Why Pro-Life #1

Being pro-life is something that is very important to me, and it is also a very relevant issue today. This post will be the first in a series of four installments explaining why I am pro-life. Each installment will give a different reason as to why I am pro-life. These reasons will be rooted in areas of life that I believe shape each and every one of us. These areas of life are religion, science, law, and emotion. This first installment I will give my religious reasons for being pro-life. This, quite frankly, is the most important reason and it shapes all of the other reason I have for being pro-life. You could rightly say that religion is the foundation of my life.

I am a Christian. This is where we must start to understand why I am pro-life. It is important that we are all on the same page when I say I am a Christian because there are many who have changed the meaning of being a Christian throughout the years and more so recently. By Christian I mean specifically two things. First, I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. Jesus Christ came down and died on the cross for all of mankind’s sin, was buried, and rose again. Jesus is the only One who could be the sacrifice for our sin because He is God (it is an amazing and humbling thing that God became man and died for us!). Romans 10:9 tell us exactly how we can be saved, “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” You are only a Christian if you have accepted Christ as your personal Savior. The second thing I mean when I say that I am a Christian is that I am a follower of Christ and His teachings. I do not believe you truly are a Christian without this. Understand what I am saying here, you become a Christian by accepting Christ as your Savior, but you did not accept Him as your Savior if you do not follow Him. James 2:17 puts it this way, “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Works that you do cannot save you, but works will always follow real faith or belief in Jesus; if you have no works, it is because you never had faith! I am a Christian and that means I am a follower of Jesus, this, of course, implies I hold the Bible in the highest regard. To sum it up I believe the Bible is completely inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16) and is man’s ultimate authority in life.

What does the Bible say about life? It starts off by making a foundational statement in Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” God made man in His own image. Anyone who is part of mankind is made in the image of God. This is a foundational truth when it comes to the debate on life: as soon as one can be defined as part of mankind, he is without a doubt made in the image of God. Being made in the image of God is not something we can take lightly, because God doesn’t take it lightly. In 1 Timothy 2:4 it says, “Who (God) desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” God doesn’t desire all cats, dogs, or trees to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, because they are not made in the image of God; rather, God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth because He made us especially in His own image! God made us in His image and He has placed a great value on each person, in fact, He died on the cross in order to pay every debt of sin (if only we will accept what Christ has done we will be saved!).

The Bible doesn’t just speak to the value of man, it also specifically mentions when a person truly becomes a person. The book of Psalms speaks to this in Psalm 139:13 “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.” We see this is clear that it is not outside the womb that one is made in the image of God, but it is in fact, in the womb. God values each person in the womb and counts them as people for which He willingly died for on the cross. As Christians, we must also value each person in the womb to rightly follow God and what He teaches in His word. God goes beyond this though in Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” God knew the prophet Jeremiah before he was even a thought in his parent’s minds. Even before a person is in the womb God knows them, loves them, died for them, and values them. This means that we must protect all lives as soon as possible and that is at the point of fertilization. To reject the value of life at fertilization is to tell God that He is wrong in when life begins or in the value of life. As a Christian I can not tell God He is wrong, rather I find it my goal to submit to Him wholeheartedly.

The most important reason I am pro-life is that the Bible is the ultimate authority in my life. As a Christians, this must be our stance, not because it brings us any gain, but because we follow an almighty God who is all-knowing and all-wise. God doesn’t leave this issue to our imagination, rather He tells us exactly where He stands on the issue of life. He values all life right from the start!