Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
February 3, 1985
Thou Shalt Not Kill
Matthew 5:21, KJV
This is a true illustration. The father of a particular family has syphilis, a fatal disease that eats away at the mind and can be transmitted to children. The mother has tuberculosis which severely weakens the body and can also be transmitted to children.
This couple has had four children. One of them is blind. Another died at an early age. Still another is deaf. The last one has tuberculosis. The mother has just discovered that she is pregnant again, but does not want the child. She wants an abortion. If you were a doctor, would you perform it? [Pause...]
Congratulations - you've just saved/killed Beethoven.
When the professor at UCLA gave this illustration to his ethics' class, a majority of his students chose to kill the composer. Ironically, abortion was not an option for Beethoven's mother because medical science was so primitive at the time. Things are not as easy for us because we have more choices available.
"Thou shalt not kill" is no longer cut and dried. It is one of those areas where there used to be common agreement in our society, but no longer. The widespread confusion can be seen in the position various groups take. Some will oppose the death penalty, even for criminals who have committed the most hideous crimes. Yet the same people will be in favor of abortion on demand. Others will fight to protect unborn children even if they are horribly deformed. Yet they will participate in a march in favor of nuclear weapons.
In Matthew 5:21, Jesus says that the law, "Thou shalt not kill," has been around a long time. Its central issue has a far-reaching impact on everything else. That issue is, what is the value of human life? And, who determines it?
Fifty years ago Germany was controlled by Nazism, a political philosophy based on ancient pagan mythology. They coated it with a veneer of Christianity and democracy but it was still paganism. Nazis believed that people of pure German blood were fully human. Other people, like Jews, were less human or not human at all. It was this philosophy which fueled the death camps.
Early Christians also had a philosophy about life. They believed life was sacred and all people were human. When others left unwanted babies out in the mountains to die, Christians found them and put them in orphanages.
The Biblical foundation for their view on life is clear. The early chapters of Genesis tell how God created mankind. He gave us life, dominion over the earth, and a spiritual dimension that no other creature has, not even the angels. God not only created human life, he also seeks to protect it. This is the thought behind the commandment Jesus refers to - "Thou shalt not kill." This is an ancient law that goes back before the 10 Commandments. It would be more accurate to translate it as, "You shall not murder," since the Old Testament allowed death to be imposed under certain conditions. Despite its bloody reputation, the Old Testament values life. Even the first murderer, Cain, did not receive the death penalty for his crime but instead was protected by God.
The secular philosophy of our society takes a different approach. The highest good of this philosophy is personal freedom. This means that other people can do anything they want as long as it doesn't restrict our own freedom.
The issue which brings this out the most clearly is abortion. Secular humanists tend to be in favor of the right to have an abortion, or pro-choice. The reasoning is that woman jeopardize their freedom and independence when they give birth to a child, therefore they alone has the right to decide when to abort.
Psychologist Virginia Abernethy, quoted in Newsweek 3 weeks ago, argues, "I don't think abortion is ever wrong. As long as an individual is completely dependent upon the mother, it is not a person." In this view, an individual becomes a person only when they become a responsible moral agent, which means they can distinguish right from wrong. This would be age 3 and so infants are non-persons. Retarded or defective children, according to Dr. Abernethy, may never become persons.
Lurking just below the surface of this analysis is a leap from abortion to mercy killing for handicapped newborns. A writer named Nat Hentoff became interested in the issue after some doctors told him parents should have a 30 day period, sort of a one month guarantee, to see whether their babies had any disabling defects. Hentoff says, "If unborn children have no rights, and handicapped children have no rights, can the elderly and infirm be far behind?"
This line of reasoning exactly parallels what happened in Nazi Germany. The infamous gas chambers were not invented with Jews in mind. Instead, they had their origin in death vans that were dispatched to all the mental hospitals and schools for the retarded in Germany. From there the program was extended to include political opponents, Gypsies, other minorities and Jews. By the time it ended, one concentration camp alone (Auschwitz-Birkenau) had slaughtered 4 million people.
The issue of abortion does not pivot on theories of freedom or independence. The real issue concerns the slaughter of an unborn child. Is it a human, or not? The Bible does not deal with all the details of this question but it does show clearly that life begins before birth. In Jeremiah 1:5 God says to the prophet: "Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you."
Jesus himself did not become the Son of God at birth, but at conception, according to Matthew 1:20. And John the Baptist acknowledged Jesus by moving in the womb.
Turn with me to Isaiah 49:15. God says: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" Ye, they may forget..."
Since the Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court in 1973, 17 million abortions have been performed in the United States. Around 15,000 of them were in the 7th to 9th month.
There is no question that abortion is a controversial subject. Poor families can be devastated by another mouth to feed. Very few situations could be as draining as have a handicapped child. There are also the issues of rape, incest, and threat to the mother's life. Since I cannot deal with these in the depth they deserve, I must pass over them.
Issues like abortion and mercy killing will not be decided by the Supreme Court, the Congress, or Constitutional Amendments. The real battleground is in the hearts of 250 million Americans. You can pass all the laws you want, but if people don't want to obey them, they'll find a loophole somewhere. God wants us to respect life not because we have to, but because we want to. He wants us to love life as much as he does.
Every human life is important. You are important because God loves you. He doesn't make garbage. Life also has an eternal aspect that many ignore. Jesus came that we might have a fulfilled life. As it says in Isaiah 49:15, "A woman might forget her nursing child, yet I will not forget thee."
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Typed on February 2, 2005, by Wendy Ventura of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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