This is the final of three teachings on humanity. You can replay or download our Sunday
meetings on
http://recordings.crownoflife.org.uk/ To get the
full deal on this teaching, you also need to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKyljukBE70
Atheistic naturalism says that
everything we see and know can be explained without the supernatural or spiritual. Thus it cuts off mankind from any special
place in creation. We’re just a fluky
chance, sustained by an improbable set of causations based on laws of physics
and biology. Our lives have value only
according to the relationships, fulfillment, achievements and legacy we
create. After that: nothing. This bleak view is different from the bible’s
picture of us.
- The Genesis creation account says we’re uniquely made in the image of God. Asking the question, “What is man?” also ignites the question, “Who am I?”
- Although sin marred the image, and Christ became the source of new humanity (Colossians 1:15, etc), that first creation leaves us all being very special.
- The Old Testaments points to the mystery and value of unborn life and the enduring sanctity of human life.
- Where does our immaterial spirit or soul come from, and how does this connect with conception, gestation and birth? Do we owe our lives, including that which is unseen, simply to procreation? Or does God take a hand in each new person’s being?
- What’s the right way for believers to view and deal with death, including the death of loved ones? The long-held accepted definition is the separation of the soul/spirit from the body. Medically, it’s along the lines of loss of brain and metabolic function. But there are problems with the extent and permanence of this condition: the “vegetative state” or possibility of reversal.
So, what’s this about? In today’s challenging culture we
must celebrate mystery, sanctity and revelation that touches eternity.
From Jesus Fellowship Church’s
Statement of Faith and Practice, on our humanity: (38) We acknowledge that the physical bodies of
all human beings are mortal and therefore subject to sickness, degeneracy and
death; We hold that physical life must
be safeguarded from conception to natural death.
Modelled on God. Our
race was created with moral capacity steered by conscience and reason, not instinct;
ability to think conceptually and communicate symbolically; and to contemplate
our own destiny.
GENESIS
1:26 Then God said, "Let us make
man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea
and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all
the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them. 28
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number;
fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over
the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature
that moves on the ground."
The wonder that is me. We’re sustained by God’s thoughts (Luke
12:30) not our own self-consideration.
PSALM
139:13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works
are wonderful, I know that full well. 15
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of
the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed
body. All the days ordained for me were
written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O
God! How vast is the sum of them!
Valuing the unborn and all fellow-men. The Old Testament made no distinction between
foetal life and adult life in compensating for injury. Hebrews (6:6) uses this to warn not to treat
Christ with guilty contempt.
EXODUS
21:22 "If men who are fighting hit
a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious
injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the
court allows. 23 But if there is serious
injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand
for hand, foot for foot,
GENESIS
9:4 "But you must not eat meat that
has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for
your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every
animal. And from each man, too, I will
demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. 6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by
man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in
number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
Where does my soul originate? Some say from sexual union, because men and
women carry full body and soul/spirit reproductive capacity. Some say God invests each conception with His
creative power. Both agree the ability
to reproduce is a sacred trust. Subduing
the earth (Genesis 1:28) starts with our own body.
1
CORINTHIANS 6:13 The body is not meant
for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the
dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do
you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and
unite them with a prostitute?
Never! 16 Do you not know that he
who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one
flesh." 17 But he who unites
himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his
body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple
of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a
price. Therefore honour God with your
body.
How should we meet death? This is one of many accounts of the Bruderhof
community’s sensitivity to life’s sanctity.
There would follow times of reflective wonder, meekness, reconciliation
and praise to God.
They
arrived home at Ashton Fields. Moni
carried baby Emmy Maria up to Heiner and Annemarie’s room. Soon it was packed with people. Heiner said a prayer, asking God to let this
child fulfill whatever purpose He had in mind for her. They sang late into the evening. Heiner and Annemarie stayed awake with the
baby. For the next four days, they never
separated. Heiner or Annemarie would
doze while the other watched Emmy Maria.
Moni sat up with them during the night.
Others in the community came by with food, bouquets of wildflowers, or
offers to help with the housework.
Schoolchildren brought pictures they had drawn. One friend stood in the corridor all night,
just in case she might be needed. An atmosphere
of compassion and caring surrounded the baby.
Not only that: it seemed to emanate from her and unite the whole
community. Emmy Maria grew so weak that
she sometimes did not react when her parents caressed her. Dr. Winter was amazed by her endurance,
remarking, “She must have a powerful will to live.” She grew worse. Her face had grown terribly thin. The only sign of life was in her eyes. “The weaker her body gets, the more it
expresses her soul,” Annemarie thought.
Each breath was now laboured and rattling. She lost consciousness, and for the next
eighteen hours only her lungs fought on.
Her hands grew cold to Heiner’s touch.
Annemarie picked her up and held her in her arms for a long time. In the evening, Emmy Maria suddenly woke from
her coma and opened her eyes wide.
Everyone who saw it said how extraordinary it was. She gazed without wavering first at her
mother, who was holding her, and then at her father, and then at her mother
again, back and forth. Her eyes, bright
and unclouded, had no suffering or sorrow in them. They shone with an unearthly radiance — as if
bearing a message of joy from another world.
Then she raised her arms high and lifted her head, and the light in her
eyes went out. Her breathing stopped a
minute or two later, and Annemarie reached over to close her eyelids. (Abridged from
“Homage to a Broken Man”)
Application Biology teaches us that repeated impact
desensitizes. That applies in our moral
make-up, too.
·
Because we’ve all fallen and sinned, we count in
the opposition to God; but does that make our value less?
·
How do you see the condition of a growing embryo?
Has you view changed with time? Do you say you’re special?
·
Can you relate instances when heaven seemed closer
than usual? Does God prepare us for
death coming?
Scripture quotes from the New International
Version.
1 GOD of
my life, to Thee
My
cheerful soul I raise!
Thy
goodness bade me be,
And still
prolongs my days;
I see my
natal hour return,
And bless
the day that I was born.
2 A clod
of living earth,
I glorify
Thy name,
From whom
alone my birth,
And all
my blessings, came,
Creating
and preserving grace
Let all
that is within me praise.
3 Long as
I live beneath,
To Thee O
let me live!
To Thee
my every breath
In thanks
and praises give.
Whate'er
I have, whate'er I am,
Shall
magnify my Maker's name.
4 My soul
and all its powers
Thine, wholly
Thine, shall be;
All, all
my happy hours
I
consecrate to Thee;
Me to Thine
image now restore,
And I
shall praise Thee evermore.
5 I wait
Thy will to do,
As angels
do in heaven;
In Christ
a creature new,
Most
graciously forgiven,
I wait Thy
perfect will to prove,
All
sanctified by spotless love.
6 Then,
when the work is done,
The work
of faith with power,
Receive Thy
favoured son,
In
death's triumphant hour;
Like
Moses to Thyself convey,
And kiss
my raptured soul away.
Charles
Wesley (c) PD
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