Some Thoughts on the Abortion Issue

Some Thoughts on the Abortion Issue

G. I. Williamson

Extracted from Ordained Servant vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1995)

I want to begin this brief article by clearly stating a few of guiding principles that I will adhere to.

I believe human life beings at conception (see Ps 139:13-16; and 51:6b).

Destruction of that life is a violation of the sixth commandment (Ex 21:22,23).

It is the duty of the civil magistrate to use his God given authority and power to seek to protect all human life—including the life of unborn human beings (Rom. 13:1-6). I use the phrase “seek to protect” here because I do not think civil authorities are to be held responsible for all illegal abortions of which they may not even be aware.

Since our highest duty is to glorify God we must therefore resist all humanistic thought systems which would make man’s welfare supreme.

We must be careful to critically examine even the most high sounding slogans to see if they have the warrant of Scripture.

Let me begin by a Reformation example. I refer to the acute problem that many Christians had because of the graven images which were to be seen everywhere in the churches of that day. Many people rightly saw these as an offense against God. They therefore embarked upon a kind of medieval “Operation Rescue.” Since the civil authorities were not acting to remove these idolatrous objects, these highly motivated people took it upon themselves to do so. And who can deny that they had a good motive? Why, then, was this kind of individualized solution to a great evil not countenanced by the Reformers? Well, the answer is that the Reformers did not find anything in the Word of God to authorize such a solution. What they worked for, and began to achieve, was a parallel civil reformation whereby “the powers that be” began to act as the church’s nursing fathers and mothers.

It was for this reason that Calvin, as we understand his writings, did not approve of an individualistic approach to civil reformation. It is proper—according to our understanding of this Reformer—for a prince to stand firm for truth and justice even if the king (standing over him) is in opposition to it. It is a well-known fact that what we would call local, or regional, civil authorities gave protection to the Reformers against the tyranny of national rulers who were subservient to Rome. But I know of no instance in which they sanctioned an individualistic solution to civil evils. And it seems to me that there are a number of things that are almost completely overlooked or ignored by those who support our present-day Operation Rescue.

Now it is certainly true that it is the duty of civil rulers to protect unborn children. This was exactly what the civil authorities used to do in the United States of America. But now, because of the apostasy of much of the church in our country, the salt has lost its savor. The old preservative influence is gone, and the result is that the ungodly feel more and more “liberated” to do evil. And one of the evil things that they want to have conveniently available is the right to abortion. This is indeed a great evil. But we must not forget what the Bible says about the solidarity of the human race in both good and evil. When Adam sinned, we sinned in him and fell with him. The result is that there really is no such thing as an “innocent baby.” No, even before Esau was born he was hated by God, and he was hated because he was evil. That is why we read, in the second commandment, that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and the fourth generation. And that is also why the Bible teaches, over and over again, the inevitable involvement of children in both the sins—and the consequences of the sins—of their fathers. This is clearly expressed in some of the so-called imprecatory psalms such as Psalm 109:9-13 (quoted by Peter with reference to Judas). It reads as follows:

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also from their desolate places. Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy to him, nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off, And in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Without father be his children, may his wife a widow be. May his children beg and wander, driven from their ruined homes (NKJV).

Though we do not read of the practice of abortion in Old Testament times, we do read of something just as evil. I refer to the practice of sacrificing children—yes, even tiny infants—to the Ammonite idol called Molech. The law of Moses stipulated that “whoever of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel...[gave] any of his descendants [seed] to Molech was to be put to death by stoning.” This death by stoning was not a vigilante operation. It was the culmination of due process under civil authority. We see, then, how heinous it was for Solomon to build “a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon” (I Kings 11:7,8).

Now the remarkable thing is that we never hear the inspired prophets of God calling for God’s people to destroy these centers of “worship by murder” through a kind of Operation Rescue. It is stated (in I Kings 11:9) that the Lord “became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel.” It was also predicted, at the time, that God would “tear the kingdom away from” Solomon (and this meant from Solomon’s son) and give it to his servant (v. 11). But we do not read that God was angry with the prophets for not inciting the people to rebel against Solomon, and we do not read that God was angry with the people for not taking the law into their own hands to get rid of this evil. And surely it must occur to any thoughtful reader of the Bible to ask why.

One reason for this—in my humble opinion—is that those who were willing to engage in this vile worship deserved what they got from it. And what did they get from it? The answer is that they got the termination of their own posterity! Yes, such is the amazing providence of God that they, because of their sin and by means of it, became the executioners of their own descendants. Is this not in line with the words of the Psalmist who asks that “his posterity be cut off...Pruned from earth their memory.” To acknowledge this and to see it as a part of God’s righteous judgment upon the wicked takes nothing away from the intrinsic evil of it.[1] That is why God sent His word of condemnation to Solomon through one of the prophets (I Kings 11:11) but did not send any similar word of condemnation against the subjects of Solomon because they failed to take vigilante action.

And it is right here, in my judgment, that the “Operation Rescue” kind of response to the evil of abortion fails completely. The law of Moses makes perfectly clear the one who is to be seen as the primary culprit. It is “whoever...gives any of his seed to Molech” and it says “he shall surely be put to death” for it (Lev. 20:2). “And if the people of the land should in any way hide their eyes from the man, when he gives of his seed to Molech, and they do not kill him, then I will set My face against that man and against his family; and I will cut him off from his people, and all who prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry with Molech.” Now let us be honest. If we could say that it is biblical for the individual to intervene to stop abortion, then we would also have to say that this duty would involve the execution of all who make use of it. It might be that the abortionist, too, should be executed (I think so). But, for sure, the father or mother should be. And let me say that I believe this would be perfectly right and just. But I do not believe that anyone other than the civil magistrate, given authority and power by God, has the right to carry out such executions.

As it was in ancient Israel, so once was in the history of the United States. When we had many Bible-preaching churches, we had many godly citizens. They were like the salt of the earth. Their influence was such that the nation had laws which were to a great extent in line with the Word of God on this issue. Abortion was (rightly) considered a form of murder. But now that large sections of the Christian church are apostate, we have fewer and fewer godly citizens. And the salt has therefore lost its savor. It is therefore not surprising at all that the ungodly demand to be free to murder their children. And this is, indeed, a deplorable situation. But we fail to think biblically if this is all that we see. And we fail to act biblically if we think the solution is some kind of vigilante action. As a matter of fact, there is a decided plus in the present state of affairs. The plus is the fact that it is largely the seed of the ungodly which is being cut off. Though it is through wickedness that this is being accomplished, yet we can thank God that even in this his sovereignty comes to effective expression. It is therefore the duty of the people of God to have children, and to give highest priority to the nurture of a godly seed.

While they—the modern worshipers of the “Molech” of human autonomy—are killing their unborn children, we should not be endangering our children—born or unborn—by vigilante actions which would likely put is in prison and deprive our children of us. No, we should be home-schooling them—or paying to have them instructed in a real Christian school—doing everything we can to give them the heritage of the godly. And—above all—we should be building a church that is faithful to the word of God in the locality in which we live, because the recovery will only come as God once again grants reformation to the church. When that is granted, and there are once again churches in every city and hamlet that preach the truth of the word of God, then even the civil magistrate will again learn what his duty is, and do it.

Tertullian (A.D. 145-220), vol. III of The Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 25: “In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed.”

Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (A.D. ???), vol. VII of The Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 466: “Thou shalt not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for ‘everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed’” (cf. Ex. 21:23, LXX).

The Council of Ancyra (A.D. 314), vol. XIV of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, p. 73: “Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees.”

[1] We see the same phenomenon here that we see in the crucifixion of Christ—the greatest crime ever committed. The very means by which the Lord brought about the defeat of Satan and his agents was the crucifixion of the Son of God! (see Acts 2:23-24; 4:27-28 and 1 Cor 2:8).