My message this morning is not based upon
any one particular text of scripture, but upon
a number of passages to which we shall
have occasion to refer as we proceed.
Moreover, the subject this morning is largely determined
by the circumstances of the hour.
All around us we encounter those who by
act or attitude, by word of mouth or
the work of their hands, are involved in
what we may speak of generally as the
devaluation of human life, or in such acts
as are indicative of this.
I therefore want to address myself to what
we have outlined, what we have announced in
the bulletin as human life and its worth,
human life and its value.
Fallen man is a veritable bundle of contradictions.
We all are.
The saint should become less and less a
contradiction, but apart from the grace of God
we are all a bundle of contradictions.
But this is essentially so of the non
-Christian man and of the non-Christian world,
and this is nowhere more apparent than in
our attitude to human life.
Now let me illustrate this point with one
or two quotations.
On the one hand, as a leading article
in a certain British periodical said recently, I
quote, we send a rare drug or vaccine
called for by radio halfway across the world
to save the life of a single child.
We fly Siamese twins from Nigeria to Britain
and operate on them surgically in the hope
of saving their lives, and their progress is
daily news in the national press.
Where there is flood or earthquake or other
disaster, we drop tons of foodstuffs from the
air in the hope of keeping people alive.
In India, for example, where already an excessive
population over-resources causes acute widespread poverty and
starvation, the threat of an epidemic of cholera
that ages old preservative against overpopulation is met
by a campaign for inoculation, continent-wide.
So determined are we that, cost what it
may, people shall not die that way.
Now, on the other hand—that's one side of
the story—on the other hand, we all, in
our various ways, treat human life from time
to time with utter contempt and thoughtlessness.
By murderous words—and I don't need to enlarge
upon that—words kill.
By soul-destroying attitudes and selfish deeds, we
pollute the moral atmosphere, we persecute one another,
and we promote the kind of de-oxygenized
moral climate in the world which suffocates and
slays men with a far more terrifying consequence
than Hitler's dastardly deeds during the last war.
Who is responsible for the moral climate of
our DNA?
We are.
And we have brought the world into such
an impasse that men can contemplate the kind
of things they do without hardly a tinge
of conscience.
And therefore, God, we, the Church, are especially
responsible.
Now, one of the by-products—and I would
like you to notice where I put it,
as far as I can understand the issue—one
of the by-products of this polluted atmosphere
is the contemporary notion that we have the
right to interfere with human life willy-nilly,
without even pausing to explain ourselves or to
seek a reason for that.
We assume that we have a right to
do this and a right to do that,
and to tamper with God's creature just as
we please.
Now, at this point, I want to interject
something.
From a pastoral point of view, I'm very
concerned, lest there should be some among us
this morning, who will have been involved in
incidents that have involved the fetus in the
mother's womb, or involved individuals at the other
end of the scale toward the end of
life, and who have done so perhaps on
the spur of an impulse, or at a
time when emotions were so aroused that it
was impossible to think clearly.
Now, I'm not speaking to such.
I want to assure such that the grace
and the pardoning mercy of God avail.
I'm not speaking to individual cases of this,
that, or the other illustration of this principle.
I am concerned this morning with a whole
scale tide of the hour, which is to
this end.
It assumes, or presumes, that men have the
right willy-nilly to tamper with the life
that God has given.
Having interjected that note from a pastoral point
of view, now let us try to address
ourselves objectively—as objectively and as biblically as we
can—to this very serious issue, which is emerging
especially in our day and age.
Now, as I see it, man has become
terribly inflated with a sense of his own
genius and accomplishments over these recent years in
the realm of science and technology.
And this is really the atmosphere which has
been responsible for so much that is done
today.
Inflated with considerable pride arising from these things,
modern man has come to presume that he
has the right to do anything that he
pleases.
He is not answerable to man, nor to
God.
God has long ago been voted out of
consideration.
Now, I think that there are those who
approach life in this blase sort of way
on two or three different levels, and we
need to see that they are all of
a piece.
First of all, there is the assumption of
the right to arrest the emerging life in
the mother's womb in its early stages, and
then prematurely and artificially to abort the fetus.
This is the assumption that is underlying the
claim for abortion on demand.
Life is harassed in its beginning.
Secondly, there is the assumption of the right
to terminate human life somewhere later on along
the line.
Sometimes when those who are near and dear
to us are afflicted with an incurable disease,
sometimes when, as the folk concerned tell us,
a human being has become nothing but a
vegetable, they assume the right to interfere and
to terminate life as and when the scientist
or who have you determines it is right
and proper.
And thirdly, there is the assumption of the
right so to tamper with a human mind
and a human brain, or sometimes the human
body, as completely to transform the personality that
God has made and God has given.
At the beginnings of life, at the end
of life, and in between then, there are
those who assume that they have the right
as human beings, as scientists especially, to do
this kind of thing.
Now, though in principle perhaps somewhat remote from
these and distinguishable from them, I feel we
must also mention other things.
I am hesitant in referring to the first,
but refer to it I must, because coming
down this morning there was an incident in
which I was almost involved in it, and
I refer to careless driving.
You know, it's very easy for us to
talk about abortion and to talk about euthanasia
and to condemn them outright, and some of
us are driving on the roads as if
we had the right to do just as
we please, and we play with other lives.
After the incident to which I refer this
morning, which was not all that serious, but
I think I should have had more thought
for other people.
After that incident, I'm hesitant to refer to
this, but I think I ought, in order
to show what a contradiction we are.
I was going home from Knox just a
matter of a fortnight ago, and I was
traveling up Bay View, and there was an
incident which could have been most serious in
its consequences.
About twelve cars were involved.
One car came and meandered from one lane
to another, cutting in and cutting out.
I couldn't understand what was happening behind me
and on my side, until the offending car
came right in front of mine.
And then I saw what had happened.
And in his back window I saw these
words, stop abortion.
I thought to myself, yes, but I would
like to stop some other things too.
You see, it's the same principle.
The application is different.
But it's playing with human life.
And it can happen as easily when a
cyclist crosses the road on your pedestrian crossings
without thinking—or a pedestrian, for that matter—as it
can happen in these other realms to which
I have referred.
Terroristness, thoughtlessness of human life.
I also think of the cruelty that leads
to the murder in our towns and cities.
And, of course, the cold, calculated destruction of
life in war.
All these things are all of a piece.
You may be able to distinguish them somewhat,
but ultimately they belong to the same general
spectrum.
Now, our only court of appeal as we
approach such issues is, of course, the Word
of God.
What is to be our attitude to these
things?
What ought to be our attitude?
Or, let me put it like this, what
ought to determine our attitude?
We believe that the Word of God is
profitable for doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God
may be thoroughly furnished and prepared unto every
good work.
All right, we must turn to it.
What is it to say?
I believe that the Scriptures give us some
guiding principles.
Many people are annoyed at the Bible because
it doesn't mention some of these things by
name.
Well, of course, it doesn't.
If it did, then it would only apply,
perhaps, to our age and not to another.
The Bible doesn't do that.
The Bible is a book for every age,
and the way in which it is a
book for every age is this.
It enunciates general principles.
And when God has imparted to us his
Holy Spirit, he expects us to dig up
these principles, to take them seriously, and to
apply each man, each woman, each fellow and
girl to his or her own peculiar circumstances.
And let me say, this is really the
process of sanctification.
It's part and parcel of the business of
growing up.
It is getting hold not simply of texts
of the Bible.
Now, I'm about to go off on a
hobby horse.
I have one or two.
This is one.
It is not enough for us to know
the text of Scripture.
We need to know the doctrines of Scripture,
the principles underlying Scripture.
You see, men can hurl texts at us
without recognizing the principles embodied in the text,
and therefore not applying them to life.
We need to know the principles operating in
Scripture, inherent in Scripture, underlying Scripture, and we
shall find that the Bible is one in
this sense.
And then, on our knees, with the Word
of God before us and the Spirit of
God within us, we need to thrash these
things out and apply the principles, every man
before God.
For we shall give account of ourselves, not
of other people.
Now, what are these biblical principles that relate
to the issue before us today, human life
and its worth or its value?
Of course, I can only refer to some.
The first to which I want to refer
is the fact of man's relation to deity,
man's relation to God.
The Bible would always have us see man
and human life in terms of their relationship
to their Creator, to God.
Failure to do this can result in confusion
of thought and then in improper and unworthy
attitudes and actions.
Now, let me put it to you like
this, very simply, and in a way which
is only reminding you of what you know
already.
This is nothing new, this is something we
all know but need to be reminded of.
Man, according to the Bible, was made after
God's image.
You heard that in our Scripture reading today.
A human being is not simply a divinely
structured entity.
Or, says the psalmist, I am fearfully and
wonderfully made.
The architect, the thought of my body and
thought of my brain and thought of me
as an entity, a body and a spirit,
a mind and so forth, is a wonderful
architect.
He structured me.
But a human being is not simply a
divinely structured entity created and sustained by his
Creator.
He is a divine creation which was patterned
after God's own image.
Listen again to Genesis.
Then God said, Let us make man in
our image after our likeness.
So God created man in his own image.
In the image of God created he him,
male and female created he them.
Genesis 1, 26 and 27.
Now, it's not my intention to pursue the
question as to what that means and implies.
We can't do that today.
What is this image of God which is
reflected in man?
Well, now, I'm not concerned with that in
detail but with the principle.
Because, you see, this applies only to man
among the whole creation of God.
All creation sprang into existence by the act
of God, by God.
Man was not only made by God but
he was made like God.
Now, whatever it means, the only thing I
want to establish this morning is this, that
man is altogether a singular, a unique entity
in God's world.
To tamper with man, to play fast and
loose with human life at any stage, is
to play fast and loose with a creature
who is altogether unique.
Herein lies man's essential greatness and his essential
dignity.
In some sense, he bears the image of
his Creator.
Now, since man is thus so uniquely related
to God, he is a creature of superlative
worth.
Even when his life is in ruins, those
very ruins bespeak of a majesty.
Some of us have become so influenced by
the carnal thinking of our age that we
fail to see this.
And when we see a man fallen, or
when we see a man begrimed in sin
and dirt, we tend to turn our backs.
It's all because we're out of alignment with
the Bible.
A fallen man is a man God made.
We may see the ruins, but the ruins
themselves are stately, for no other creature bears
the image of God as man bears it.
It may be marred, it may be spoiled,
but it can never be obliterated until eternity
dawns and the lost are cast into the
lake of fire.
Nothing short of the fires of eternity can
obliterate that image totally.
Indeed, salvation in the New Testament is speaking
as the renewal of the image.
Not the re-emergence of something new, but
taking something that is basically there, perfecting it,
re-embossing it in the divine press, and
bringing it to maturity and to glory.
Now, to deal with man and human life
in a manner that is unworthy, then, is
a gross sin.
When Adam and Eve marred God's image in
themselves, mark you, not in other people now,
in themselves, they were put outside the ancient
paradise, and a flaming cherubim with sword in
hand stood betwixt them on the return to
the garden of Eden.
When Cain assumed the right to dispense with
his brother's life, he received a correspondingly stern
sentence, Genesis 4, 10 to 12.
God warns Noah and his sons that whereas
it is the Creator's prerogative to destroy the
creature at any time, God has just done
that in the flood.
And in chapter 9 of Genesis, God is
addressing Noah and his sons in the new
day, the new age.
Now God has done that, he is the
Creator, and he has the right to dispose
of all his creatures and is answerable to
no man, no government, but to himself alone.
He is just, he is wise, and as
the Creator and sovereign Lord, he has the
right so to do.
Man, who are you to quibble with your
Creator?
Who am I?
But having so said, and having so done,
God warns Noah and his sons that whereas
it is his prerogative to destroy the creature,
he does not impart that prerogative to man.
Let me read, Genesis 9, 5 to 7.
For your lifeblood, I will surely require a
reckoning.
Of every beast I will require it, and
of man.
Of every man's brother I will require the
life of man.
Whoso sheds the blood of man, thy man
shall his blood be shed.
Why?
For God made man in his own image.
Genesis 9, 5 to 7.
You see the principle.
Because of man's being so utterly unique, bearing
the image of his Creator, God says, I
alone have the right to dispense with man.
Hands off, Noah.
You can't do as I do.
I am Lord, and I will require a
reckoning if you attempt it.
That principle, of course, and I must say
this because I'm sure some of you will
be thinking of it, that principle is qualified
later on, when God gives the power of
life to magistrates and to others in authority.
But now this is a different thing.
When God gives authority to take away life
to any individual, or to a government, or
to a prince or a magistrate, this is
a different thing altogether.
God can give it, but it must be
of God.
We are not discussing this morning a divinely
appointed ordinance, we are discussing this morning the
claim by men, willy-nilly, to tamper with
human life.
So much is evident, therefore, from the simple
fact that man is created according to God's
image.
Let me go on.
Secondly, along with man's relation to deity, we
need also to note a second fact of
revelation, namely, man's comparative dignity.
Man in comparison with other creatures.
Now, in a sense, this is involved in
what we've already been saying, but I want
to bring it out, and I want to
focus attention upon it.
It is not always appreciated.
What is the Bible presentation of man, other
than as a creature bearing God's image?
Well now, let me mention two or three
things.
One, man was created to have dominion over
the whole created earth.
Let me read again.
And God said, let us make man in
our image, after our likeness, and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the birds of the earth, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creeps upon
the earth.
Did you get that principle?
Let them have dominion, let them have sovereignty,
such as the comparative glory of man in
relation to the rest of creation.
Himself, subject to his God, everything is to
be in subjection to man.
Now, this is the picture.
God meant man to be a sovereign, a
king, his own vice regent to the universe,
or in the universe.
Every creature on land, in the sea, or
in the air, is to serve the purpose
of man, as man serves the will of
God.
Secondly, in this connection, created to rule over
the rest of creation, man was assured by
God that the vast creation over which he
is to rule may be used by him
for his own well-being.
Now, I want to stress this, though again
this was inherent in the last point we
made, but I want to stress it.
And I want to quote again Genesis 1
.29 and Genesis 9.3. God said, behold,
I have given you every plant yielding seed
which is upon the face of all the
earth, given it to you.
And every tree which with seed in its
fruit, you shall have them for food.
Can you see the point?
Everything is to minister for man.
I've given it all to you, says the
Almighty.
And then in Genesis 9.3. Every moving
thing that lives shall get food for you.
And as I gave you the green plants,
I give you everything.
In other words, God says, man, I've made
you to be ruler over the creation, to
be my vice-regent.
Now, in this task of ruling the universe
for me, everything's yours.
I've got the whole universe at your disposal.
It is yours as you were subject to
me.
It must serve you as you serve me.
Thirdly, in this connection, over against man's sovereignty
over the rest of creation, and his divinely
assured liberty to slay beast and devour vegetable
for his own well-being, he himself was
deliberately warned that he must in no wise
slay his fellow man.
It is most significant, in Genesis 9, that
in a context which has to do with
his necessary acquisition of food and drink, God
tells man, you can partake of vegetable life,
it's all yours.
All the creatures that have been made, they're
yours.
But human life you must not touch, even
if you're starving.
Let me read again.
For your lifeblood I will surely require a
reckoning.
Of every beast will I require his hand
of man.
Of every man's brother will I require the
life of a man.
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man
shall his blood be shed.
For God made man in his own image.
It all stems from that.
Human life, then, is different.
You see, this whole concept of the evolution
as it is taught generally in our schools
and in our college has so involved us
in wrong thinking.
We see no difference between the tadpole and
the saint.
And this is why we're in this awful
mess we are in today.
Because virtually we have been indoctrinated to see
no distinction between a bead of slime and
the man God made.
You can't blame people that know not God
nor his word ultimately for behaving as if
this were so.
They must be taught.
The word of God must be proclaimed.
The meaning and practice of life must be
declared far and wide.
And we must do this.
And who is there to do it if
you and I don't?
Human life is different.
Man's relation to the deity, man's comparative dignity,
he is above every other creature.
Though all the creatures emanate from the divine
hand.
And my third point is this.
It relates to man's potential dignity.
Why can't we tamper with human life?
It is because of man's potential destiny, I
should say, not dignity.
In relation to the universe at large, we
have already said that man is destined to
be its ruler.
I say no more about that.
In relation to angelic beings, man is destined
to be their superior.
Our world is so materialistic that we can't
talk about angels.
You know, it's very sad.
Time was when the saints knew a lot
about the ministry of angels.
We've become so unbiblical in our thinking and
in our attitude that we can't talk seriously
about angels now.
Many of the saints know nothing about the
ministry of angels.
It's looked upon as something mythical, altogether from
another world, a pansyful notion, the creation of
man.
It is not.
And many of us need angels with us.
And we need to know that they are
God's servants still.
But we don't, and we falter, and we
have to find some other entity to try
and bolster up our spirits in times of
need.
God has his angels.
Just one word about this, and one passage
only.
You see, my subject this morning is too
large to deal with effectively, but let me
just say one word about this.
In relation to the angelic beings, man is
destined to be their superior.
Why do I say that?
Let me read the scriptures.
Hebrews 2, 5 to 10.
For it was not to angels that God
subjected the world to come of which we
are speaking.
It has been testified somewhere.
What is man that thou art mindful of
him?
Or the Son of Man that thou carest
for him?
Thou didst make him for a little while
lower than the angels.
But notice the passage doesn't stop there.
Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor,
putting everything in subjection under his feet.
Now, in putting everything in subjection to him,
he left nothing outside his control.
As it is, says the writer of Ephesians
to the Hebrews, we do not yet see
everything in subjection to him, but this is
what we do see.
We see Jesus crowned.
Now can I put that in summary form,
in capsule form?
That is a word introduced over our missionary
conference, I rather like it.
Can I put that in capsule form?
Man is destined to be Lord above and
over the angels and the archangels and the
seraphim.
Lord over them.
But we don't see him there yet.
No, but one thing we do see.
We see Jesus, the man with a capital
M, our Savior, our Lord, who represented us
in death, on the cross, in the grave,
now representing us on the throne.
There's a man in him.
There's a man above the angels.
The last Adam is on the throne.
He's King of kings and Lord of lords,
and he's there not simply as a personal,
individual being, but as our representative and high
priest.
What does that mean, this?
As surely as he is there, those for
whom he died and rose again and ascended
and is in him, those who have belonged
to him by faith and grace will arrive.
This is man's destiny.
In relation to the universe at large, man
is destined to be its ruler.
In relation to angelic beings, man is destined
to be their superior.
And lastly in this connection, in relation to
God himself.
Man, by God's grace, may not simply be
his ransomed and regenerate child, great and immense
as this privilege is, not only his active
and cooperating servant, wonderful as that is.
Do you know what the Bible says?
I feel like holding my breath when I
talk about this.
It says that man is the heir of
God, and joint heir with Jesus Christ, to
whom every knee shall bow, and whom every
tongue will confess that he is wrong.
Oh, saints of God who read your Bibles,
don't gloss over this great truth.
You and I are joint heirs with Jesus
Christ, heirs of God.
Now again, tantalizing it maybe, I'm not going
to attempt to elucidate all that that means.
The only thing I want to get across
this morning is the wonder of it, whatever
it is.
Heir of God, you can't say that about
a dog, you can't say that about a
horse, you can't say that about any other
creature.
I love dogs and I love horses.
You can't say that about any other part
of God's creation, but you can say that
about man in Christ Jesus.
Now let me recapitulate as I close.
Man is uniquely related to the deity, bearing
the image of God.
Uniquely related to the deity as bearer of
his image, man is also endowed with the
dignity of being God's vice-regent over the
whole world, and the whole world is to
serve him.
Over and above his dignity, as made in
God's image, and as his vice-regent over
the whole creation, man's potential destiny is described
in terms of joint heirship with Jesus Christ.
Now briefly, how do we apply this?
I suggest to you that we need to
be very solemn and somber in applying this
to life.
Your attitude to the person that sits next
to you today, your attitude to another human
being, be it in the house of God,
be it on the street, be it on
the operating table, be it as a doctor
attending to a patient, be it in any
connection whatsoever, should be determined by these facts.
To experiment on a raptive unseen, to tamper
with a creature of God is unlovable.
And our world has lost the distinction between
the two.
Christians, we dare not.
Therefore, to the genetic engineers who are talking
about cloning a man and turning up over
the next seven years, I believe, turning up
a monstrous replica for every human being at
will—whether that claim goes too far, I don't
know, but I've seen it in paper.
In a scientific journal.
Let the genetic engineer who is a Christian
come back to his scripture and remind those
who are not Christian that they're still subject
to the God of the universe.
Let those who are crying for abortion on
demand, which is largely generated by our permissive
society, let us tell them of the dignity
of man and of human life.
And to those who come as the champions
of euthanasia and who want to destroy human
life at its other end, let us, in
the name of God, ask them to face
the issues and the principles that we have
been trying, albeit very briefly, to elucidate this
morning.
Now, as far as we Christians are concerned,
this is part and parcel of the discipline
of growing up in Christian experience.
I mentioned this at the beginning, and I
want to mention it at its close, together
with one other thing.
I believe that the application of these principles
is involved in every individual life, and we
must take it seriously, individually.
There are Christian people who are always expecting
some specialist in the world of ethics or
in some other world to tell us what
to do.
My friend, that's not God's way.
As I understand it, that's not God's way.
I thank God for men who are able
to go into the disciplines of an ethical
understanding of life based on scripture.
I thank God for their works.
But ultimately, this is the discipline of a
Christian growing up.
Read the Word.
Get the principles.
Apply them to your own life.
Don't look at other people.
Apply them to your own life as a
man or a woman who is responsible to
God.
Now, the other thing is this.
We shall find from time to time that
some of our dearest and nearest may disagree
with us.
We must respect them.
If they accept the obvious principles of scripture,
and in the outworking of these principles they
disagree from us, well then, we must, as
brethren in Christ, agree to disagree.
This does not mean to say that we
do not stand for what we believe to
be right, but it does mean this, that
ultimately it is only God who knows all
the fact about every individual.
And you and I must not appear as
if we were already the arbiters and the
judge of all nations and of all men.
On the contrary, assure that the basic principles
of scripture are accepted by our fellow Christians
and fellow men, where they are accepted, of
course.
Then every man stands before God.
We shall all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ, not to answer for those that
live near to us or worship in the
same church as us, but we shall receive
according to that which each man has done.
You and I will stand before God on
that day to answer for ourselves.
I am very conscious as I come to
a close this morning that I have skimmed
so much over the surface of this tremendous
issue, and there are many questions that I
have not attempted to tackle, but I want,
in closing, to say that I distinguish between
two things.
Exceptions there may sometimes emerge—I believe that.
Exceptions there may sometimes emerge when a man
is presented with but the lesser of two.
We are not dealing with such issues.
I am addressing myself this morning to the
almost wholesale demand to do as we please
with the young and with the old and
those in between, and make no bones about
it.
There is a very vocal community in certain
circles today who, in years to come, would
want to bring into existence the kind of
people that they think ought to inhabit our
countries.
And the engineers are busy, busy, busy at
it.
God save us.
These are the truths whereby we should allow
our own lives to be guided and directed,
and truths which we should gladly and with
all our powers apply to the whole of
life.
Let us pray.
O Lord our God, who art the author
and the judge of life, grant us to
know thy truth, and to know the power
of thy truth over our lives, constraining and
restraining us at all times in thy perfect
way.
Forgive us, O Lord, where we have acted
precipitately, improperly, impulsively, and thereby harmed another human
being in one way or another.
O Lord, make us our brother's keepers and
protectors, and save us and our country from
the lunatic consequences of living as if we
had the right to determine everything, even the
issues of life and of death.
Solemnize us to our legitimate duties and responsibilities.
Save us from presuming to be gods in
our age.
Hear us, forgive us, cleanse us, direct us
to the everlasting praise and glory of thy
name, in Jesus Christ.
Amen.