There is an important passage about marriage and
divorce in the second chapter of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament.
Malachi was a prophet who brought God’s message of warning and rebuke to the
priests of his day. One of God’s rebukes to the priests is that they were
committing violence by being unfaithful to their wives (Malachi 2:16). Malachi
asks them a fascinating question about the marriage covenant that points back
to the story of creation. He says, “Did he not make them one, with a portion of
the Spirit in their union?” (Malachi 2:15). The expected answer is, ‘Yes, he
did!’
The phrase, ‘make them one,’ is a clear reference to
Genesis 2:24 where it says, “therefore a man shall leave his father and his
mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The idea of
‘holding fast’ to another is the first picture of marriage given in Scripture.
‘Becoming one’ is a play on words speaking both to the nature of their
relationship but also to the result of their relationship, that their two
fleshes (bodies) will produce a single flesh (body), a baby! That is, children
will result from their ‘holding fast’ to one another.
It is fascinating that Malachi explains this union of
a husband and wife involves a third party, the Spirit, God himself. Since God
himself is in the union, divorce is more than only a tearing between a husband
and a wife but is a tearing between a husband, a wife, and God!
What does this have to do with abortion? Well, Malachi
follows up his rhetorical question with another question and its answer, “And
what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring” (2:15). If divorce is a spiritual
violence against the members its union, then killing the products of that union
is also a great violence against the members of that union. Abortion is
violence against God. He feels it deeply when his children are hurt. He did not
bring forth life to children in the womb only for those same children to be
killed. It is unthinkable.
There are other scriptures which
clearly show children are a gift from God. There are also scriptures where God
says our children are not only from him, but they are still his! Consider
these:
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“And [God] brought [Abram]
outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to
number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he
believed the Lord, and he counted
it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 12:5-6).
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“And when Esau lifted up
his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, ‘Who are these with you?’
Jacob said, ‘The children whom God has graciously given your servant’” (Genesis
33:5).
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Many times God promised to
bless and multiply the children of the people of Israel if they would obey him.
Deuteronomy 7:13a says, God, “will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will
also bless the fruit of your womb.” (see also Genesis 49:25; Exodus 23:26; Deuteronomy
7:14; 28:4, 11, 18; 30:9; Psalm 128:3).
-
“Behold,
children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3).
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In Ezekiel
16, God says against Israel, “And you took your sons and your daughters,
whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be
devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children
and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them [foreign gods]?” (Ezekiel
16:20-21, emphasis added).
Beyond these verses are the countless verses that speak
of humanity belonging to God. Psalm 24:1-2 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the
world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and
established it upon the rivers” (emphasis added). People often speak of
abortion as a matter that affects only the mother. The Bible is clear that our
children are not only ours. They are gifts from God. When we hurt ourselves, or
our children, we are hurting God. God has a vested interest in the lives of all
people, they are his prized possession.
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