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The Sanctity of Life
Exodus 20:13 Sixth Commandment-Part I
By
William L. Hogan
February 22, 1987
We begin today to examine the sixth commandment: “You shall not murder,” or as the older version has it, “Thou shalt not kill.” Recently I glanced at a major book on systematic theology written by one of the leading theologians of the nineteenth century (1) to see how he applied this commandment to the issues of his day. He discussed war, self-defense, capital punishment, suicide. . .and dueling. Times have changed, haven’t they? I am sure you will not be surprised that in our discussion of this commandment over the next few weeks, I will not have anything to say about the morality of dueling. War, self-defense, capital punishment, and suicide, however, are still matters of concern, and, of course, no discussion of this commandment would be complete which did not touch on abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.
In this message I want to speak primarily about abortion, but before we come to that subject, two points need to be made by way of introduction to the commandment itself. This will be our outline. First, we will consider the meaning of the commandment, and then the basis of it, and then we will come to the application of it to this matter of abortion.
- THE MEANING OF THE COMMANDMENT
The first thing to note regarding the meaning of the commandment is that it does not prohibit all killing. It is not sinful to kill the crab grass in your lawn, or a snake in your garden, or a chicken for dinner. There are people who have the sentimental idea that all life is sacred and who will not kill anything. If you want to see the end result of that idea, just look at India, where sacred cows roam free in the streets, and are fed food that could sustain starving people, and where rats overrun granaries because it is considered wrong to kill them. They might, after all, be your ancestors who have returned in another form. The Bible does not support the false idea of reincarnation, and teaches that there is a qualitative and essential difference between human life and all other forms of life. We are not reluctant to kill rats because we value human life more.
Furthermore, this commandment does not teach that it is sinful in every case to kill human life. The same Law which says, “you shall not murder,?” also makes provision for capital punishment for a wide variety of crimes. It also permits war, although it lays down rules designed to contain the destruction of war within narrow limits. The Israelites were forbidden, for example, to kill women and children. Whatever other reasons there may be to oppose capital punishment or war, or to base that opposition on this commandment, is to twist the Scripture.
What this commandment forbids, then, is not killing in general, but deliberate, unauthorized killing. Not only is that understanding supported by the context of the Old Testament law, but it is reflected in the best translation of the commandment itself. The King James Version leaves the matter general and vague: “Thou shalt not kill.” The New American Standard Version (and most other modern translations) is more accurate in rendering it, “You shall not murder.” The word in the original is one which the Hebrews ordinarily used when a private citizen illegally took the life of another person. So, I say again, the commandment forbids only deliberate, unauthorized killing.
That, of course, raises questions. What constitutes authorized and unauthorized killing? Who has the right to authorize the taking of life? Let me try to answer those questions under the second point:
- THE BASIS OF THE COMMANDMENT
The sixth commandment rests upon three basic facts. The first is that human life belongs to God. H e gave it, He sustains it, He owns it. Therefore, only He has the right to end it. The second fact is that human life is made in the image of God. Sin has badly marred that image, but nevertheless God still sees all people as made in His image, and His intention is to restore that image in those whom He redeems. That is what makes human life more precious than any other form of life. That is what makes human life sacred. Several reasons why it is wrong to take the life of another human being is that life belongs to God and it is made in His image. Human life is in His hands.
Secular thinkers object to the taking of life on a different basis. They argue that to take a life is to rob the world of a potential contributor to society. There is a serious flaw in this kind of reasoning. If society has the right to protect the life of those it judges useful, then it is very likely that sooner or later society will claim the right to eliminate those it judges not useful.
The Bible is clear that God alone has the right to determine who should live and who should not. You may be thinking, “But I thought you just said that the Law of God authorized capital punishment and war under certain circumstances.” The two things are not contradictory. There is a third fundamental fact which forms the basis of this commandment, and it is this. There are circumstances in which God delegates the taking of life to the state.
This point is developed in Romans 13, a passage we will examine in detail in a future message when we look more closely at the subjects of capital punishment and war. For now, note just one verse from that chapter, verse 4:
“For it [the state] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.”
Paul is saying that in the providence of God a government which upholds order by punishing evildoers and protecting those who do what is right, is a “minister of God.” It may not recognize that fact. It may, indeed, be a thoroughly secular state, giving no official recognition to God at all. Still, it is exercising a God-ordained role in maintaining the stability and security of society. In the pursuit of its function, says the apostle, it has the right to “bear the sword.” That is no empty symbol, no mere metaphor, Paul insists, for the government does not wield the sword “for nothing.” He means that in the process of fulfilling its proper tasks the government has the right to use the sword, that is, the right to take life. When it is attacked from without, it may have to exercise that right to protect its citizens. Or, when it is threatened by lawbreakers from within, it has the right to take the lives of those who are a threat to society. In other words, the apostle is reminding us that in God'’ economy, the civil authorities have the right, under some circumstances, to wage war and to practice capital punishment. When they do so-here is the significant thing-they are acting as God’s agents, His “ministers.”
Lest I be misunderstood, let me emphasize that it is not the state which, in the ultimate sense, has the power to authorize the taking of life. The state merely carries out what God has authorized. He does not, of course, delegate to the state a blanket authorization to make its own decisions about who should be allowed to live and who should die. It must exercise this awesome power over life in accordance with God’s Law. The fact that something is legal in the eyes of government does not make it right in the eyes of God. It is His Word which must determine right and wrong in every situation.
Here, then, we have the basis, or the rationale, for the sixth commandment: God is the owner of life, He alone has the right to terminate it, and under certain circumstances He delegates that right to human government. Where life is taken by biblically authorized authority in pursuit of biblically approved ends, the sixth commandment is not broken. What, then, constitutes unauthorized killing? The answer is, all taking of human life except that which is permitted by the Word of God. It may be the taking of life by a private citizen. It may also be the taking of life by a government overstepping the boundaries set by God’s Word.
- THE APPLICATION OF THE COMMANDMENT: ABORTION
A Matter of Unauthorized Killing
With those introductory principles in mind, we come now to consider the bearing of the sixth commandment on the matter of abortion. In 1973, in a case known as Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court overturned existing laws in all fifty states and declared abortion legal under certain broad guidelines. The court said that in the first trimester of pregnancy, a woman was entitled to abortion on demand. In the second trimester, abortion is legal, except that the state may regulate the procedures. In subsequent cases the justices have overturned laws regulating the procedures when they believed that those procedures were intended to inhibit abortions. In the third trimester, a state may, if it chooses, ban abortion altogether.
The question which the sixth commandment forces upon us is this: is the government within its rights to permit the taking of the life of the unborn? Is abortion authorized by God? The mere fact that something is legal does not make it right. What does Scripture say? That is the all-important question. The conclusion to which I have come is that it is not all right, that abortion, except in extreme and rare situations, is a matter of blatant, unauthorized killing. Our government has approved what God forbids. If for no other reason, this nation deserves the judgment of God. Moreover, those who support this murderous practice can only be called accomplices.
The result of the Court’s bloody decision has been carnage on a scale so vast that even many advocates of legalized abortion have been horrified. More than 4,000 lives are snuffed out in abortion clinics and hospitals in this country every day. One and one-half million defenseless infants die every year, a total of nearly 20 million since 1973.
You and I are concerned about these things, are we not? We weep over the slaughter of defenseless human life. We are appalled that the courts have even overturned laws requiring abortionists to inform women what the fetus looks like, or requiring a 24-hour waiting period before the procedure is done. We are alarmed at the epidemic of selfishness, that causes so many people to destroy life for the sake of their own convenience. We are disgusted with the dishonesty of physicians who have taken an oath to do everything they can do to save life, and then think nothing of destroying it.
We are saddened, too, by the effects of abortion on women who have been misled into thinking that it is a simple and uncomplicated procedure, with no aftereffects, much like removing a bunion or a wart. Nancy Jo Mann was one such woman. As a result of her experience she founded an organization called Women Exploited by Abortion. This is her testimony:
“I went in and asked, ‘What are you going to do to me?’ All he [the physician] did was look at my stomach and say ‘I’m going to take a little fluid out, put a little fluid in, you’ll have severe cramps and expel the fetus.’
“I said, ‘Is that all?’ He said, ‘That’s all.’ It did not sound too bad. But what the doctor described was not the truth.
“Once they put in the saline, there’s no way to reverse it. And for the next hour and a half I felt my daughter thrash around violently while she was being choked, poisoned, burned, and suffocated to death. I didn’t know any of that was going to happen. And I remember talking to her and I remember telling her I didn’t want to do this. I wished she could live. And yet she was dying and I remember her very last kick on my left side. She had no strength left. I’ve tried to imagine that kind of death, a pillow put over us, suffocating. In four minutes we’d pass out. We’d have that gift of passing out and then dying. But it took her an hour and a half just to die.
“Then I was given an intravenous injection to help stimulate labor for 12 hours. And at 5:30 AM on the 31st day of October I delivered my daughter . . . She was 14 inches long. She weighed over a pound and a half. She had a head of hair and her eyes were opening.
“I got to hold her because the nurses didn’t make it to the room in time. I delivered the girl myself. They grabbed her out of my hands and threw her, threw her, into a bedpan.” (2)
The Question of Personhood
How has America come to accept this slaughter? One reason is that many believe that a fetus is not a person. The question of when a human being becomes a person is subject to a wide variety of answers. It all depends upon definition. What is a person? It is an indisputable fact that from the moment of conception a genetically unique entity exists, with its own developmental path already determined. It is absurd and patently false to say that the fetus is merely an extension of the mother’s body, like an appendix. It is an individual in its own right, with a separate genetic code, right from the beginning. Between 12 and 28 days after conception, the heart begins to beat. At 4 to 6 weeks brain waves can be measured. The skeleton, fingerprints, circulatory system, and muscular system are complete by the eighth week.
Many argue, though, that despite the uniqueness of the embryo, since it is dependent upon its mother for life and sustenance, that it is not a person until the time of viability, that is, when the fetus is able to survive outside its mother’s body. The Supreme Court took that position. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has pointed out that science is on a collision course with the court’s logic, because medical advances may soon make it possible to sustain the child’s life outside the mother within the first trimester.
This view places a greater importance on independent existence than Scripture warrants. In the most important sense, there is no such thing as absolute human “viability” or independent existence. Each of us is a dependent creature. We live and move and have our being because of the merciful will and power of God. He alone is totally “viable” and self-sustaining.
Many define personhood in terms of qualities inherent within the individual. For example, Joseph Fletcher-he’s the “theologian” who gave us Situation Ethics-defines personhood in terms of intelligence, namely the ability to score roughly 20 on an I.Q. test. Since a fetus cannot meet this test, there is no moral impediment to abortion. For an ostensibly Christian thinker, his callused devaluation of prenatal life is incredible. He calls unwanted pregnancy “a disease-in fact, a venereal disease,” and says that “the truly ethical question is not whether we can justify abortion, but whether we can justify compulsory pregnancy.” (3)
Others define personhood in terms of self-consciousness, self-determination, and capacity for interpersonal relationships. The problem with that is that not only does a fetus not measure up to those criteria, neither does an infant one hour old, or one day old, or one week old, or even one month old. For that matter, by this definition, a comatose or senile individual might be declared a non-person. The ethical implications of the definition are not small.
How does the Bible answer the question? The fact is that it does not offer a technical definition of personhood at all. But that is really beside the point. What the Bible does insist upon is God’s concern for and involvement with that life at every stage. We could cite here the testimony of David in Psalm 139:13 that his development during the early weeks of gestation was a work of God’s creative skill: “Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb.” Then there is God’s testimony to the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-5): “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Add also Luke 1:44 where we are told that when Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, heard the voice of Mary, who had come to tell her of the angel’s visit to announce that she was going to be the mother of the Messiah, that the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy.
Such passages as these make it plain that God is involved in the creation, preservation, and setting apart of His people for future service, even before birth. The Bible never places a value on human life after birth which is different from the value it places on the life of the unborn. That is the significant thing. On this basis, John Jefferson Davis, Professor of Theology at Gordon Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts, has set forth a much more satisfying and biblical definition of personhood. He writes:
“A ‘person’ in the proper sense exists from the earliest moments of human existence. Personhood denotes not merely conscious, postnatal humans, but all members of the human species . . . Rather than saying that the unborn represent ‘potential human life,’ it is more accurate to say that the unborn represent actual human life with great potential. . . . A ‘person’ is a being to which God relates in a personal way. It is God’s initiative in relationships that ‘personalizes’ the creature.” (4)
Some would challenge the statement that the Bible never places a value on human life after birth which is different from the value it places on the life of an unborn child on the basis of two verses from Exodus 21. In verse 22 we read,
“And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”
Two different cases are dealt with here. The first is referred to in this translation as “miscarriage.” The second is called “any further injury.” If “miscarriage” is a proper translation, then “further injury” must mean injury to the mother. Since “miscarriage” results merely in a fine, and injury to the mother calls for a penalty appropriate to the nature of the injury, including even capital punishment in the event of a fatal injury, some have concluded that this passage shows that the Law of God does not value unborn life as highly as adult life.
The problem with that explanation is that “miscarriage” is a misleading translation. The Hebrew literally says, “if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that her child comes out. . .” The Hebrew verb is ‘yatzah.’ It is a word which is used of miscarriage only when accompanied by another verb which means “to die.” Where that accompanying word is absent, ‘yatzah’ refers to live birth. What this verse is talking about, then, is not a stillbirth but a premature live birth. That is supported by other linguistic evidence. For example, the word for “child” in this verse is a word which is used for a newborn. There is another word for embryo, but it is not found in this passage. Also, Hebrew has a specific word for “miscarriage,” and that word likewise is not used here. The New International Version translates the statement accurately: “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury. . .”
If the first part of the passage refers to a premature live birth, then clearly “any other injury” means any injury to either mother or child beyond the child’s early arrival. If “other injury” is used then an appropriate punishment is to be meted out, and the nature of that punishment is the same whether the “other injury” is to the mother or the baby.
Rather than indicating that the life of the mother is valued more highly than the life of the fetus, Exodus 21 supports the point I am making, that the Bible places equal value on prenatal and postnatal life.
The Deeper Issue
Even if we could answer the question of when a child becomes a person to the satisfaction of everyone, that would still not solve the problem. We are naive if we think that if we could only prove that a fetus is a person then society will agree that abortion is murder and will stop it. It isn’t that simple.
In 1970, three years before the Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision, Dr. Malcolm Potts, an advocate of abortion, set forth a proposal for a new medical ethic. He saw that new ethic already well on the way to being accepted in the matter of abortion, but he was frank to say that he envisioned even more sweeping changes to come. HE wrote that as a matter of strategy the advocates of abortion must continue to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, because killing is still socially abhorrent to many people. However, he went on to say that it is a matter of medical fact "“which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death.” (5)
Do you see the two-facedness of what he was saying? On the one hand, because of public sentiment abortion advocates must not speak of abortion as killing. Yet, on the other hand, he says everyone knows that unborn children are human beings. He says that these semantic gymnastics are ludicrous, but because of public sentiment they are necessary for the time being.
The barrier to what he wants to see accomplished is the Judeo-Christian ethic. That is the reason for the public’s abhorrence of taking human life. What needs to be done, Potts wrote, is to sweep away the old ethic and replace it with a new one which places a relative rather than an absolute value upon human life. He was confident that the process of eroding the old ethic and substituting the new was well underway. He said that the new attitude toward the ethics of abortion has affected the law, public policy, and even the churches. But the shift in values regarding abortion is just the beginning. Once society is able to tolerate the destruction of unborn human beings, he said, it will come to tolerate the destruction of other classes of human beings as well, so that inevitably legalized and publicly regulated euthanasia will be accepted. But in order for that to happen, the wall of Judeo-Christian values must be broken down.
Potts is not the only voice crying for a new medical ethic. More recently, a prominent bioethicist wrote in even plainer language:
“We can no longer base our ethics on the idea that human beings are a special form of creation, made in the image of God, singled out from all other animals, and alone possessing an immortal soul. Once the religious mumbo-jumbo has been stripped away, we may continue to see normal members of our species as possessing greater capacities or rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and so on, than members of any other species; but we will not regard as sacrosanct the life of each and every member of our species. . . . Species membership alone . . . is not morally relevant.” (6)
Such remarks by prominent medical philosophers and practitioners are cause for alarm. Recent history provides an unforgettable illustration of where this proposed “new ethic” could lead. Robert Lifton, professor of psychiatry at City University of New York, has written a widely-reviewed book entitled The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (7). It is a study of the changing view of medical ethics which began to gain acceptance in Germany at the beginning of the century, and which led ultimately to the Holocaust. Lifton calls the new perspective the “medicalizing of killing.” That is, it was a kind of logic which allowed doctors to rationalize that the taking of life was actually contributing to the health of society as a whole. They were actually performing a ministry, even in the process of killing.
It all began because the focus of concern began to shift from the individual to the family and to society as a whole. It was argued that the community was more important than its individual parts. A severely crippled child, for example, is such a terrible burden, both financially and emotionally, that it would be better if defective children were not allowed to be born. Indeed, it is even a kindness to the child itself-better to terminate its life than to condemn it to a life of suffering. Applied first to the unborn, this way of thinking was later applied to newborns, still later to children up to three and four years of age, and finally to adults as well. The physicians who adopted this point of view did not think of abortion and infanticide as evil. The killing was necessary in order to enhance the life of the family and of society.
German psychiatrists began to apply similar logic to those who were mentally ill. The theory of “mental death” was advanced. The idea was that people with certain forms of psychiatric disturbances, brain damage, and retardation, were already dead anyway, in the sense that they were incapable of participating in life. Killing them was considered both useful and humane.
The Nazis picked up these ideas and applied them with a vengeance, to the point of classifying entire racial groups-such as Jews and Gypsies-as unworthy of life because they were a detriment to the quality of life in society.
The Lutheran writer, Richard John Neuhaus, in a review of Lifton’s book, points out that it is significant not only because of what it contains, but also because of what it leaves out. When the author seeks to apply the lessons learned from the Holocaust, he writes about U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, the nefarious activities of the CIA, torture of political enemies by right-wing dictators, and complicity in the threat of nuclear war. But he does not even mention the parallels between the Holocaust and abortion. That is amazing, inasmuch as the same moral and medical logic and sometimes even the very same language is used in both cases. Neuhaus says that before writing his own review he read half a dozen others, not one of them mentioned this omission. That, he writes, “says much about the reality-denying capacities of prestigious journalists, reviewers, and journals in our time.”
Pro-choice advocates scream that drawing parallels between the Holocaust and abortion is a sign of paranoid hysteria. But only the willfully blind can fail to see that there are significant parallels. Abortion is defended in the same way as the “medicalized killing” of the German doctors. The well-being of the family, and especially of the mother, is the overriding consideration; the unborn have no rights. Those who have no hope of enjoying a certain quality of life ought to be deprived of life, it is said. Are you aware that some American courts actually have awarded damages to defective individuals on the basis of “wrongful life”? In other words, the courts have declared that these individuals ought not to have been allowed to live, and now are to be compensated for having been forced to endure a poor quality of life.
Now, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that America is destined to slide down the same slippery slope as Germany. Books of the gloom-and-doom variety have been written to argue that we will. But history and cultural developments are more complicated than that. They are not the result of just one factor. What can be confidently said, however, is that when technology makes a particular course of action possible, and cultural changes make it morally, politically, and legally permissible, and when that course of action is in the self-interest of people, then the course of action those people will take is fairly predictable. And they will find ways to justify it in their own conscience. It seems evident that that is what has happened with regard to abortion. We are already well along the road to replacing the Christian value of the sanctity of life with other values. Who knows where it will lead?
What Should We Do?
The situation is not hopeless. History shows that the tide of unrighteousness can be turned. IT cannot be done, however, by the world’s methods-the “weapons of the flesh” as Paul called them. Our hope is in God. That is not to say that we ought not to use every legitimate means to challenge what is going on around us. But in the final analysis, those methods will not be effective unless hearts are changed. There have been other times when our land has been cut loose from its moral mooring and God has brought us back to a saner path. Those times, however, were times of spiritual awakening, times when the Spirit of God swept through the land, convicting people of sin and turning them to the Lord. That is what must happen again.
So, write your congressman. But above everything else, pray that God will have mercy on our land and again shed His grace on us. By all means, work for the election of those who will work to change the laws. But above all, work for the spread of the heart-transforming Gospel. Participate in peaceful demonstration if you wish. But more than anything else, tell people of the love of Jesus.
Does that sound naive? Do “spiritual” methods seem ineffective? Well, methods always are. It isn’t prayer in and of itself that changes things. It is the God to whom we pray. Prayer is as limitless as He! That is why Paul wrote in II Corinthians 10:4 that “the weapons of our warfare are . . . divinely powerful . . .”
* * * * *
There may be some who will read this sermon who have participated in the tragedy I have been discussing-a doctor who has performed unjustified abortions, a nurse who has assisted, a mother who has taken the easy way out of an unwanted pregnancy, a parent who has pressured a teen-age daughter to avoid the embarrassment of an illegitimate child. I sympathize with the agony of such situations. Yet, one wrong can never be solved with another. I beg of you-repent of your sin, turn in faith to the only Savior of sinners, cry out to Jesus Christ to forgive you and cleanse you and give you a fresh start. He loves to hear that kind of prayer.
If you have committed your life to Jesus Christ as a result of reading this message, please write and let us know so that we can send you some material which will help guide you in the next steps in the new life into which you have entered.
Footnotes:
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Reprinted, 1981.
(2) Mann’s account of her abortion was read into the Congressional Record by Rep. Chris Smith, Congressional Record, vol. 129, H7320-22, September 22, 1983. Cited by Carl Horn, Whose Values: The Battle for Morality in Pluralistic America, Servant Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1985.
(3) Joseph Fletcher, The Ethics of Genetic Control, Garden City, New York, Anchor Press, 1974, pp. 137, 142.
(4) John Jefferson Davis, Evangelical Ethics: Issues Facing the Church Today, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1985, p. 153.
(5) Malcolm Potts, “A New Ethic for Medicine and Society,” California Medicine, September, 1970. Cited by Horn in Whose Values?, p. 75.
(6) Peter Singer, “Sanctity of Life or Quality of Life?” Pediatrics, July, 1983, p. 129. Cited by Horn in Whose Values?, p. 78.
Reviewed by Richard John Neuhaus, “What Happened to the Doctors,” The Religion and Society Report, January, 1987.
Copyright (C) William L. Hogan. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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