Biblical Essays on Abortion: We Are Wonderfully made

We Are Wonderfully Made

A powerful truth revealed in Scripture is that it is God that forms the baby in the womb of the mother. Nowhere else is that so beautifully described as in Psalm 139:13-18

“For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous 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. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand:”

The New American Standard Version renders verse 13 this way: “For thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb.” NASV; www.biblegateway.com. The wonderful sum of all this is that God is a master artisan, just as David wrote, “marvelous are thy works.” His handiwork is all around us, mankind being His highest creation, with His highest purpose.

In verse 14 David writes, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” It is evident that the Lord showed David how he himself was formed in the womb, and it filled David full of wonder and fear. It was Jeremiah that wrote that it was God that “formed thee in the belly”, and as David said the work is marvelous. In verse 14 David uses the phrase, “curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth,” in a figurative sense.

Verse 16 is what I want to major on. “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.” The marginal reading of, “which in continuance were fashioned,” is “what days they should be fashioned.”

When looking at the various translations there are two schools of thought. One leans toward “the days” the parts of the body were being formed. Included in that group is the King James Version which is listed above. The Darby Translation: “Thine eyes did see my unformed substance, and in thy book all my members were written, during many days were they fashioned when as yet there was none of them.”; www.biblegateway.com, and finally Young’s Literal Translation: “Mine unformed substance, thine eyes saw, and on thy book all of them were written, the days they were formed and not one of them.” www.biblegateway.com.

The other group of translations lean toward “the days of our life themselves being formed or given to us”. Included in this group are the New American Standard Version, “Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them”; www.biblegateway.com. The New International Version: “Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be”; www.ibs.org, and the New Revised Standard Version: “Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” www.devotions.net/bible/00bible.htm.

The translations that render it as “the days the members of the body were being formed continuously during a pregnancy”, I believe are more accurate, because it matches more perfectly what we know of Scripture and medical science.

Let me say that it may be that we have a set number of days on this earth in conjunction with the plan that God has for our life, and when that plan is fulfilled we go on to be with the Lord. But it is also clear from Scripture that we can lengthen or shorten our days on this earth by our obedience or disobedience to the word of God, and I believe that most of us probably shorten our lives. Here are a few examples of how we can lengthen or conversely shorten our lives by obedience or disobedience.

Exodus 19:12 “Honour thy father and mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”

Proverbs 9:10, 11 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased.”

Proverbs 10:27 “The fear of the LORD prolongeth days:…”

With these Scriptures in mind I do not believe that every human being ends their life according to God’s will and design. For instance, there are friends of mine who were very close to me before I got saved. When I got saved I quit the lifestyle of drugs I was living, while they continued in it for 25 more years. One in particular died in his mid-forties of liver cancer that was a direct result of drug abuse. He shortened his life by his disobedience to God’s word and never entered God’s will for his life. When people die from such circumstances some believe it is life’s lottery and there number is up. Others declare it was their time to go, but such thinking is foolish, it is because they have shortened their own lives by their disobedience to God’s word. Jesus said in John 10:10, speaking of the devil: “The thief cometh not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy”. If we through rebellious living in disobedience give the devil an open door into our lives, then he will steal, kill, and destroy. This is the reason for my conviction that the passage in Psalm 139 is referring to the members of our body being formed during the days of the pregnancy and not our days on this planet.

Medical science has established that after the egg is fertilized it divides again and again until it is one hundred or so cells. The entire blueprint for the physical body is written within the nucleus of each individual cell. This fact alone matches what the Scriptures say in verse 16 of Psalm 139. “…in thy book all my members were written…when as yet there was none of them.” After the cells multiply to about a hundred, they begin to specialize. During this time cells begin to specialize to become heart cells or bone cells or muscle cells, this is when the body begins to form. Medical science is clueless as to exactly why or how specialization happens, but a certain wisdom written within the nucleus of the cell tells it to become what it was meant to be. This fact also matches what the Scriptures declare in Job 38:36: “Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the heart.”

Yet while God is in the midst of forming one of His marvelous works, the abortionist enters the womb with a scalpel and destroys His creation. Immediately I think of Psalm 127:3 “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” It is the LORD’S heritage and the LORD’S reward that are being destroyed.