As Christians we need to see everything faithfully in light of scripture. Whatever the issue is, the Bible is timeless. We are called to think like Christians, and thoughts always bear fruit in how one acts in the world (Mt 5:13-15, Romans 12:2, Proverbs 23:7, 2 Corinthians 10:5). Where Christians fail to hold their thoughts captive to Christ, they will act like the world.

This has been a tremendous issue today, which shows in how approved abortion is now as opposed to in the past. Church history reveals a long record of being pro-life.

“thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born.”
-The Didache (early document on Christian practice).

“You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevent its being born. Why then do you abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter?”

-Chyrsostom, Homily 24 on Romans

If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a foetus in the womb before it has come to light.
John Calvin

The historic church understood what we are forgetting, that Christ becoming human makes all of human life sacred. We have forgotten to even go to scripture or how to use it.

That authority of scripture touches every issue today, including the pressing issues of human nature. The bible speaks boldly about such issues and few things display the bible’s teaching about what it means to be human like the incarnation. Perhaps the question at the forefront of our culture is that question of what it means to be human, and the incarnation of Christ teaches us everything we need to know.

The incarnation teaches us the sanctity of human life itself. If God after all, was willing to become man the dignity of humanity is impossible to argue against. Jesus took on the form of a man (Philippians 2:5-8, 1 Timothy 2:5, Philippians 2:7), the question becomes when?

Every argument made to justify abortion requires you to commit a heresy by assaulting human nature. If all humans are equal, that must include at every stage of life. If human rights even exist, they must exist as soon as you are human.

The issue is addressed early in scripture, such as when the law gives the death penalty for the abortionist (Exodus 21:22-23) and Jacob and Esau fighting in Utero (Genesis 25:21-23). If abortion were not murder, there would be no penalty, if Jacob and Esau were not alive, how could they be fighting? Jesus, being the same nature went through the same processes, so the same principles apply.

Let us then ask, at what point was Jesus a human? If he wasn’t at the point of conception, you have a serious problem. If no, then this part of human life is not sacred or savable. At what point then was he incarnate? It must be from the moment of conception or that part of human life is irredeemable.

The incarnation makes every step of human life sacred. Jesus was a zygote, he was a fetus, and every step of the way he was human. To make abortion moral you have to say he was never these things and never went through this part of human life. At that moment Jesus was alive by every definition of the term. He was distinct from his mother, taking in sustenance, and growing. The same applies to us after birth. To support abortion you only have two options, Jesus was incarnate but not human, or not incarnate at all. Depending on where you draw the line past conception, you are excluding that part of the human experience from Jesus’ incarnation.

We can in scripture how Gabriel’s announcement assumes that the incarnation starts at the moment the Holy Spirit creates the conception (Luke 1:34-35).

^“34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”^[a]

³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born^[b] will be called holy—the Son of God.”

We are also told Jesus emptied himself taking on the form of a man, here not male, but the form of a human being.
Philippians 2:7
“but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,^[a] being born in the likeness of men.”

For abortion to be right you have to attack this biblical understanding of humanity, and you would have to apply that same logic to Jesus’ humanity as well. If abortion were not killing a human being, and Jesus did not take on the form of man at conception, it would have to have been fine for Mary to have an abortion at conception. Stretching the starting point of life later it would still be fine through a certain trimester, or until birth because Jesus would have to have been not incarnate. It would not be killing the Son of God if God was not human yet. Are we to say Jesus was a lump of cells? This would also make being a lump of cells dignified, and have made Jesus something in flesh before he was a human. No matter how it is understood, Jesus was a human from conception, and abortion inexcusable.

Think of the pastoral, or simply social implications of the fact that God became a human from the moment of conception. Miscarriages are a tragedy, and not merely the loss of a simple clump of cells, because it is a human life. Mary was an unwed, lower-middle class woman, today it is not unthinkable to think her family would have told her to abort the child. Would that have been alright, or would it have been murder? If God opened the womb (which he does always), would her bodily autonomy be more sacred than God’s will or the incarnation? As a matter of fact, the devil attempted infanticide through Herod (Mt 2:16-18, Revelation 12:1-4), which is merely an abortion after the birth. Scripture tells us abortion is always spiritual warfare, and to care for humanity on the basis of their shared humanity.

Since Jesus was an infant from conception, motherhood even at the moment of pregnancy becomes sacred. The answer to any pregnancy then becomes the supporting of the woman as a mother. Even the care Joseph provided Mary and Jesus becomes sacred and a sacred calling for all fathers. If Jesus was not incarnate for the whole pregnancy, then no father bears responsibility during it either. The family, in a unique way, has it’s sacredness shown and cemented by the reality of Christ’s humanity from the moment of conception.

Christians who support abortion have a false, even heretical view of the incarnation and human nature. Heresy is always harmful, as we can see in how the wrong view of Jesus’ conception to favor abortion degrades the family, motherhood, fatherhood, human rights and human nature itself.

Abortion simply does not fit any meaningful, Christian understanding. Abortion is a murder, and the theology of abortion is also a heresy.

The next time you see an ultrasound of any stage of pregnancy, remind yourself that your God and savior was just like that infant. God became that.