Mike,

In one of your posts you say this. “Performing an abortion is to personally murder a baby human being and brother, but to fill out a prescription is nowhere near personally deciding upon the death of another human being, even if the person you are serving does make that decision.” I would like you to read and give an opinion to the subject matter regarding the abortion issue in this article. My observation is that God made the first breath a criteria to the determining of a living soul in order to save a lot of unnecessary and needless pain, suffering and a pointlessly brief existence by a increasingly large number of aborted births. There are of course a number of fetuses that survive the abortion process and draw breath and suffer horribly.

L____

Hi L____,

I read that link, and noticed that Dr. Martin sees Job 3:16 as proof that being a fetus is the same as not yet existing.

Job 3:16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants [which] never saw light.

I personally knew and respected Dr. Martin, but I am very disappointed at the lack of spiritual understanding he demonstrates on this subject. I have cut a section of this link which I consider to be the very core of Dr. Martin’s point concerning this subject.,

2. Does the Bible reckon abortion as murder?

No. This question is easy to answer. In no teaching of the Bible (no matter in what section one looks at the issue) is abortion considered as “illegal killing” of a human being. The first point that all should consider is the question: Is an unborn fetus considered by God as a bone fide human being? The answer is clearly “no” in all aspects of the word, and this is shown in the text of the Holy Scripture. When the patriarch Job was complaining about his affliction and pain, he made the statements to God that he wished he had never been born. He said:

Job 3:3, 10-11, 16 Let the day perish in which I was born. … Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from my eyes. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the spirit when I came out of the belly? … Or as an untimely birth I had NOT been as infants which never saw light.

“That last verse, Job 3:16, tells us very much about how Job saw the matter of being a fetus. He saw it as “not having being”, or as we would say, “not having existence”. That is exactly what the text says and that is what any common sense person would accept as the teaching of Job.”

What Dr. Martin fails to point out here is that Job realized that what was in the womb was alive. He acknowledges this when he asks the question, Why died I not from the womb? There would be no way for a fetus to die, if it had never been alive. He even asks the question, Why did I not give up the spirit when I came out of the belly?

Here is Job, having lost all of his children and all of his possessions all in one day and all by the finger of God, and he is covered with boils from head to toe. His wife, not wanting to see her husband’s continued suffering, is urging him to “curse God and die.”

Job 2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.
Job 2:8 And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.
Job 2:9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.

What does Job do under such dire circumstances? Job spiritually is you and me. That’s who he is, and he does what we all do at that point of our own experience of God’s wrath upon our own “ungodliness and unrighteousnesses” (Rom 1:18). He wishes he had died in the womb and had never had to face the suffering which we all must endure if we are to be entrusted with the rulership of others, who must also endure the same sufferings.

2Ti 2:12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:

Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Heb 2:17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto [his] brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
Heb 2:18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

Upon this one verse of scripture, Dr. Martin establishes his doctrine that this means God considers a fetus as “not having been.”

Job 3:16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants [which] never saw light.

As is always the case, and as the apostle Peter tells us, we must never make the mistake Dr. Martin has made here in using just a single verse of scripture to establish doctrine:

2Pe 1:20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture at all is becoming its own explanation. (CLV)

As Dr. Martin’s own people came to see, there is more to be said on this subject, and the rest that is said is just as much scripture as is Job. Job does not contradict the rest of scripture, but the rest of scripture gives a deeper understanding of what Job’s words mean. So, sure enough, Truth is established not upon a single verse but only upon “the sum of God’s Words.”

Psa 119:160 The sum of Your word is truth, And all of Your righteous ordinances are eonian. (CLV)

Does the rest of scripture consider a fetus ‘as if it had never been?’ Let’s look and see.

Exo 21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart [from her], and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

Does that sound like God considered that man and that woman’s child “had not been?” If it “had not been” then why should “he surely be punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine?”

This whole story is the spiritual shadow and type of our own spiritual condition when we “keep the things which are written therein:”

Rev 1:3 Blessed [is] he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

“The time is at hand to keep these words:”

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Rev 9:2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
Rev 9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Rev 9:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
Rev 9:5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Rev 9:6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

That is what Job’s physical torment typifies. That is what provoked this verse from Job.

Job 3:16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants [which] never saw light.

Job’s torment is a type of our own torment which we endure in being dragged to God. Those who have not experienced this wrath will not identify with Job’s statement about wishing he had died in the womb. Those who have been there will know exactly what Job meant.

One thing is certain, neither Job nor Exodus have deliberate, premeditated abortion in view. There is no room for the letter of the law in the hearts of God’s elect, and there is not one word in the Bible that deals with deliberate abortion simply because “thou shalt not kill,” was understood as covering any such an act of deliberately killing a living fetus.

Notice how this is worded in Exodus:

Exo 21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart [from her], and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

This woman has a child, she is “with child.” God, in His mercy, allows for the fact that this is not deliberate murder, as a deliberate abortion is, and just as he treats an accidental death of an adult, and provides “cities of refuge,” so too, He allows the woman’s husband to determine what will be this man’s fine. Deliberate death is not even under discussion or consideration, and for Dr. Martin to fail to see that is simply disappointing, even as I acknowledge that God has blinded him to that fact. I certainly do not believe that Dr. Martin was in any way deliberately and purposefully trying to mislead anyone.

Look at what Dr. Martin says here:

Summation:

The legal teaching within the Bible shows that aborting a fetus in the womb of a mother is not murder because the fetus is not yet a human being…
The proper principles of living as shown in the Scripture would cause both men and women to give utter respect to the unborn, but fetuses are NOT human beings. They are considered by God as “NOT HAVING BEEN”.

Ernest L Martin, July 1991
Edited by David Sielaff, February 2005″

This is actually very contradictory language on Dr. Martin’s part. How exactly does one “cause both men and women to give utter respect to the unborn” and at the same time consider that unborn as “NOT HAVING BEEN”.

Job wished he had never been born. He wanted to die and could not die, because he still had to learn that he, of himself, had no integrity.

Job 27:5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.
Job 27:6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

Elihu, the youngest of Job’s comforters and the only one of them who God did not rebuke, made this statement concerning Job:

Job 33:8 Surely thou hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words, saying,
Job 33:9 I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me.

Job simply had not yet learned what both Job and David are teaching us if we have eyes that see and ears that hear spiritual matters:

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

How can we say “neither is iniquity in me” when the truth is that we are “shapen in iniquity?” That is the equivalent of saying that you have “the utter respect to the unborn,” and at the same time you consider that unborn as “not having been”.

God’s sovereignty is complete and all encompassing:

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

These truths are primarily to be understood as being fulfilled within us, but they are true in the outward world also:

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

So God’s sovereignty extends to the millions of abortions which have taken place. No life is too small for God’s love and concern:

Luk 12:6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?
Luk 12:7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Having acknowledged all of that, let’s now look at these verses which deal specifically with fetuses in their mothers’ wombs:

Rom 9:10 And not only [this]; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac;
Rom 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
Rom 9:12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

Yes, of course, God’s sovereignty had already determined the live birth of these twin brothers and the two nations they were to become. But one thing this also demonstrates is that God certainly does not consider fetuses which were to become nations, as something that “had never been.” God certainly did not wait until the children were born to decide what path their lives would take.

Gen 25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
Gen 25:22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
Gen 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

I’m sure Rebekah did not consider these fetuses as ‘not having been’. They were so active she was led to inquire of God “why am I thus?”

Oh yes, God is completely capable of forgiving every abortion which has ever been committed. But it will be no harder for Him to give every aborted child a much greater value than that “of many sparrows” and bring them forth as the nations they are, for they are in the multiple millions. It is all in His sovereign hands, and the one thing we know about God that never fails is that “God is love.”

How true is this verse of God’s Word:

2Co 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

It is this very spirit of legalism which leads far too many doctors to deliver an entire baby except for that wonderful child’s head. Then without compunction, because they tell themselves that that child which they are holding in their hands and feeling its beating heart, “has never been until it draws it first breath,” those doctors take pair scissors and stick them up through that child’s lower jaw and into that living child’s brain, and feel that living child struggle in response to the pain which its nerves are sending to its little immature brain, and that doctor holds onto that child until all the convulsions and trembling stops, then he brings the head out of the birth canal, and with a straight face tells himself and you and me that that child ‘had never been’. This very murder of a child has been deliberately and legally performed millions of times. God is the husband who will lay upon us all what He has predestined, for we are all murderers in our own right and in our own time.

1Jn 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

You know that it is not my intent to upset you, but I do want you to consider what you say here:

My observation is that God made the first breath a criteria to the determining of a living soul in order to save a lot of unnecessary and needless pain, suffering and a pointlessly brief existence by an increasingly large number of aborted births.

What you are essentially saying is that the “increasingly large number of aborted births” somehow makes the lives that have been snuffed out “pointlessly brief.”

I think you know, when you stop and consider, that no murder, regardless of the number committed, makes the previous murders pointless. Every murder ever committed has served to make a very important “point”; that point being that man has been given an evil and beastly experience “to humble him”.

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it.

That humbling experience is very seldom realized in this life. For most people, it will be realized in the lake of fire.

I hope this helps you to see that doctrine is never to be based upon a single verse of scripture. That the letter kills but the spirit gives life, and that the deliberate taking of the life of “a woman’s fruit who is with child,” is deliberated and premeditated murder, for which our spiritual husband will cause us to give an accounting.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike