SACREDNESS OF ALL HUMAN LIFE
Have you ever wondered why the Old
Testament specifically authorized capital punishment? Was it because the God of
the Bible is a vengeful monster, as some of the Bible's enemies contend? Was it
because he hated unbelievers and apostates? Fortunately, we are not left to
wonder. The book of Genesis specifically teaches: "Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall
his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man" (Gen. 9:6). Every
human being on earth - born and unborn - bears the image of our Maker. When a
person sheds innocent blood, his blood shall be shed. Do you remember the words
of King Solomon: "These six things does the Lord hate: yea, seven are an
abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed
innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that are swift
in running to mischief, a false witness that speaks lies, and he who sows
discord among brethren" (Prov.6:16-19)?
Human beings are not sacred in
God's eyes because of their intelligence, or of their family connections, or of
their national origin, or of their skin color or of their political
affiliation. Every human being is sacred because every one of us is made in the
image of God, as I have just read to you from Genesis 9:6. In the very first
chapter of God's holy word, that fact is made too clear for any reasonable
person to deny it. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Gen.
1:26-27).
The Psalmist tells us very plainly
that all people "are fearfully and wonderfully made." Please listen.
"If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be
light about me. Yea the darkness does not hide from thee; but the night shines
as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike unto thee. For thou hast
possessed my inward parts: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will
praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works;
and that my soul knows right well. My substance was not hidden from thee when I
was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance; yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my
members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there
was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts to me, 0 God! How great is
the sum of them" (Psa. 139: 11-17)! Our study today will be devoted to the
theme: "The Sacredness of All Human Life."
For many years, Dr. Paul Brand
served as a medical missionary to India. He was probably the world's leading
specialist in treating leprosy. After leaving India, he became Chief of
Rehabilitation Branch of U. S. Public Health Service Hospital at Carville,
Louisiana, as well as Clinical Professor of Surgery and Professor of Orthopedic
Surgery at Louisiana State University Medical School. In the 1980s Dr. Brand
teamed up with Philip Yancey to produce a number of great books, including Fearfully
and Wonderfully Made: A Surgeon Looks at the Human & Spiritual Body (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1980) and In His Image (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1984). These are powerful faith-building books.
In his book, Fearfully and
Wonderfully Made, Dr. Brand quotes these words from the 4th
century theologian, Augustine: "Men go abroad to wonder at the height of
mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at
the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without
wondering" (p. 4). The second book, In His Image, quotes
these words from Sophocles, the 5th century B. C. Greek writer:
"Numberless are the world's wonders - none more wondrous than the body of
man" (p. 13). Dr. Brand also quotes these words from Shakespeare:
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in
faculties! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action, how like an
angel, in apprension how like a god" (p. 16). These two books, along with
his book, Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants (New York: HarperCollins,
1994), should prove intelligent design to any open-minded person. It is
impossible that man could have developed accidentally. Only God is responsible
for the human race.
And because he is our Creator and
Sustainer, we must recognize the sacredness of all human life. If the theory of
evolution were true, there would be no way under the sun anyone could sensibly
argue that all human life is sacred. Evolutionists might express their opinion
that all human life is sacred, but they would not be able to prove their
opinion. After all, does not Darwin's theory rest on the survival of the
fittest? If a baby is born severely handicapped or an old person is no longer
productive, would it not make sense from an evolutionary viewpoint to allow such
people to die or put them to death?
There a many examples from our
culture that show how little respect some Americans have for members of the
human family. A few years ago, a Mr. Gilbert in Miami, Florida, walked into the
living room of the home he and his wife had shared for a number of years. His
wife was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He shot her three times with a 9mm
German Luger. He was arrested and tried for murder. The court gave him
twenty-five years in prison. He was released in five years. Here is what is
particularly troubling to me: Governor Bob Graham described Mr. Gilbert's
behavior in killing his wife as "an act of love." Does that mean Bob
Graham does not believe in the sacredness of all human life, including people
who are afflicted with Alzheimer's disease?
The United States Supreme Court has
demonstrated on more than one occasion its lack of respect for some human
beings. The Dred Scott case was an absolute disaster. There is not a
person on earth - even those with an elementary education - who can find the
basis of this decision in the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme
Court upheld a Virginia law requiring the sterilization of a young mother who
had given birth to an allegedly feeble-minded child. The child had scored at a
mental age of nine on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence test. The child's mother
had tested at the mental age of seven. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the
Court's decision in Buck v. Bell. "We have seen more than
once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives.
It should be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the
strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices.... Three generations of
imbeciles are enough." In his book, The Stealing of America (Westchester,
IL: Crossway, 1983), John Whitehead quotes these words from Oliver Wendell
Holmes: "I see no reason for attributing to a man a significance different
in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand" (p. 48).
Can you now understand why Holmes believed that "three generations of
imbeciles are enough?" Tragically, many American judges speak of Oliver
Wendell Holmes almost in tones of reverence. He was unquestionably a brilliant
justice, but had no respect for the sacredness of all human life.
In his outstanding book, The
Second American Revolution (Elgin, IL: David C. Cook, 1982),
John Whitehead quotes Dr. Francis Shaeffer: "The concept (of man's
dignity) is gone. We are in a post-Christian world. Man is junk, and can be
treated as junk.... lf the old person is in the way, ditch him. If you're in
the way... and that's what lies before us" (p. 140). If you know what is
happening in our nation, you would be foolish to disagree with Dr. Shaeffer.
The first obligation of physicians
is to "do no harm." Tragically, there are doctors who have little
regard for human life. In her book, Change Agents in the Schools
(Upland, CA: The Barbara Morris Report, 1979), Barbara Morris reported that
one British doctor proposed a "death pill" for old people. He
expressed the opinion that it might be available and perhaps even obligatory by
the end of the century. He predicted it would be necessary for the survival of
the fittest (p. 178). Is it possible there are America politicians and
academicians who would endorse such utter stupidity? How could evolutionists
object to it?
In the book, Humanistic
Perspectives in Medical Ethics (Buffalo: Prometheus Books,
1972), edited by Maurice B. Visscher, there is a chapter, "The Right to
Die," by Dr. Walter C. Alvarez. Dr. Alvarez believes that soon a law will
be passed that will leave the decision of when to pull the tubes in the hands
of a physician. The law would save the nation billions of dollars" (pp.
64-65). The late Thomas Eaves edited a book with the title, Moral Issues
Confronting the Kingdom (Knoxville: East Tennessee School of
Preaching and Missions, 1978). John Waddey wrote an article for the book. His
article has the title, "Euthanasia, The New Barbarians." Waddey
quotes Dr. Alvarez: "It will probably be many years before we (physicians)
in America can bring ourselves to chloroform an idiotic infant or permit a
slowly dying patient to take an overdose of medicine. What we will first have
to train ourselves to do will be to leave by the patient's bed a lethal drug,
which he can take some night if he so desires" (pp. 84-85).
Would it surprise you that some
preachers and theologians take the same position on the sacredness of all human
life as Dr. Alvarez? Joseph Fletcher, the infamous situation ethicist, wrote a
number of books explaining his almost total disregard for handicapped babies
and seriously ill old people. In his book, Humanhood: Essays in
Biomedical Ethics (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1979), Fletcher
agrees with Ashley Montagu's observation that "babies are not born with
human nature, but only with more or less capacity to become human" (p.
10). What standards should we use to determine the "truly human
status?" Joseph Fletcher provides a list of the following criteria for
human hood: "Minimum intelligence." Fletcher arbitrarily assigns an
I. Q. of 20 on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. He says that people have
to be wise before they can truly be human. He says people are not really human
unless they have "self-awareness." Very young children do not have
self-awareness; neither do a great number of old people. We must have a
"sense of time" to be fully human. We must also have a sense of the
future, a "sense of the past" and a "capacity to relate to
others" (pp. 12-14). Fletcher is arguing very simply: If people do not
have these minimum requirements for personhood, they have no right to live.
Can we charge churches with
"guilty silence," to use John R. W. Stott's expression? How many
preachers among churches of Christ and in the religious world in general have
spoken out on bioethical issues? In this area and in all other areas, we must
be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt. 5:13-16). We may be
tempted to blame the humanists in the world - and they deserve much of the
blame - but Whitehead insists that "it is not the non-Christian who is
most to blame for the cruelty we see today. It is the silent church" (p.
146).
The courts of our land have often failed
to distinguish between the "inalienable rights" guaranteed by our
Constitution and those granted by humanist philosophers. The humanists believe
they have the knowledge and the wisdom to determine the rights that should be
given to our citizens. "Hitler," according to John Whitehead
"simply defined the Jews as less than fully human, and his critics were
anesthetized. If the Jews were not fully human, then they did not have human
rights" (p. 118).
Who has the wisdom to determine
which human life is sacred? Should it be the medical profession? Adolf Hitler
decided that certain persons were "useless eaters" and marked them
for extinction. Dr. Frederic Wertham's book, The German Euthanasia
Program (Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing, 1966), quotes these words from
Hitler to Dr. Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician, and to Philipp Bouhler,
chief of Hitler's Chancellery: "Reichleader Bouhler and Dr. Medical Brandt
are responsibly commissioned to extend the authority of the physicians, to be
designated by name, so that a mercy death may be granted to patients who
according to human judgment are incurably ill according to the most critical
evaluation of the state of their disease" (pp. 37-38). Dr. Werthan points
out that this note from Hitler does not give "the order to kill, but the power"
to kill" (p. 38). Dr. Hans Hefelmann, an agronomist who was a highly
placed bureaucrat in the "euthanasia" program, in a war crimes trial
in Limburg, Germany, testified: "No doctor was ever ordered to participate
in the euthanasia program; they came of their own volition" (p. 39). Dr.
Wertham, an American psychiatrist of German descent, affirms that what many of
the psychiatrists did "made even members of the Nazi party weep" (p.
39).
Maybe biologists, zoologists,
embryologists and other scientists should decide who should live and who should
die. Are these men and women equipped to make the decisions on the life and
death of our fellow human beings? Many, if not most, of these scientists are
evolutionists. Do you really want an evolutionist deciding your earthly fate?
Like Desmond Morris, they view man as The Naked Ape (New York:
Dell, 1967). Morris stated very simply and frighteningly: "I am a
zoologist and the naked ape is an animal" (p. 9). You and I, according to Morris, are the naked apes.
Many of America's best-known
scientists have no hesitation about experimenting on human beings just as they
do with the animals. There are more governmental controls regulating animal
experimentation than there are governing the way fetuses are handled. Are these
the kind of men and women you want deciding whether you or your loved ones live
or die?
If anyone should decide the earthy
fate of our fellowmen, should it not be preachers and theologians? Theologians
should be men with great respect for God, for his word, and for his creatures -
men. Tragically, that is not always the case. Leslie Weatherhead was the
preacher for the famous City Temple of London for twenty-five years and a
Methodist preacher for forty years. In his book, The Christian Agnostic (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1965), Weatherhead confesses to being a "convinced member of the
Voluntary Euthanasia Society" (p. 267). Weatherhead supported suicide as
being justified in some cases (p. 268).
Maybe parents should decide who
lives and who dies. Did you know that some parents allow a handicapped baby to
die since supporting such a child would be time consuming and very expensive?
The parents of a Down's syndrome child at Bloomington, Indiana, chose to let
their Down's syndrome child die rather than have corrective surgery. Besides,
they would not allow the child to be adopted. One of the columnists for the Chicago
Tribune commented: "They wanted that child dead."
Dr. Francis Shaeffer and Dr. C.
Everett Koop wrote a great book entitled Whatever Happened to the Human
Race? (Old Tappan: Fleming H. Revell, 1979). They quote these
words from Woody Allen, a secular humanist: Man has no future except
"alienation, loneliness (and) emptiness verging on madness." In his
film, Annie Hall, Allen pronounces this woe on the human
race: "Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable" (p. 123).
Paul Gaugin, a famous French post-impressionistic painter, asked three
questions: "Whence come we? What are we? Whither do we go?" The only
answers he could give were: Nowhere, nothing, nowhere" (p. 123). Can you
understand why Gaugin committed suicide?
Several years ago, I delivered a
series of lectures at the Annual Bible Lectureship at Freed-Hardeman
University. I raised these questions about racial discrimination. "Is he
the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles
also" (Rom. 3: 29). Would I be doing an injustice to the sacred text if I
were to paraphrase this verse as follows: "Is he the God of the
able-bodied, highly intelligent, rich, and beautiful people only? Is he not the
God of the sick, the mentally handicapped, the old and all others? Yes he is
the God of all people."
The inspired Psalmist wrote:
"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the
stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and
the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower
than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor" (Psa. 8:3-5).
The God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ loves all men-believer, unbeliever and apostate. Is that not the
reason God sent Jesus Christ into the world to redeem us from our sins and give
us the promise of eternal life?
Winford
Claiborne
The International Gospel Hour
P.O. Box 118
Fayetteville, TN 37334