Abortion Is Murder No Matter How You Try To Spin It

Affirmation #3

Abortion is murder, and to murder any preborn image-bearer is a sin, violating both the natural law of retributive justice as set forth in the Noahic covenant, as well as the sixth commandment forbidding murder, and as such, is ultimately an assault on God’s image, seeking to usurp God’s sovereignty as Creator (Gen.9:5-6; Ex.20:13; Pr.6:17).

Again, since we are going through this with a fine-tooth comb, I am only against this presupposition that the preborn are image-bearers of God. With regards to all else that this particular affirmation states, I am in agreement. It is only the motivation of the affirmation that I seek to uproot. Infants that are procreated through the acts of sinners are created by God in the darkness of the unformed substance of the womb for the purpose of His own sovereign glory (Ps.139:16; Isa.45:7; Dt.32:39). Therefore whether a child survives the process of coming to birth or not is strictly by the secret counsel of God’s providential will (Dt.29:29; Ecc.12:14; 2Sam.12:11-14; 16:20-23; Rom.8:27-30). So much for loving your neighbor, much less your father if you are an Absalom. A loss of a child or the success of a child is not always an indication of either God’s favor or disfavor regarding the outcome in the purpose of the child’s procreation, though it sometimes can be, yet it is always the child’s sole purpose to glorify God’s purpose in the creation (Isa.46:10; Jn.9:2-3, 38-41; 11:4). God has given the whole creation over to damnation (2Sam.12:14; Gen.2:16-17), but is preserving that creation by his providential mercy and will to fulfill His sovereign purpose and glory in choosing to save a predetermined and elect number of lost souls for His own glory (Rom.8:18-21). Therefore ‘the secret things’ belong to God in His unrevealed purpose of losing the preborn due to providential complications. And therefore, this does not mean that every soul that enters the world of sin and darkness carries the value of Christ’s image and likeness, whether at all or to the same degree (Hos.9:10-10:4; Ps.137:8-9).

Value according to God’s image depends on obedience out of the heart of God’s likeness (1Tim.1:5; Heb.10:22). The more like God we are, the more value we demonstrate in the world according to the likeness of Christ’s death and resurrection life (Rom.6:5). The image of God then is a creation according to the likeness of the gospel and his message (Jn.5:24; 14:10, 23; 15:20; Heb.4:12). This image of worship is born out of that substitutionary sacrifice that indicates an actual death to sin in the inner man (Rom.6:10; 14:9; 1Cor.15:31; 2Cor.4:10; 5:14), and the new man created according to the image of God being engrafted into the very life of God (Rom.11:24; 1Jn.3:14-15; 5:11; Jn.17:2-3; Eph.2:15; 4:24; Col.3:10). Infants cannot demonstrate this fact in Spirit and in truth. This, however, doesn’t mean that infants or (those unformed substances) are not worthy of our mercy in our love for God’s image and glory (Ex.20:5-6; Heb.10:28; James 2:3). For the command is for mercy to triumph over the judgment (James 2:8-13; Rom.10:16; 2Thess.1:8; 1Pet.4:17). But the judgment still stands in the reprobate and sinner’s obedience to God’s wrath in the likeness and nature of the human heart (Rom.1:24-32; Eph.2:1-3). If there is any disobedience of God that is encouraged by God, it is disobedience to this judgment that is revealed from heaven (but manifest in them) who suppress this truth in their own unrighteousness (Rom.1:18-19; 2:5-10), emphasis on Rom.2:8.

Therefore we (who believe) are to act out of God’s revealed will and not out of His providential and secret will in His purpose of predestining the order of the created universe (Jn.8:42; 14:15, 28). I believe I already explained why the use of Genesis 9:5-6 is a misapplication for our motivation in extending mercy to the innocent, but in quick review, the earth and all who lived in it, whether male or female, elderly or nursing infants, perished in the global flood with the exception of eight souls who were Noah’s immediate family. God chose to use Noah to demonstrate the image of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice. As it is written: “So indeed, only for that blood that is for your lives will I demand an accounting.” Those that perished in the flood did not die to sin but for their sin (Rom.6:23). The image of the sacrifice of the clean animals was the shadow of what Christ would come and demonstrate in dying to sin and in demonstrating victory over death (Rom.6:10; Gen.8:20-21). This victory wasn’t given to those who perished in the flood but was crowned upon Noah and his sons (Gen.8:22-9:1; 1Jn.5:4; Heb.11:7; 2Pet.2:5). Now the law that came through Moses, “You shall not kill” (Ex.20:13), was already being exercised in the other nations according to the purpose of their own ends (Ex.2:14; Rom.2:14; Acts 7:35), but what gave the law its divine worth is that it came down through Moses by Yahweh who demonstrated His own glory and victory over the Egyptians (Ex.20:1-2).

Therefore it wasn’t until Moses that this law was created in the image and likeness of God (Rom.5:13-14). Therefore obedience to this law from a pure (clean) heart is a gift according to the likeness of God (Rom.6:23; 1Tim.1:5; Heb.10:22; Matt.5:8), not according to the likeness of the offense that resulted from the likeness of Adam’s sin (Rom.5:15-19). But the institution of this law through Moses didn’t eradicate the likeness of the offense; rather, it increased it (Rom.5:20-21; Jn.8:24; Matt.27:25)! So Christ’s blood increases the value of the image according to the likeness of the sacrifice (Jn.3:30). So, yes, to murder the pre-born who are innocent of Christ’s blood is an assault on the image of God’s purpose according to His revealed will (Pr.8:36). But this does not make them innocent of original sin (1Cor.15:22). Christ’s blood must be applied to the frame of their fragile heart through the working of the full counsel of redemption like all who are being redeemed through Christ’s blood (Rom.1:16-17; Phil.2:13). Therefore it is a greater sin to murder an image-bearer of God than to murder at all (Jn.19:11). It is God who determines the measure of the sin (Lk.12:48). So while the reprobate sinner seeks to usurp God’s image and sovereignty as Creator, it always ends according to the purpose of His sovereign will (Ps.2:4), which is to display His glory in the creation (Rom.9:18-24). In other words, those who value the image of God honor the value of God’s revealed will by showing mercy to sinners and training them towards righteousness (and godliness) in the grace of our sovereign God (Rom.2:1-4; 2Pet.3:14-18). Those who don’t value God’s image are a law to themselves and will perish according to their own likeness (Rom.2:11-16).