In the Image of God: Sanctity of Life - Genesis 1:26, 9:6, Psalms 139:14-16

 

In the Image of God: Sanctity of Life

Genesis 1:26, 9:6, Psalms 139:14-16

Holocaust, Human Sacrifice, Infanticide and Abortion

Today is National Sanctity of Life Day first declared as a national observance by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 on the 11th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade that made abortion legal and accepted in our nation. This year is the first Sanctity of Life Day that is post- Roe v. Wade. Just last year on Friday, June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Something I had never thought to see in my lifetime if ever. The truth is that the belief that human life is sacred throughout history has been held among a very small minority of nations and peoples.

In ancient times among the pagans of the world the killing of infants was not uncommon. In the lands of the Philistines and the Canaanites, the worship of Moloch and Baal reached its highest devotion with the sacrifice of a child. The worshippers of Baal would take a child and place it into a larger clay pot and then bury that pot in the corner of their home in order to receive the blessing of their bloodthirsty god. The worship of Moloch was much worse. In a ceremony called passing their children through the fire, they would place a living baby in the hands or lap of a bronze idol of Moloch which had been heated by an oven built into the base of the metal idol and the child would literally be fried as the worshippers watched. Is it any wonder that God had Joshua drive out and destroy the inhabitants of that blood polluted land?

Among the Greeks, a child born with deformities would be taken into the hills, wilderness or to a cave and left for the animals and scavengers to devour. In ancient Rome, babies weren’t considered fully human upon birth, instead they gained humanity over time, first with their naming a few days after birth, and later when they cut teeth and according to some sources up to 3 years old.

The so-called refined and educated Cicero (106-43 BC) in his On the Laws 3.8 states: “Deformed infants shall be killed.” The “deformity” could simply be an unwanted child, a sickly child, a deformed child or the wrong sex. The Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) comments On Anger 1.15: “…mad dogs we knock on the head…unnatural progeny we destroy; we drown even children at birth who are weakly and abnormal.”

Even the preeminent and to this day influential Greek philosopher Aristotle recommends that parents should be compelled by law to expose deformed or handicapped babies. In Politics 7.1335b Aristotle says: “As to exposing or rearing the children born, let there be a law that no deformed child shall be reared;  but on the ground of number of children, if the regular customs hinder any of those born being exposed, there must be a limit fixed to the procreation of offspring…

Nor was the life of a child consider of no value in the ancient world, all human life was simply something to be given to the bloodthirsty pagan gods. In the 1500s, when the Spanish Conquistadors came to America and conquered the Aztecs, they observed the daily sacrifice of humans atop the great pyramids. A firsthand account of the sacrifices was written by Bernal Diaz del Castillo's. "Hardly a day passed by that these people did not sacrifice from three to four, and even five Indians, tearing the hearts out of their bodies, to present them to the idols and smear blood on the walls of the temple. The arms and legs of these unfortunate beings were then cut off and devoured, just in the same way we should fetch meat from a butcher's shop and eat it: indeed I even believe that human flesh is exposed for sale cut up in their markets." 

Human sacrifice had a long history in Mesoamerica, long before the rise to prominence of the Aztec Empire. The Toltec, Mayan and Teotihuacan civilizations all practiced human sacrifice, it was a common practice, accepted and even looked upon as an honor.

In one special year, 1487, the Great Pyramid in what is now Mexico City was complete. They held a massive celebration to inaugurate their great temple—and by the Aztecs own count they sacrificed 84,000 people over a period of four days. Overall, it is estimated that 250,000 people were sacrificed by the Aztecs across Mexico during an average year.

Do you know what stopped such horrific Pagan practices as human sacrifice and infanticide? (Hold up the Bible) This stopped it. The Word of God declared that human life was sacred and the people of God began change the world.

One of the resources I copied said this, “The catacombs are filled with very tiny graves with the epitaph “adopted daughter of…” or “adopted son of…” inscribed on them. These inscriptions refer to the many babies and young children Christians rescued from the trash over the centuries. Tertullian says Christians sought out the tiny bodies of newborn babies from the refuse and dung heaps and raised them as their own or tended to them before they died or gave them a decent burial. The Christian idea that each individual person has worth because they were created by God was foreign to the lies of pagan society where the State, the tribe, the collective was the only value they knew.”

So lets turn to Genesis 1:26 and begin to see who that God’s book and God’s people of the book changed the world and are still capable of changing it today.

Sacred In Creation - Ge 1:26–28.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God’s Touch on The Creation of Man

Psalms 8:4-5 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
 

Psalms 100:3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;

What we read in God’s word, the Word that elevated society and mankind past the horrors of human and child sacrifice, is that God directly created man, in a unique way, completely different from the way He created the animals.

The Bible lets us enter into the counsel of the Godhead before man was created on the sixth day of creation. Genesis 1:26-28 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…

We are given the exact process of this creation in Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

God specially created man in His image. He did this by using the elements of His existing creation, the Bible says the dust of the ground, but He also did something that was unique to humankind. God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life and he became a “living soul.”

There are two truths of man’s creation that you must take note of because upon these two truths hinge the difference between the horrors of the ancient pagan world, the modern neo-pagan world and the hope of the Judeo/Christian world.

The Image of God: Two Truths

First truth: Man was made in the image of God. What does that mean? What is the image of God?

First it was not a physical image. The Jesus Himself told us, John 4:24 God is a Spirit. Colossians 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. 1 Timothy 1:17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The image of God in man instead is a moral image. As Henry Thiessan writes, “it consists in both man’s rational nature and in his moral conformity to God. The theologian Hodge said, “He is the image of God, and bears and reflects the divine likeness among the inhabitants of the earth, because he is a spirit, an intelligent, voluntary agent…” - Henry Clarence Thiessen and Vernon D. Doerksen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), 155.

It was also a mental image, capable of freewill. To quote Hodge again, “God is a Spirit, the human soul is a spirit. The essential attributes of a spirit are reason, conscience, and will. A spirit is a rational, moral, and therefore also a free agent. In making man after his own image, therefore, God endowed him with those attributes which belong to his own nature as a spirit. -Henry Clarence Thiessen and Vernon D. Doerksen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), 155.

Finally, it was a social image. Thiessan again, “God’s social nature is grounded in his affections. He finds the objects of his love in the trinity. As God has a social nature, so he has endowed man with a social nature. Consequently, man seeks companionship.

The Second Truth: God breathed in the physical body of man and that physical body becomes something much, much more. God breathed into a senseless, soulless body and man then become a living, sentient, self-aware soul.

Only man has this. I’m sorry but instead of all dogs going to heaven I have to tell you, no dogs go to heaven. Nor do cates, horses, cows or turtles. Only man has a living soul that can commune with God in heaven just as Adam and Eve did before they sinned.

John MacArthur says it well, “We are not mere mortals. We are not merely flesh. We are immortal. The shell of skin, and bones, and muscle is only a vessel, it’s only a repository in which something of the very image of God resides.”

So originally man was created by God, in the image of God for the plan and purpose of God. Is that still true today? Is it true for every child born into this world and this modern age. Again, God’s word tells us that it was not just Adam that was a living soul special designed and created by God, but that all of Adam and Eve’s descendants also share this same unique touch of God.

Sacred In Procreation - Psalms 139:14-16

 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.  My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

God’s Touch On The Birth Of Man

David says in vs. 15 “My substance was not hid from thee,” literally, substance is “my strength, my bones and my sinews and my muscles.” Was not hidden from God “when I was made in secret.” God saw the child in the secret place of his mother’s womb and in His divine design of procreation he made the child. This was skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.”  The Hebrew could be translated “when I was interwoven of various colored threads,” when I was knit together. We can now look into that secret place of the womb with cameras and sonagrams and what we see is a miracle only a little less amazing that the creation of Adam.

Timeline in the “Secret Place”

Stages of Baby Development From Conception to Birth By: Norma DeVault  13 June, 2017

In the week after conception, cell division and multiplication has already resulted in 100s of cells that are differentiating into the parts of the body they will be by birth. By two weeks the embryo has attached to the uterine wall.

In the first four weeks from conception, the baby develop the spinal cord, nervous system, gastrointestinal system, heart and lungs. By eight weeks, the face is forming, arms and legs move, the baby’s heart begins beating and the brain and other organs form.

By 12 weeks, the baby grows to 3 inches long and weighs 1 ounce. She can move fingers and toes. Fingerprints are present. The baby smiles, frowns, sucks, swallows and urinates. The sex of the baby can be discerned by this time.

During the second three months of pregnancy, the baby kicks, can hear and has a strong grip. At 16 weeks a strong heartbeat is evident. The skin is transparent and fingernails and toenails form. The baby can roll over in the amniotic fluid. At 20 weeks, the heartbeat can be heard with a stethoscope. The baby has hair, eyelashes and eyebrows. He can suck his thumb and may have hiccups. By 24 weeks, the baby is 11 to 14 inches long and weighs 1 to 1 1/2 pounds. His skin is covered with a protective coating, his or her eyes are open

At 28 weeks initial breathing movements begin. She is adding body fat. By 32 weeks, the baby experiences periods of sleep and wakefulness and responds to sounds. A six months supply of iron is accumulating in the liver. By 36 to 38 weeks she is 19 or more inches long and weighs 6 pounds or more. At this point he or she is less active and gains immunities from her mother.

Now, I could have used one of those timeline that is popular today that compares the size of the baby at different times to things you have in your kitchen or garden. You know what I’m talking about. Today the baby is the size of a pea, then a walnut, then I don’t know and acorn squash and then of course toward the end every mother is sure their baby is the size of a watermelon and were not talking about a seedless fridge melon. No, we’re talking about a Texas Black Diamond monster melon. I could do that kind of timeline but sorry, to me its just weird. Its probably one of those difference between men and women or old school, new school things but to me its just strange. Nothing at all wrong with it, just doesn’t work for me, personally.

And by the way this idea that kidney stones are harder on men than childbirth is on women. That is a total joke. I’ve had kidney stones, bad ones and I’ve also been in the delivery room with all my children and believe me, what LeeOra went through in delivering that Texas Black Diamond Watermelon was a lot tougher than me passing a pebble of a kidney stone. Again, that’s just me, but I know I’m right.

Before we leave this point, I want to look at one other important scripture because it specifically deals with how God views the child in its mother’s womb. Go to..

The Child In Womb from God Perspective - Exodus 21:22-25 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

What this verse clearly tells us is that God sees the child in the womb as fully human, with the same rights as the parent even before it is born. Do you see it? Its right here in the phrase if any mischief follow. The word means if any harm comes from the injury to either the mother or the unborn child. If the woman is hit or knocked to the ground and her child comes early or if she is injured then the penalty shall be appropriate to the crime, “life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

That’s not barbarism, that is justice, that is appropriate. The punishment should fit the crime. This penalty written into the laws of the nation Israel, shows that God considered the unborn child fully a human being while still in the mother’s womb. Not as some say after it is born, not as some say with its first breath and certainly not as the Romans believe after months or years.

And what about today, in our modern enlightened, Oh so benevolent society? What do many, many people believe today? Let me give you a couple of quotes.

In 1993, ethicist Peter Singer suggested that no newborn should be considered a person until 30 days after birth and that the attending physician should kill some disabled babies on the spot. Years before in 1979 he wrote, “Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons”; therefore, “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.”

American University philosophy professor Jeffrey Reiman has asserted that unlike mature human beings, infants do not “possess in their own right a property that makes it wrong to kill them.” He explicitly holds that infants are not persons with a right to life and that “there will be permissible exceptions to the rule against killing infants that will not apply to the rule against killing adults and children.”

In 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal in all 50 states based upon a new, made up, right to privacy, women now had the right to kill their own babies while still in the womb. This ruling resulted in abortion becoming a multi-million dollar a year industry with the yearly average of 1.5 million deaths a year, just in the United States alone. children. This ruling basically said that a child in the womb was not a human being and had no right to life.

It is estimated that as many as 75 million babies will be killed this year around the world. To put that in perspective, that is more than all the deaths, in all the wars, in all the history of the world, combined. It is more deaths than Hitler’s Holocaust, Lenin and Stalin’s starvation of their own people, more than the Chinese peasant deaths of Mao and the killing field of Cambodia.

Thank God and God’s people who refused to give up the fight here in the United States.

After the ruling that nullified Roe v. Wade there has been a dramatic reduction of abortions nationwide and in states like Texas that percentage is as high as 99% less. We will never fully realize the blessing that will come from saving innocent lives and we will never fully realize the terrible curse that followed the slaughter of millions of innocents.

That brings us to the last consideration of the Sanctity of Life that we need to understand, defend and stand for, it also involves the taking of an innocent human life but not in the womb. Turn to … and look consider the Sanctity of life as seen in retribution.

Sacred in Retribution - Genesis 9:5-6

And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man.

God’s Touch On the Murder of Man

Leviticus 24:17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.

Numbers 35:30-31 Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die. Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death.

There is really no explanation, no exposition, needed on these verses is there? They are very plain, clear, succinct in what God is saying. I mean it can’t be any clearer than, “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

The principle, which God codified into law, is this, if you intentional take an innocent human life then your life is forfeit. You might think, well this is universal, all societies and civilizations understand this, but if you thought that you would be wrong. Among ancient people and especially today, you’d be wrong.

This was often not the case with pagan people, people who did not acknowledge the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Often among those people, murder was compensated by a blood price. The family of the victim would be paid off. This was acceptable because human life was not a gift from God, but instead was cheap, inconsequential, random. Sure, it would be nice to see your dead relative alive, but a little silver, gold or some cattle meant a better life for you.

 Why was it different for God’s people? Why did it become the law in the nations that looked to the Word of God for how to live? It the principle we are talking about today, the Sanctity of Life, the understanding that the penalty for murder was life for life because humans were created in the image of God. God set this value and it could not be satisfied with a material payoff. God places his highest value on His highest creation and when one of His highest creation is murdered then the only just penalty is the life of the one who took that innocent, God breathed life, made in the image of its Creator.

 I don't have to tell you that this aspect of the Sanctity of life is no longer a part of our society. Our civilized world kills babies but protects murderers. Today, there are only 26 states with the death penalty, the others have outlawed it or placed a moratorium on it. Only 26 states that believe life is sacred. I imagine it is about the same number of states that have restricted or outlawed abortions.

Consequence of Ignoring The Sanctity of Life

What has been the consequence of ignoring the Sanctity of Life, of disregarding and willfully disobeying the Word of God? It is not hard to see is it? The proof of God’s removal of His blessing on our nation or even His curse upon us is too apparent to ignore.

I’ve already told you about the 75 million babies being killed by abortion. It is the most easily recognized consequence of forgetting God and His word. But today we see nations that once called themselves Christian making euthanasia legal. Sometimes for nothing more than depression. We have seen the holocausts and genocides of the Nazis, Communist and Islam. I don’t believe we are past those things and if fact we may be seeing another kind of holocaust occurring all over the world today. Much more subtle and hidden that a gas chamber or mass starvation. Today suicide is not longer abhorrent but something that is okay if you just can’t stand to live any longer. The world believes it means the suffering ends, it does not and in many if not most cases it means the suffering will be worse than ever. Murderers have no fear of the death penalty and therefore the rate of murder has soared in city after city. Where once we could let our children play outside until the street light came on, now we don’t even let them go in the front yard for fear someone will stop and snatch away. We have mass shooting after mass shooting. We have parts of aborted babies being sold for so called scientific research. We have drug being legally sold on our street corners and the illegal drugs are so rampant that we can’t prosecute the drug dealers much less the drug users. If you look on the internet you can find stories about how once great cities like San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia and so many others have become havens for drug use. So much so that they call the streets where they live in cardboard boxes and makeshift tents, The Streets of the Walking Dead.

What has happened? We have turned from God to Darwin. We have turned from the Bible to the Origin of the Species. We have turned from a religion that worshiped the God of heaven to a religion that worships the creature more than the Creator. And life to the majority of people you will meet is not a gift from God because there can be no such gift since there is no God. To most of your friends, coworkers and yes your family, man is not unique, he is not a living soul, God did not breath into him and create an image of Himself. Today man is considered a plague on the world at worst and at best a parasite and many are working to stop the plague of mankind and bring Mother Earth back to health with as few people as possible alive at any one time.

What is the remedy? Or is there even a hope left to us? Let me give you one final proof of the value of man and in this proof we will also find the remedy and the hope.

The final proof and hope

The final proof of the true measure of the sacredness of life and the hope we still have in this very Godless world is this. We can see how much God values mankind in this truth, Jesus, God’s own son, gave his precious, pure sinless life to purchase and redeem ours.

 Romans 5:6-8 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure (perhaps) for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth (proved) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

How much is your soul, made in His image, still worth to God? You are precious and priceless because even for that sin scarred soul, God sent His own son to die and pay the price to redeem you. No greater measure, no more convincing proof can there ever be of your worth to God than what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary.