John the Baptizer, John the Baptist. They're both pregnant at the same time. Elizabeth's a little bit further ahead in her pregnancy. We're gonna pick up in verse 41. It says, "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped inside her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.'" So Elizabeth is saying,"As soon as the baby in my belly heard your voice, he began to leap and to jump and was filled with the Holy Spirit. That's incredible. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit just being in the presence of Jesus, who was in utero, who was growing in Mary's belly. So we see life speaking to life even while they're in their mothers' bellies. That's remarkable. We see here that Luke makes the same exact point that the Psalmist makes. We get this pre-birth interaction between Jesus and John the Baptist. That tells us exactly what the biblical view is. Life actually begins way before that baby makes its big debut. Before he or she lets out that loud cry right after birth, life has already begun. We see this baby interacting with another baby supernaturally. This is such a cool moment. So when John is in the presence of Jesus, he's filled with the Holy Spirit, and he leaps for joy. Why is this significant? Why does it matter? It matters because John is a second trimester fetus. Jesus is a first trimester embryo just based off of timelines and us kind of piecing this together. And we know that embryos and fetuses don't breathe. We see the supernatural divine interaction and reaction.
Jina McAfee:The world keeps trying to say at what point a baby is a baby.
ReGina Johnston:Because we're trying to take it to a place that God never meant it to go.
Jina McAfee:It's so cool to me that we see this very first few days or weeks of life versus one that's months of life in the womb, both lives.
ReGina Johnston:Scientifically, this is a rabbit trail again, we cannot even determine how much of the personality of a child comes from genes versus environment. We can't figure that out. Versus, here's another thought, Divine Design that we may not even figure in scientifically. There are so many mysteries regarding our whole universe, really, that have to point to a Master Creator. We've said this before when we've talked about a plan A, "In the beginning," and definitely with birth. There are so many things that have to be perfect for conception to even take place, yet over and over again, people are conceiving and having babies. There has to be a Master Designer. It points to that. There's another in-utero encounter that I want us to hear about.
Jina McAfee:We're going to go back to Genesis 25:21-23. Here we've got Isaac, a man of God. He's taken a wife, Rebecca, and she's having trouble getting pregnant, so he goes to the Lord and pleads with the Lord on behalf of his wife. It says, that the Lord answered his prayer, and Rebecca became pregnant with twins. Verse 22 says, "And the two children struggled with each other inside her womb." She could tell that they were struggling, so she went to the Lord and basically asked why it was happening. Verse 23, in the King James Version says, "The Lord said to her, 'Two nations are in your womb.'" Each one of those babies represents a nation.
ReGina Johnston:That speaks of destiny.
Jina McAfee:Absolutely. You talked about that. When you said, "destiny" earlier, it just stood out to me. I actually wrote it down. So this word for children is the Hebrew word"banim." It usually refers to children after they are born, showing once again, that there is life in the womb. So this connection is not only one that David made earlier, but also one that God makes in Jeremiah 1:4-5. We've just got Scripture after Scripture. In Jeremiah, God says, "I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born, I set you apart and appointed you as My prophet to the nations." So God has a plan. There is a destiny for each baby. And He give us assurance that He knew us before we were born. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. That's why we're saying it's not even at conception, but before conception, God had a plan for your life. Our identity is known. I love that the Hebrew word translated, "formed" is the same verb used in Genesis 2:7,"God formed."
ReGina Johnston:That's intentional!
Jina McAfee:I think of creation where we see Him take the dust, and He forms the man. It's a visual that we can see. This one, like you said, is in the dark place where He does that inside the womb. We see that there's a Master Potter forming each person, uniquely. How could there be so many? Eight billion people on the Earth today, each person formed uniquely?
ReGina Johnston:We see that Genesis is that standalone story about Creation. But life being birthed in the womb is woven all throughout Scripture. So it's easy to see what Scriptures are telling us that life begins at conception. But really, we've been saying today that life begins before conception because God already knows what sperm and what egg are going to meet, and conceive and bear forth a baby. Life begins at that conceptual forming in the mind and the heart of God. And then He becomes intimately involved. He put the science of birthing in place, and He becomes intimately involved in every birthing process. So really, that raises the value of humanity. Every other argument takes the value lower. It really does.
Jina McAfee:And you can see Satan in the midst of all of that.
ReGina Johnston:So this concludes our season of disarming deception. But we actually have six more podcasts that we're going to do next season, disarming more deceptions. It's been a really interesting journey for us. We hope that you stay with us for that podcast in the future. But, Jina, what would you say to the person who is struggling with whether something they believe is true, or not true? Give us your thoughts. It could be regarding this concept that Life Begins at Birth, or some of the other ones we've discussed. What would you say to someone who's saying, "Is what I'm believing true? Or do I need to check that?"
Jina McAfee:I would just encourage you to find out for yourself. Sometimes people have asked me, "Who is Holy Spirit?" and I'll say, "You go to Scripture, and find out for yourself. God will awaken in you an understanding." Nothing is impossible for Him. And through His Holy Spirit, He awakens the truth you read and brings understanding. What we want you to do is take the notes, look at the Scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament. See the plan beginning to end. Go back and read the Scriptures. If you really want the truth, you can say, "Lord, open my eyes to understand, open my heart to understand," and He will. One of the things we pointed out today is that God's plan for you is bigger; He has purpose. Everything really goes back to Original Design, everything we've talked. He's got a plan for your life, for each and every life. His plan for us is to cause everything and everyone around us to flourish, to bring life wherever we go. And we want you to understand that. We want you to understand that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. So fill your mind with His truth and stand firm. Realize the truth spoken by culture will change. It'll morph, right? It'll be different. It'll be adjusted to fit man's ideas and motives. It's not a firm foundation. The actual truth remains the same, beginning to end. It's timeless. It's the one thing you can stand on. We talked about how confusing what you hear in the culture is. It is confusing, but God doesn't want you to be confused. I just want to pray us out. I just want to pray for all of us as we walk through this journey. Lord, we declare You are the Author of life. You are the beginning and the end. And Lord, You sustain all life in the middle. Lord, it's by Your strength. It's by your Spirit. You never leave us alone. And every day is ordained by You. I love how You personally formed the very first man and the very first woman. So hands on. We see that picture of the Potter lovingly creating Adam and Eve. You set Your men and Your women apart from all other creation, calling us higher, calling us to more, calling us to partner with You in the earth. That is an amazing thing. But we also see David's words in Psalm 139 that You knit us together inside of our mother's womb. You knew me. You had a plan for me before. We see Your word speaking of plans in Isaiah--He formed Isaiah from the womb to be His servant. So not just a plan but a purpose. From the get go. From before we were even born. We see preborn John the Baptist and preborn Jesus. Open our eyes to see that, an interaction between two before birth happens. Lord, Your word says that You set eternity in our hearts. It's a work You have done. It's a longing for more, for eternity, for future, for hope. Lord, Your plan is better. As we simply read about creation, we know You have made us in Your image to bear Your image. May we understand the mystery of the tiny baby growing in a mother's womb. Part of Your work. Lord, You are great, and it all fits with Your character, of who You are. So, Lord, we get to choose. Lord, You open our understanding when we seek the truth. We get to choose. Are we going to step into it? Are we going to lean into it? Are we going to search for it? So Lord, I pray that each one of us would search for Your truth. Lord, I pray that You would draw people by Your Holy Spirit and that we would step in and find Your truth. We say, Have Your way. No one like You, God. In Jesus' mighty name Amen.