Friday, April 3, 2009

Is abortion murder?

From the Book of Exodus chapter 20 verse 13 we get the commandment "Thou shall not kill". In looking at the earliest translations from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nash Papyrus we see that the commandment is "Thou shalt not do murder". Apparently, there are seven Hebrew words for killing, but the Hebrew word רצח (new Hebrew-I could not find a snippet of the original text to paste) as used in the commandment means murder.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." and from Mark 9:47-48 "And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched."

On the one hand we have the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" and on the other hand we have numerous (I've only included a couple) references to the soul being eternal, either in heaven or hell.

If your soul is eternal how can you murder someone? Our physical bodies are merely containers for our souls. If you murder the body the soul lives on, so is abortion really murder? Has anyone ever really been killed or have we merely destroyed the temporary container furnished for our soul?

Since our souls are eternal, the commandment refers to our physical bodies. The problem with murder, including abortion, is that it interferes with God's plan for us. From Jeremiah 1:4-5 "Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." As kind of an aside, women who had near death experiences that also had abortions reported that, as they were having their lives reviewed, they were shown by God what would have happened to their children if they had not been aborted..........."Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."
(This apparently had a profound effect on these women)

When we murder someone we do not just eliminate the container which carries their soul, we interfere with God's plan for us and this is what warrants the punishment. How arrogant and selfish of us to think we can change what God has planned for us. Is there a worse abomination than to think we know better than God? Can one actually fathom the punishment that awaits a woman, entrusted by God to incubate and nurture our physical bodies, who selfishly or out of complete ignorance chooses to alter God's plan for that soul?

Abortion is murder.........in the sense that the physical container that was to be made for that specific soul has been destroyed, but the hard truth is much, much worse. Abortion is humanities feeble attempt at being superior to God by thinking we can subvert the will of God.

(Edited to add that there are passages in scripture that permit the state to execute criminals and to deal with evil doers by execution/elimination----these are necessary punishments as opposed to the shedding of innocent blood.)

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