KC Podcast - Episode 117: Passing the Baton

The Incarnation and Abortion

I was reading in Luther's sermons last night, and I came across a couple of passages that struck me as very applicable to the abortion issue. I had never consciously thought of how the fact of Christ's incarnation bears on the personhood of unborn children. Here is what Luther had to say:

"That day, that moment when Mary assented to the angel Gabriel's announcement, Christ was conceived. In that hour when she said, "Be it unto me according to they word," she conceived and became the mother of God; and Christ, therewith, became true God and true man in one person. Even though he is a tiny fetus, at that moment he is both God and man in Mary's womb, an infant, and Mary is mother of God."
-Luther's Sermons, Vol. 7


And again in a later sermon, Luther writes:
"...we should give thanks to our dear Lord God that he gave us these two boys, Christ and John, who communicated with each other in their mothers' wombs and are filled with joy. John is the older, midway to birth; Christ is the younger, not yet the size of a little bee. It is a great and mighty miracle that John, who is six months older than Christ, leaped for joy in his mother's womb as Christ, through Mary, greeted him. Christ is happy that he has a forerunner; John is happy that his Lord follows in his footsteps."
-Luther's Sermons, Vol. 7


Now what is the miracle to which Luther refers? I think he's referring to John knowing that Jesus is near and leaping in his mother's womb. I don't think it was a miracle for John or Jesus to be able to feel happiness or even for John to be spiritually regenerate in his mother's womb. And I think this says something about the unborn child that Christians would do well to heed.

Comments

Dale Melchin said…
Wow, just what I was thinking!
Erica said…
I've heard this mentioned before, but never heard it put so strongly.