CrossTalk: Jesus, the Lord and Giver of Life

Watching your children at play can teach you volumes about the nature of the universe. Take Legos, for instance. My son can build and destroy, then build again all afternoon in perfect happiness. But when his brother comes into the room and destroys what he just built, immediately there is conflict and anger.

Parents called in to referee the dispute will say things like, “Who built this creation in the first place? What right did you have to destroy it if you didn’t build it? You must build it again, just exactly as it was before you destroyed it.” Sometimes that settles the matter. But sometimes the destroyer is unable to rebuild it. Then another remedy or punishment is necessary.

Here we see a fundamental truth at work: Nobody has the right to destroy someone else’s creation. This is especially true if the destroyer cannot possibly rebuild what he has destroyed. This is more than child’s play. It is instilled in every human being because every human being is created in the image of God.

Our sensibilities about fair play give us insight into God’s commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” God’s command against murder is not an arbitrary dictate. Far from it! It is based in the fact that God alone is the author and giver of life. Life comes from God and from nowhere else. Since God alone can make life, only God can give permission to destroy it.

We read of this in the very first chapter of the Bible. “God said, ’Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food” (Genesis 1:29). Unless God had spoken these words, we would have had no right to eat salads, or bake bread. In fact, according to these words, human beings originally had no right to eat meat. It was only later, after the Flood, that God gave permission to kill and eat animals. “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything” (Genesis 9:3). By these words, God blessed hunting, fishing and ranching.

But even as God was granting permission to kill and use every kind of life He had made, there is one form of life that remains off limits. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image” (Genesis 9:6). Killing another human being is not permissible except as God’s own punishment upon the murderer. Why? Because “God made man in His own image,” and only God can do that.

What happens when this basic teaching is rejected? What happens when generations are taught that life is a result of random chance acting over billions and billions of years? What happens when the conception of children is treated as a mere mechanical result of men and women ‘breeding’? What happens when medical technicians convince themselves that they can create life in a lab, or preserve it forever?

Where these false ideas prevail, people act like gods. When people act like gods, they do not become more god-like; they become less human, and their own lives – life itself – is degraded.

Don't kid yourself into thinking otherwise. God is still the one and only author of life. To this day, nobody has ever observed or even explained the sponteneous generation of life. Even with cloning, in vitro fertilization, and various medical marvels, we are still light years away from doing anything more than manipulating lives that can only be created by God.

But because our culture has deluded itself into believing that life is in our power, a Frankenstein scenario is being played out before our very eyes. For the past several weeks we have been horrified to see Planned Parenthood working with a cabal of unethical profiteers. The smallest and most vulnerable human lives are being targeted for destruction in order that we might use their parts to build a brave new world. If you are unaware of this investigation, see it for yourself at: www.centerformedicalprogress.org.

We didn’t create these lives; and we couldn’t put them back together if our own lives depended on it! So where did God give us permission to destroy them? He never has; and He never will.

Knowing this, there is only one healthy response: repentance. It is time to step back and take stock. There can be no excuse for what is happening in Planned Parentood clinics and frankenstein-type labs around the country. And since there is no excuse, it must not be defended but defunded – not covered up, but exposed. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (Eph 5:11-12).

Feelings of revulsion are appropriate. They are signs that we have not completely lost our humanity. But they must not cause us to turn a blind eye. These feelings ought, rather, to impel us to speak out and speak up for the weakest among us. Barbarity is not the price of progress. It is the mark of regress. Love does not respond with a shrug, but with tears. Tears of repentance are healing tears.

It is not too late. For the God who alone creates life has come also to restore life. What we could never repair or rebuild, He has. God’s own Son was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, and His body was given over to mutilation and death in order to restore you to true humanity.

Broken and bleeding bodies will see resurrection to life on the last day. Broken and bleeding souls already now are forgiven and restored by His own blood through the repentance of sins. Joy replaces tears of repentance.

Examine your thoughts and words and actions. Turn from every attempt to find life apart from Christ. Look to Christ alone as your life, and see your life restored.

God plans parenthood – whether it occurs in keeping with our own plans or not. And the God who plans parenthood does so because He delights in your life and He delights in restoring your life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.