by Rev. Christopher Hall
He formed our inward parts. He knitted us in our mothers womb (Ps. 139:13). God has created each and every person. But God creates and forms the inward parts of every insect, each and every bird, each and every microbe. What makes human life sacred? What makes Christians defend the born and unborn, the youngest and oldest?
Often we begin at the beginning, in the primeval days of earth, at the creation of the first humans. Believers will point to the image of God in which our first parents were created (Gen. 1:27). Or we could point to the dominion that Adam and Eve were given to exercise over all creation (Gen. 1:28).
But there is another reason human life is sacred in all its forms and stages: Christ. The Son of God took on human flesh, becoming a true human being, a real man, and this is the central difference between us and all creation. He chose humans to save and chose a human to be. This is why human life in every form is a sacred, precious gift.
Even more remarkable is the mystery that our salvation in Christ is the basis for our image and dominion. Christ is both before and in creation. Even as He chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him (Eph. 1:4).
Before the creation, God had ordained that we were to be in Christ. The revelation of the Old Testament points forward to this, and the New Testament reveals it, but our identity even before creation is based in Christ, the God-Man.
Christ became a human and so gives all humans infinite worth. Christ loves and died for the entire world, for each and every person to restore the image of God, to give us sanctified and forgiven dominion. A life in the womb is a life for whom Jesus bled and suffered all. A body riddled with cancer and suffering is one for whom Jesus bled and died.
We honor human life and call it sacred because of who is sacred before all things and who became a human too. Christ is all-in-all and gives us all meaning, gives us all gifts, gives us our identity, in and out of the womb.
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About the Author: Rev. Christopher D. Hall is third vice-president of the LCMS Oklahoma district and pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Enid, Okla.
February 2012
