Genesis 1:26-27
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.
Psalm 8:4-5
4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
I preached on this controversial topic four years ago and I want to package the content of this morning’s message the same way I did then by instructing you to create this scenario in your mind’s eye.
Imagine that you are driving your car at a high rate of speed and as you approach a stoplight at a busy downtown intersection you realize that your brakes have totally failed. You do a quick survey the situation and you see that, parked on the right is a brand new BMW; parked on the left is a big diesel trailer truck carrying thousands of pounds of valuable cargo; and on either side of the car and truck are expensive pieces of real estate.
Now, walking right in front of you…right in the middle of your lane is one of the most pathetic looking human beings you have ever seen. Right in the path of your speeding auto is an old woman who has obviously lived on the streets all her life. She appears to be very unhealthy, hardened by years of sleeping on steam grates or under bridges. Her mouth droops to one side. Her clothes are a conglomeration of filthy rags. She drags one foot behind the other in a kind of limp and her demeanor tells you that there is probably something wrong with her mental faculties.
Now, remember. Your brakes have failed so as you hurtle toward this intersection at high speed, you must choose what your car will crash into, the BMW in one lane, the truck filled with valuable cargo in the other, the valuable real estate on either side of the road, or the old, homeless street woman. Which would you choose to sacrifice and which would you choose to save?
Now I’m no mind reader but I imagine you are probably thinking: Mark, this is a ridiculous situation. The answer is obvious. I mean, of course we would not choose to sacrifice the old lady to save the real estate or the BMW or the cargo truck! And, I of course would agree. We who are in this sanctuary today would no doubt do anything to avoid hitting that human being because all of us instinctively know that people are much more valuable than property.
But WHY do we, as Christians, feel this way? What is it about this decrepit old street lady that makes her more valuable than a $75,000 auto or a truck filled with a valuable cargo or even some real estate valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars? Chemists tell us that the human body is made up of chemicals worth only about 98 cents. So how could we possibly come to the conclusion that this old woman is more valuable than anything else in this scenario? Well, several possibilities come to mind.
Perhaps we feel that human beings like this old street lady are valuable because of some sort of INHERENT HUMAN ATTRACTIVENESS. After all, the human personality is fascinating and intriguing. There is a beauty and a mystery about people that you don’t find in things like cars or real estate. I read once that when Henry Luce and his colleagues founded TIME magazine, they decided to deal with the news in terms of the people who were making it and this is the secret of why this magazine and others like it have become so popular…because the public is not all that interested in a magazine that deals with just the issues. They are attracted to the HUMAN dimension of things. People value other people-either for their personality or for their physical beauty. But in all honesty, are these characteristics strong enough to support the principle that ALL human beings are more valuable than material objects? I don’t think so. For you see, while SOME people are obviously beautiful and intriguing, and fun to be with, the truth is ALL people are not. The lady we are about to plow into in our imaginary intersection is a good example of this truth because from a purely AESTHETIC standpoint, the BMW and even the buildings possess more beauty than she does. Her mental faculties are flawed. She probably stinks. She is definitely NOT attractive. So, had the decision about what to sacrifice and what to save been made based on ATTRACTIVENESS, this particular human being would have come out a poor third.
Well, another possible reason for our deciding to avoid this old woman lies in the fact that human beings are PRODUCTIVE and USEFUL. I mean, think about it. The range of things a person can do far exceeds that of a car or a truck or a building. It was human beings that conceived of and built cars and trucks! As you and I know, history records that there have been some fantastically capable people down through the years-people before whom we stand in awe when we view their accomplishments. People like, Einstein, Schweitzer, Madame Curie, Booker T. Washington were individuals of creative genius. But once again, is this fact enough to support a UNIVERSAL principle of human value? I think not, for again, what can be said of SOME people can not be said of ALL people. I mean, let’s be honest here. Not every human being is that productive. Look again at the scene in my imaginary intersection. That little woman limping across the street was not the most powerful thing in that setting. Let’s face it, the trailer truck could carry much more cargo. The BMW could give much more social esteem and the business property could earn more income in a month than this old lady could earn in years even if she was healthy in mind and body. So, this little old lady could not do much of any thing productive in society…which means that, according to this test-the test of productivity-we would NOT choose to save the old lady, for she would be at the bottom of the scale-and what was true for her is true of many human beings. They are not all that skilled or capable or creative and if you evaluate them solely in terms of their ability to contribute to society, well unfortunately their superiority over material objects becomes debatable at best. Why then would we instinctively choose to save her in this impending crash at the expense of the car or the truck or the real estate? Why is human life that valuable…that precious?
Well, basically human life is valuable because God—the Creator of all life—says it is. I remember trying to teach my children the value of coins and like your kids they wondered why eight pennies would be worth less than one thin dime. If you melted down the pennies and the dime and compared the results the pennies might have more value due to their copper but still a dime is worth more. A dime is no prettier than eight pennies, so why the difference in value? The reason for the difference is that their value is determined by their creator. The U.S. Treasury department SAYS that it takes ten pennies equal one dime. And what is true of coins is true of all creation.
So the ultimate reason why persons are to be valued more than property is not found in their natures but in God’s nature. God’s evaluation is what is decisive here.
The writer of the 8th Psalm pondered this same issue. One night as this ancient Hebrew stood under the starry heavens, he found himself asking the question that must have occurred to everyone at some time or the other, namely:
“When I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars and all Thy hand has made, what is man that Thou are mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou considereth him?”
In other words, he asked, Amid all the mind-staggering immensities of stellar space, what value does one tiny human being possess, God? How can I or any human being possibly have value in relation to all of this grandeur?
The answer that comes back is very significant: “THOU has made him a little lower than the heavenly beings. THOU has crowned him with glory and honor.” The key word here is the pronoun, “THOU” because our value as human beings rests ultimately on God’s evaluation since He is our Designer and Creator. And out of all that God has created, He has designated human life as having the greatest value. Our superiority over the rest of the created order is based on that fact and that fact alone. So, only when we allow God to “price creation,” so to speak, do we find a basis for regarding human life as being more valuable than anything else. The ultimate reason then for our choosing to collide with the BMW or the cargo truck or one of the buildings rather than the woman comes down to one three-letter word—G…O…D. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves and it is He who has made this ethical distinction, not we humans ourselves.
THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
Look with me now at what the Bible has to say about the worth of all human life and perhaps you’ll see the infinite value that God—the CREATOR of all life—places on you and me.
1. The first thing we find in God’s word…is that the creation of human life took place as the CLIMACTIC event of all His creative work.
The Genesis account says that God first created the earth and its atmosphere. Then He created all living creatures that live on earth, in the seas, and in the air above. In verse 25 of chapter 1 God appraised this part of His creation by saying that, “…it was good. But God wasn’t finished. On the 6th day He created Man—HUMAN LIFE. And then look at verse 31 and see how God evaluated this part of His creation. He said that HUMAN LIFE was not just good but VERY good. He said this because human life was the climax, the apex of all the rest of creation. He stopped creating once He made us for everything else was made with human beings in mind.
Most of the scientific community adheres to something referred to as, THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE. Simply stated, the Anthropic Principle implies that when we look at the world around us, it seems that the universe was somehow designed to support and nourish HUMAN life. For example:
- Raise or lower the universe’s rate of expansion by even one part in a million and it would rule out the possibility of human life.
- If the average distance between stars were any greater, planets like the earth would not have been formed; any smaller, the planetary orbits necessary for human life would not have occurred.
- If the ratio of carbon to oxygen had been slightly different than it is, none of us would have been here to breathe the air.
- Change the tilt of the earth’s axis slightly in one direction, and we would freeze. Change it the other direction and we’d burn up.
- Suppose the earth had been a bit closer or further from the sun, or just a little larger or smaller, or if it rotated at a speed any different from the one we’re spinning at right now.
Given any of these changes, the resulting temperature variations would be completely fatal to us.
So the lesson we can draw from the Anthropic Principle is this: SOMEONE must have gone to a lot of effort to make things just right so that you and I could be here to enjoy life. In short, modern science points to the fact that we must really matter to God. So human life is extremely valuable. It was the climactic achievement of God’s creative work. It was, WE ARE, VERY GOOD in the sight of God.
2. The second indication of our worth is in the MANNER of man’s creation.
You see, the creation of man differed from all the other acts of creation described in Genesis chapter 1. In each of the OTHER acts of creation God said, Let there be, and it was so. God SPOKE and creation occurred. ONLY the creation of human life begins, Let us MAKE man… God didn’t just speak us into existence as He did everything else…He MADE us. To create the first human, verse 7 of Genesis 2 says, God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life, and man became a living being. God did not “BREATHE the breathe of life” into any other creature so, human life was MADE differently-more carefully-more intentionally.
3. A third indication that human life has value is seen in the fact that only human beings were created in the IMAGE and LIKENESS of God.
Image refers of course to someone who resembles someone else—like a son who is the image of his father. Well, since God is spirit, image and likeness cannot refer to physical appearance; so these terms refer to inner qualities, the ability of human beings to reason, to enter into relationships, especially with God. Obviously, God’s purpose for creating human beings was to make creatures like Himself with whom He could relate.
Do you realize that human beings are the closest thing in all creation to God? Psalm 8:5, which I referred to earlier, says that we are a little lower than heavenly beings. Some translations say a little lower than angels but the word translated “angels” or “heavenly beings” is ELOHIM…one of the Hebrew words for God so the verse actually says that we are created a little lower than God Himself. The order in creation is not GOD, angels, humans. It is God, humans, angels-and so on. This Psalm proclaims the truth that from God’s perspective angels aren’t of greater value than human beings; in fact the reverse is true. Angels are never said to be created in God’s image. Only man is given this distinction. Think of what this means. God values us more highly than He does His angels more highly than anything else in all of creation.
So, humans are valuable-precious-because GOD made them as the climax of creation and because they were made differently than any other created thing and because humans are more like God than anything else. But the priceless value of human life is seen when we look at one other fact and it is this….
4. Human beings are of such inconceivable worth that God SACRIFICED His own Son so that they could be saved from their sins.
That is an estimation of human worth beyond our comprehension. Our value is indicated by the fact that God not only loved us enough to CREATE us in His image, He also loved us enough to pay the unbelievable cost of REDEEMING us. Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates His own love—-He shows how much He values human life in this—while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So, the words to that song we all sang as children are so VERY true, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are PRECIOUS in His sight.” God showed how priceless humans are when He appraised human life as being worth the death of His only Son on Calvary’s cross. This means that, as C.S. Lewis once wrote, there is no such thing as a “MERE mortal.”
So, for all these reasons, as Christians, we would choose to crash into the BMW or the cargo truck or the real estate before we would crash into that street lady because we instinctively recognize that human life is precious and valuable. But as you well know, our world is suffering today because humanity is moving farther and farther away from this belief in the infinite value of human life. Every day laws are being enacted and enforced that cheapen human life.
And this tells me that we just may be coming to the time in which people might choose to plow their cars into that little street lady without fear of punishment by the laws of society. I mean consider the following facts with me:
- Euthanasia laws are now in force in the state of Oregon.
- People continue to value or devalue humans according to their race.
- In our own nation alone two to four million women are battered each year.
- 1.8 million elderly are victims of maltreatment.
- 1.7 million children are abused each year…..1500 of them die from this abuse.
- 30,000 children die world wide every day because they don’t have enough food to eat.
- An increasing number of researchers dabble with human cloning.
- More and more people demand that scientists learn to use fetal tissue to extend their own lives.
And this leads to perhaps the GREATEST indication of our culture’s devaluing of human life…the fact that the evil of abortion itself continues. As you learned in Sunday School this morning, January 22—this Tuesday—marks a grim anniversary…29 years since ROW v. WADE legalized abortion. A generation has passed since the first wave of unborn children fell and the accumulation of each year’s toll comes to nearly 40 million. Think of it this way: one child is aborted…one precious, priceless human life is snuffed out in our nation every 20 seconds.
Their names would fill the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial wall well over 700 times and today 93% of those little lives are ended simply because they were an inconvenience to their parents. Human life is not cherished and valued as it should be. The Pope refers to America as a culture of death.
Did you know that it is illegal to transport a pregnant lobster for fear of hurting all the little pre-born lobsters? At the same time in most states a pregnant teen can be transported to an abortion facility without her parent’s permission or even knowledge. I read this week of a man in San Antonio, Texas who rescued a nine-month-old infant that was trapped in a locked car on a hot summer day. The child’s mother had accidentally locked the baby and her keys inside…and she had been frantically trying to get into the car…but had been unsuccessful. As the temperature in the car rose, the baby turned purple and began to foam at the mouth. The man saw all this, grabbed a hammer from the tool box in his trunk and used it to break the rear window so they could open the door and get the baby out, but instead of thanking him, the child’s mother was furious with him for breaking her car window.
Stories and stats like this show that our country is in essence infected with a diseased way of thinking that attacks the basis of all human worth…..much like a virus attacks the human body. You and I live in a sin-sick society. Jesus inferred as much in Matthew 9:12 when He said that He had come for , “… the sick.” And, as followers of The Great Physician, we are called to administer TREATMENT to the sick society in which we live. Well, how are we to do this? What can we do to end this epidemic?
SAVING HUMAN LIFE
Well, continuing this metaphor, like any doctor dealing with sickness, we must do three things: We must treat the symptoms, minister to the sick, and distribute the cure.
1. First of all we must treat the SYMPTOMS….
That is to say we have to influence our culture so that the laws and current philosophies that cheapen human life are changed. And there are many treatments available for these symptoms. Some Christians treat the devaluing of human life by participating in pro-life marches. Others write letters to our nation’s leaders. Some boycott products owned by companies that devalue life. Others vote for statesmen whom they feel will participate in enacting laws that give proper value to human life. Still others work very hard to prevent unwanted pregnancy by teaching teens the importance of sexual abstinence before marriage…or volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers. There are Christians here in our own church who are in the medical profession and they refuse to participate in anything to do with abortion even though this choice means a great reduction in their income. I have even known of believers who go so far as to refuse medical treatment that would help them because it involves a devaluation of life.
As many of you know, RICK COLEMAN, former minister of music here suffers from Parkinson’s disease. When it was diagnosed he was offered a treatment that involved the use of fetal tissue. He refused it because he felt to accept this treatment would devalue human life even though it could lengthen his own. So there are many ways for us treat the symptoms of our sin sick society.
BUT PLEASE LISTEN TO A WORD OF CAUTION. We must never insist that a Christian brother or sister should follow only OUR preferred treatment.
An individual’s response to this evil is not a test of faith or fellowship in the body of Christ. The first time I participated in a March for Life down in D.C. another marcher asked me why I had never marched before. I told him that I was new to the DC area and his response was, “Well, you could have come on a bus or a plane…that’s no excuse!” It was almost as if he was saying, “If you were a real Christian you would have marched long ago…and the only REALLY VALID way to respond to abortion is to march.” My friend’s indignation was not Christlike and we should not follow his example. We must never insist that a “real” Christian fights this evil in one particular way. So, there are many ways to treat the symptoms of a sin-sick world but we must not be satisfied with only treating the symptoms….
2. We must also help the SICK-those who have been led to embrace this devaluation of human life.
This means that we lovingly minister to those who are on “the other side” of this issue….those who vote opposite to our belief….even those who favor the “pro-choice” stance. After all, Jesus commanded us to love even those who oppose us when we try to do His will so, our response to people on the other side of this issue should clearly reflect the love of God. It is never RIGHT to fight WRONG in a WRONG way. We are never justified to use the devil’s tools to attack his work. When we do we are no better than he is. We are never to hate sinner…only the sin. Those on the other side must never doubt our genuine love for them in spite of our disagreeing with their position on the issue of how to fight it.
A few years ago, I read a great article in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, written by Frederica Matthewes-Green….who wisely advises us that future pro-life strategies must include showing that we not only value the baby but the mother of the baby. In short we must not just be pro-baby…but pro-mother and pro-father as well. One way we do this is by pressing the point that abortion hurts women. It is expensive, physically unpleasant, humiliating, and often painful. It does not heal a physical problem but instead subverts a healthy normal process. I mean, just as our bodies are designed to breathe air and digest food, women’s bodies are designed to sustain a pregnancy and deliver a baby. It is a delicately balanced ecology and when something disrupts it as violently as abortion does, it is not surprising that damage can result. For example:
- The rates of post-abortion miscarriage and sterility increase.
- Some studies have even suggested a connection between abortion and breast cancer.
- And….abortion not only stops a human heart it breaks a mother’s heart.
A man whose wife had abortion and then drifted into severe depression wrote, “They told her it would give her control over her body, but what kind of tradeoff is that to gain control of your body and loose control of your mind?” The cruel irony is that abortion has been presented as something that would set a woman free when it really doesn’t.
So one way we minister to the sick people in all of this is to communicate the value of not only the babies but of their mothers as well….we help them to understand that abortion is bad for them.
I think we also need to try to put ourselves in these people’s shoes and try to understand why they had an abortion in the first place. Many times the truth is they felt forced to do so. Their families may have pushed them to do this or their boyfriends. Statistics show that abortion is often an act of despair. In fact 70% of women undergoing abortions admit that they believed it was morally wrong but they felt they had no other choice.
The Catholic church runs a ministry to women who have had abortions. It is called PROJECT RACHEL and its purpose is to administer forgiveness and healing to women who have gone through with this. I was moved to read the testimonies of women who realized the horrible mistake they had made and who felt unbelievable guilt and alienation, these women were relieved of this burden by receiving the healing forgiveness of God. The loving treatment they received from the church helped them to understand how precious human life really is.
So, we should respond by treating the symptoms….by ministering to the sick…and finally and most importantly….
3. …we must distribute the CURE.
You see, as I alluded to earlier, abortion and laws that devalue human life are only symptoms of the disease of sin. And, as necessary as they are, all the marching and voting and legislation in the world will not cure a sin sick heart. If we limit our response to this kind of action we must realize that we are only treating the symptoms of the problem. It would be like treating strep throat with cough drops while all along we have a 10-day supply of penicillin in the medicine cabinet. The best way to help people value life as God values life is to introduce them to God. This is the cure….this is the way to change people’s hearts. I have known Christians who have become so absorbed in fighting the symptoms of abortion that they have totally given up on distributing the cure through personal evangelism when this is the one-most effective-way to heal this disease.
Many of you have heard of Norma McCorvey….the “ROE” of “ROW v. Wade.” For decades she fought for the pro-choice movement and then she met a little girl named Emily and her family. This Christian family loved Norma and showed her that they valued her life even though they disagreed on this issue. Their warmth eventually led her to accept their invitation to church. She went and heard the gospel….responded to it….and invited Jesus into her heart and life and today she works to end abortion because her heart was changed as she met her Creator and committed her life to Him. You see changing HEARTS is more profitable than changing LAWS. We must not allow ourselves to become sidetracked into treating only the symptoms. We must also distribute the cure.
Do you remember the time that the people of Israel were wandering in the desert and they were attacked by a plague of poisonous snakes? God told Moses to fashion a bronze serpent to a staff and put it on a hill and said that who ever would look up to see that serpent on the staff would be healed. Jesus Christ referred to this in John 3 when He told Nicodemos that …as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up… Jesus was saying that all of us are afflicted with the disease of sin. He was affirming that this is a sin-sick world…and that whoever would be healed could look up to the cross and receive forgiveness and eternal life…and a new heart…a new nature. We close our service today and each Sunday by giving you an opportunity to do just that..If you are not a Christian please know today that you are infinitely valuable to God and He has paid the cost for you to know Him. If you will walk forward as we sing I will be glad to tell you how. If you have other decisions to make, to join this church, to rededicate your life to Jesus….now is the time to make them public