Wonder in the Womb, Pt. 1

The aim of this is to awaken and intensify your joyful, grateful reverence for the gift of human life from conception to eternity. The beginning of human life is a magnificent thing. There is nothing else like it. Only humans come into being day after day, created in the image of God, and live forever—with God or in hell.

There is no evidence in the Bible or anywhere else that any animals come into being with souls, or that they live after they die. There is no evidence in the Bible or anywhere else that angels are being created today. The only being in all the universe who keeps on originating and then living forever in the image of God is man.

God’s Image After the Fall and Flood
In the beginning, Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Then Genesis 5:5 says, “Adam . . . fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.8 0 This was to show that the image and likeness of God is passed on from generation to generation. It was not just the first pair who were in the image of God.

Then in Genesis 9:6, Noah is warned by God, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Even after all the wickedness, which was punished by the flood, the image of God is retained in man. Damaged, distorted, but stupendously real.

God’s Image Today
Then James 3:9-10 says, “With [our tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” From the first man and woman to each succeeding man and woman down to our own day, when human life begins the image of God begins. Eternal existence begins. That is why I say that the beginning of human life is a magnificent thing.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet y ou have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.” (Psalms 8:3-6)

The beginning of human life is a magnificent thing—it is the only newly originating life in the universe that is in the image of God. It is the only newly originating life in the universe that lasts forever. O what amazed and happy reverence we should feel for the beginning of every human life!

A New President, Trapped and Blinded
As everyone knows, our new President, over whom we have rejoiced, does not share this reverence for the beginning of human life. He is trapped and blinded by a culture of deceit. On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, he said, “We are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters.”To which I say . . .

No, Mr. President, you are not protecting women’s health; you are authorizing the destruction of half a million tin y women every year.
No, Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom; you are authorizing the destruction of freedom for a million helpless people every year.
No, Mr. President, killing our children does not cease to be killing our children no matter how many times you call it a private family matter. Call it what you will, they are dead, and we have killed them. And you, Mr. President, would keep the killing legal.

Some of us wept with joy over the inauguration of the first African-American President. We will pray for you. And may God grant that there arises in your heart an amazed and happy reverence for the beginning of every human life.


- John Piper