Life Is God’s Sacred Gift

Life Is God’s Sacred Gift

Jeremiah 1:4-6
Pastor Terry Wilcox

Summary of Early Church Theologians

Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion.

-The Didache 2:2 (ca 120 A.D.)

The Way of Death is filled with people who are… murderers of children and abortionists of God’s creatures.

-The Didache 5:1-2 (ca 120 A.D.)

Thou shalt love thy neighbor more than thy own life. Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion.

-The Epistle of Barnabas 19:5 (ca 125 A.D.)

Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, in order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time their own human feelings.

-Clement of Alexandria (ca 150-180 A.D.)  Paedagogus 2

For us [Christians] we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while 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 when you take away a life that is born or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one: you have the fruit already in the seed.

-Tertullian (ca 160-240 A.D.)  Apology 9:6 

Reputed believers began to resort to drugs for producing sterility and to gird themselves round, so as to expel what was conceived on account of their not wanting to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow, for the sake of their family and excessive wealth. Behold, into how great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time. 

-St. Hippolytus (ca 170-236 A.D.)  Refutation of all Heresies 9:7

The wealthy, in order that their inheritance may not be divided among several, deny in the very womb their own progeny. By use of parricidal mixtures they snuff out the fruit of their wombs in the genital organs themselves. In this way life is taken away before it is born… Who except man himself has taught us ways of repudiating children? 

-St. Ambrose of Milan (ca 339-397 A.D.)  Hexameron

They drink potions to ensure sterility and are guilty of murdering a human being not yet conceived. Some, when they learn that they are with child through sin, practice abortion by the use of drugs. Frequently they die themselves and are brought before the rulers of the lower world guilty of three crimes: suicide, adultery against Christ, and murder of an unborn child.  

-St. Jerome (ca 342-420 A.D.)  Letter 22:13 

Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit? Where there are many efforts at abortion? Where there is murder before the birth? For you do not even let the harlot remain a mere harlot, but make her a murderer also. You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather something even worse than murder. For I have no real name to give it, since it does not destroy the thing born but prevents its being born. Why then do you abuse the gift of God and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if it were a blessing, and make the place of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter?  

-St. John Chrysostom (ca 340-407 A.D.)  Homily 24 on Romans

The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

Jeremiah 1:4-6

God Says Three Things About the Unborn

1. The unborn are  before God. 
   1. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit in the second of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.
   2. Did not exist for nine months?
2. The unborn are a product of God’s work.
   1. Jeremiah 1:5 –  “Before I formed you” … in Hebrew, “form” described the  work.
   2. Psalm 139
3. The unborn life has  from God.
   1. Jeremiah 1:5b – “I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
   2. If abortion had been a consideration, we may not have had:

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What Should We Do?

1. with God
2. for the unborn and their mothers
3. Use your  on their behalf
5. Support 
6. Embrace your own God-given

Personal Notes: