In my last post I looked at the intricate design of the incredible human body with eyes that process light so we can see, ears that process sounds so we can hear, limbs with muscle-tendon-joints and bones so we can walk and function, heart that pumps blood through 60,000 miles of veins and capillaries the list goes on and on.

I believe that anyone who honestly faces the incredible evidence found in the human body would come to the same conclusion as Sir Isaac Newton did when he said, “In the absence of any other proof, my thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.

I hope your response is the same as David’s in Psalm 139,”We are fearfully and wonderfully made.”

In this post I want to keep our attention on the human body, but refocus our attention from design to value. It has been said that the physical substance that makes up a human body can be bought for about $20. But we all know instinctively that human life is worth more than $20. In fact, we don’t put a price tag on human life, but we do on virtually every other form of life!

For instance, you can purchase a nice quarter horse for $7,500, a golden retriever puppy for $500, a parrot for about $1,000, a hamster for $7, a golf fish for about .25 cents and find cats for free! Animals can be bought for a price and we all have bought animals. But humans are not for sale, at least not legally and certainly not from the perspective of the Christian faith. And the reason is simple: because human life is created in the image of God.

Genesis 1:24-27 says, “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then (and this is a very important ‘then’. It marks a divide in the creative design of God) God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, (the first hint of the Trinity) and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

There is a ‘firewall’ between the animal kingdom and human life! From the Biblical perspective, we are not a part of the animal kingdom and we never were. Even if God used millions and millions of years to design the universe and life (and maybe he did), the process did not begin with us as apes, baboons, monkeys or any other kind of animal. We never were animals. We always have been humans; complete with the image of God stamped in our design.

And because of “the image”, nothing in all of creation is more like God than humans. Our emotional, relational, intellectual, and even physical properties are qualitatively superior to animals and in some distinct way reflect the characteristics of God better than any other creature in the universe. Admittedly, because of sin, sometimes nothing in all creation is more ‘unlike’ God than humanity. That still does not change the basic fact that humans are more like God than anything in the universe.

When God decided to come to this planet in a visible way, he came as a human. When Jesus died on the cross, he died for humans! It is because we bear “the image” that humans and only humans have an eternal soul. I am sorry to tell you that there is no evidence that your pets will go to heaven and live forever. They won’t. If you have trusted Jesus as your Savior, you will. Because we bear the “mark of the image of God” we are not only distinct from animals, we are inherently priceless!

But this leads to another question: When do humans begin to bear the image of God? Now that question strikes at the white hot center of a moral/ethical/scientific debate today!

Remove the conviction that a person or group of people do not bear God’s image and are on an equal plane with animals, are not human, are less than human or pre-human and what we do with them and how we treat them changes dramatically!

An extreme example would be Hitler’s ghastly 3^rd Reich. As Adolf Hitler once said, “I do not look upon Jews as animals; they are further removed from animals than we are. Therefore it is not a crime to exterminate them, since they do not belong to humanity at all.”

Another on would be our own nation’s history is the slave trade. Slave trading and ownership thrived legally and openly in America for centuries in large part because the African people were not considered human!  Africans were sold in America alongside other commodities like sugar and cotton - because they were not considered human!

Today the debate has moved to the womb. When does a fetus become an ‘image bearer’? Christianity is united in the belief that it happens in the womb:

Jeremiah 1:4-5 “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’”

Isaiah 49:1 “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name.”

The Bible clearly points to personhood before birth…but when before birth? Some say at the point of viability. According to the American Medical Association, “A fetus is viable when it reaches an “anatomical threshold” when critical organs, such as the lungs and kidneys, can sustain independent life; sometime after 23 weeks. - In the United States, that is when a baby in the womb receives legal protection. (Roe v Wade, 1973)

Some point to around 8 or 9 weeks. The logic goes like this: Around this time the fetus has a nervous system, a brain and is capable of receiving prenatal social-psychological-spiritual influences from the mother that has the potential of humanizing the unborn child.

Historically, the Church has pinpointed at the time of conception. And since the exact point of when God infuses the fetus with ‘his image’, will never be observed in a test tube, and since we really are dealing with human life that is intrinsically valuable, I believe we should play this one conservatively and stick to conception as the moment when God’s makes us bearers of his image. Now, everyone knows what that answer implies; that since 1973, our Supreme Court has legalized the destruction of unborn human life and I believe they made a tragic mistake.

According to the pro-abortion web sites of Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood:

• In the United States, the number of abortions each year is 1.3 million (3,700 per day) and since abortion was made legal in 1973, 48 million abortions have taken place in America.
• In the world, the number of abortions skyrockets to 42 million each year (115,000 per day.)
• Why abortions are performed:

1% because of rape or incest

6.5% because of potential health problems with either the mother or the baby

93% for social reasons (the baby is not wanted or inconvenient)

But rather than just complaining or pointing fingers, let’s just commit ourselves to being followers of God who believe that every human being is made in the image of God, whether born or unborn and find ways to protect and promote life!

That may be by supporting our local pro-life agency, RETA (Reason Enough to Act) with either your money or your time. I am happy to report that RETA was one of the agencies in our Christmas Project and last week we dropped off a check for $6,700!

Secondly, consider adopting a child. And many couples have. Many more want to but have to wait. I read this week these stats from the National Council for Adoption web site that there is a waiting list of couple who would like to adopt infants with Down syndrome or Spina Bifida. One agency has over 100 approved families waiting to adopt children with Down Syndrome.  There are also a large number of couples who would like to adopt terminally ill babies, including babies with AIDS. ABC-TV’s “20-20″ reported that they had received over 25,000 self-addressed stamped envelopes from people wanting to adopt Romanian orphans. Over 10,000 people responded after an article ran in Parade Magazine’s cover story on trans-racial adoption.

It’s not just interest in adoption, but many would be happy to support couples adopt. Just this past week I was listening to Bill O’Riley on the radio and he was on this subject because of the President’s decision to fund world agencies who perform abortions and Bill made a really good point when he said, “Our tax dollars go to fund abortions, so why can’t they go to fund adoptions too?” I love the idea! I would much rather have my tax dollars spent on helping someone adopt an unwanted baby than have my tax dollars go to end his life!

Beyond life in the womb or at birth…we can support the value and dignity of life by helping ‘the least of these’. It surely is also ‘pro-life’ to help the poor, the mentally disabled, the physically disabled and the elderly.

Wayne Grudem wrote in Systematic Theology, “Every single human being, no matter how much the image of God is marred by sin, or illness, or weakness or age, or any other disability, still has the status of being in God’s image and therefore must be treated with the dignity and respect that is due to God’s image-bearer. This has profound implications for our conduct toward others. It means that people of every race deserve equal dignity and rights. It means that elderly people, those seriously ill, the mentally retarded, and children yet unborn, deserve full protection and honor as human beings. If we ever deny our unique status in creation as god’s only image-bearers, we will soon begin to depreciate the value of human life, will tent to see humans as merely a higher form of animal, and will begin to treat others as such. We will also lose much off our sense of meaning in life.”

Be pro-life in some way! But do it in a grace-filled way, because that is the Christian way! I end with the words of Paul from Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world god’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

The entire universe, this planet, all of life gives evidence of a design. Someday we will all stand before him without any basis to say, “I didn’t know.”  So my strong encouragement is to get to know him and follow him in this life because you want the chance to live with him in the next.