Abortion is Murder: Light from Creation, Conception, and Conversion

The Bible opens with the creation account which sheds interesting light.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:1-5)

There is a physics experiment possibly indicated by these verses. Known as sonoluminescence in which “The energy of a sound wave in a fluid can concentrate by 12 orders of magnitude to create flashes of light that can be shorter than 50 picoseconds…  The flashes originate from hot spots that form inside bubbles that nucleate, expand, and crash in response to the travelling sound wave.”¹⁾ https://acoustics-research.physics.ucla.edu/sonoluminescence/ This flash of light occurs “through a process called cavitation, in which voids filled with gas and vapor are generated within the liquid during the tensile portion of the pressure variation. The subsequent collapse of these voids during the compression portion of the acoustic cycle can be extremely violent and represents a remarkable degree of energy concentration—as high as 12 orders of magnitude. This energy concentration results principally from the fact that cavitation‐bubble collapse obeys spherical symmetry, at least until the final stages, when instabilities in the interface may develop. This spherical symmetry is apparently preserved to submicron‐size dimensions in single‐bubble sonoluminescence, resulting in another remarkable phenomenon: Extremely short bursts of light are emitted from the bubble with clock‐like precision.”²⁾Lawrence A. Crum, “Sonoluminescence,” Physics Today, (1994), Vol 47, No. 9, p. 22 Experiments performed in 2005 revealed this flash reaching temperatures up to 15,000 Kelvins based on formation of plasmas. “We therefore conclude that these emitting species must originate from collisions with high-energy electrons, ions or particles from a hot plasma core.”³⁾ Flannigan DJ, Suslick KS (March 2005). “Plasma formation and temperature measurement during single-bubble cavitation”. Nature, Vol. 434, (7029), p. 52 It is possible that Genesis 1:2-3 is describing this process when it states, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” The voice of God here could be the sound waves activating the cavitation to produce the light.

A similar incident is described in the New Testament when the angel tells the virgin Mary that “he Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35). The word “overshadow” seems to depict a darkness, but in Matthew 17:5 God spoke out of “a bright cloud overshadowed them…” Luke uses the word “as a mysterious expression for that which enabled Mary to give birth to the divine child…”⁴⁾ A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (ed. Walter Bauer and trans. Wm. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. Danker, University of Chicago Press  (Chicago, IL: 1979), p. 298 Jesus Christ is called “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (John 1:9)

Another intriguing event pertaining to light is the creation of life at conception. Research in 2016 reports, what they called a “zinc flux,” or “zinc spark,” which occurred when sperm fertilized an egg.

Egg activation refers to events required for transition of a gamete into an embryo, including establishment of the polyspermy block, completion of meiosis, entry into mitosis, selective recruitment and degradation of material mRNA, and pronuclear development. Here we show that zinc fluxes accompany human egg activation…. These egg activation methods, as expected, induced rises in intercellular calcium levels and also triggered the coordination released of zinc into the extracellular space in a prominent “zinc spark.” The ability of the gamete to mount a zinc spark response was meiotic-stage dependent.⁵⁾Francesca E. Duncan, Emily L. Que, Nan Zhang, Eve C. Feinberg, Thomas V. O’Halloran, and Teresa K. Woodruff, “The zinc spark is an inorganic signature of human egg activation,” Scientific Reports, Vol. 6 (2016), p. 1

Their report states:

At fertilization, however, total zinc levels must decrease and within minutes of fertilization, zinc is released from the zygote in a secretory event termed the “zinc spark”.⁶⁾ Francesca E. Duncan, Emily L. Que, Nan Zhang, Eve C. Feinberg, Thomas V. O’Halloran, and Teresa K. Woodruff, “The zinc spark is an inorganic signature of human egg activation,” Scientific Reports, Vol. 6 (2016), p. 1

It is at the event of fertilization that this “spark” occurs that marks the moment of the creation of a new life. The researchers state, “we define zinc flux as an inorganic signature of the human egg-to-embryo transition and demonstrate the chelation of intercellular zinc alone induces egg activation.”⁷⁾ Francesca E. Duncan, Emily L. Que, Nan Zhang, Eve C. Feinberg, Thomas V. O’Halloran, and Teresa K. Woodruff, “The zinc spark is an inorganic signature of human egg activation,” Scientific Reports, Vol. 6 (2016), p. 2 Of course these authors are attempting to cloud it in technical jargon to make it sound impersonal as if the transition from an egg to an embryo fall just short of life beginning. However, they conclude that this research is “providing strong evidence that the zinc spark is a very early hallmark of egg activation.”⁸⁾ Francesca E. Duncan, Emily L. Que, Nan Zhang, Eve C. Feinberg, Thomas V. O’Halloran, and Teresa K. Woodruff, “The zinc spark is an inorganic signature of human egg activation,” Scientific Reports, Vol. 6 (2016), p. 2 The paper comments, “Due to restriction on research with human eggs, we were limited to parthenogenetic activation methods to interrogate the zinc spark. …in mouse we captured the sperm-mediated zinc spark in real time during in vitro fertilization. These results strongly support the physiological significance of this biological event.”⁹⁾ Francesca E. Duncan, Emily L. Que, Nan Zhang, Eve C. Feinberg, Thomas V. O’Halloran, and Teresa K. Woodruff, “The zinc spark is an inorganic signature of human egg activation,” Scientific Reports, Vol. 6 (2016), p. 3 So it is indeed a biological—life producing event!

Since the beginning, the people of God recognized abortion as murder because life began at fertilization. Athenagoras writing about 177 A.D., says, “And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fœtus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it.”¹⁰⁾Athenagoras, A Plea For the Christians, chapt. 35; in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 2, p. 147 Tertullian (160-230 A.D.) describes the horrendous procedure of an abortion with surgical tools. “But sometimes by a cruel necessity, while yet in the womb, an infant is put to death, when lying awry in the orifice of the womb he impedes parturition, and kills his mother, if he is not to die himself. Accordingly, among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all, and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fœtus is extracted by a violent delivery. There is also (another instrument in the shape of) a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: they give it, from its infanticide function, the name of ἐμβρυοσφάκτης, the slayer of the infant, which was of course alive. Such apparatus was possessed both by Hippocrates, and Asclepiades, and Erasistratus, and Herophilus, that dissector of even adults, and the milder Soranus himself, who all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive. Of the necessity of such harsh treatment I have no doubt even Hicesius was convinced, although he imported their soul into infants after birth from the stroke of the frigid air, because the very term for soul, forsooth, in Greek answered to such a refrigeration!”¹¹⁾Tertullian, a Treatise on the Soul, chpt. 25; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 3, p. 206

Tertullian also indicates the souls is made alive at the same time as the body being conceived. “How, then, is a living being conceived? Is the substance of both body and soul formed together at one and the same time? Or does one of them precede the other in natural formation? We indeed maintain that both are conceived, and formed, and perfectly simultaneously, as well as born together; and that not a moment’s interval occurs in their conception, so that, a prior place can be assigned to either.”¹²⁾ Tertullian, a Treatise on the Soul, chpt. 25; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 3, p. 207 He further notes Biblical proof for this premise in the fact that the law of Moses demands a death penalty for a man that causes a miscarriage. “The embryo therefore becomes a human being in the womb from the moment that its form is completed. The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion, inasmuch as there exists already the rudiment of a human being, which has imputed to it even now the condition of life and death, since it is already liable to the issues of both, although, by living still in the mother, it for the most part shares its own state with the mother. I must also say something about the period of the soul’s birth, that I may omit nothing incidental in the whole process.”¹³⁾Tertullian, a Treatise on the Soul, chapt. 37; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 3, p. 217-218

Tertullian’s understanding of the Mosaic Law is further confirmed by the first century Jewish historian, Josephus. He writes, “The law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbid women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have done so, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing human kind; if anyone, therefore, proceeds to such fornication, or murder, he cannot be clean.”¹⁴⁾Josephus, Against Apion, 2.25; in The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus the Jewish Historian (trans. William Whiston), Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids, MI: 1960, 1981), p. 632 The Temple Scroll discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls commands, “You shall not sacrifice to me any cattle or sheep or goat that is pregnant, for this would be an abomination to me.”¹⁵⁾11QT,LII.5; The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls In English (Trans. Geza Vermes), Penguin Classics (London, England: 1962, 2004, p. 210 The sanctity of life within the Jewish perspective, even for pregnant animals, is vastly different from the pagan culture of the ancient near east which sacrificed their children to idols and cared little for men causing a woman to have a miscarriage. An ancient Summerian law states, “If (a man accidentally) buffeted a woman of the free-citizen class and caused her to have a miscarriage, he must pay 10 shekels of silver. If (a man deliberately) struck a woman of the free-citizen class and caused her to have a miscarriage, he must pay one-third mina of silver.”¹⁶⁾The Ancient Near East (ed. James B. Pritchard) Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ: 1975), Vol. 2, p. 35 This is quite a low regard for life compared to Exodus 21:22-23 which properly understood from ancient sources implies if a women is struck by a man “so that her fruit depart,” meaning to cause her to go into labor before her due date, the husband can bring the guilty man before judges to set a fine according to the husbands choosing. But if “mischief follow” the birth process showing that the child was harmed, the punishment is “life for life.”

Minucius Felix (2^nd-3^rd century) indicates abortion as an activity pursued by pagans. “No one can believe this, except one who can dare to do it. And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and to birds; at another, that you crush them when strangled with a miserable kind of death. There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels, and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your gods. For Saturn did not expose his children, but devoured them. With reason were infants sacrificed to him by parents in some parts of Africa, caresses and kisses repressing their crying, that a weeping victim might not be sacrificed.”¹⁷⁾The Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapt. 30; in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 4, p. 192 Here, we see that there was abortion being acted upon as well as what was called “exposure” in those days, which was a common practice of exposing new born children to the elements of nature, usually on the side of the road just out of the cities, so they can die by the heat, or cold, or be eaten by wild animals. Historian Robin Lane Fox relates the ancient Greek culture during the turn of the Christian era:

Exposure was only one of several checks on reproduction. Abortion was freely practiced, and the medical sources distinguished precoital attempts at “contraception.” The line, however, between the two practices was often obscure, not least in the case of drugs which were taken to “stop” unwanted children. Limitations of births was not confined to the poorer classes. Partible inheritance was universal, and as the raising of several children fragmented a rich man’s assets, the number of his heirs was often curbed deliberately. As men with all ages slept with their slaves, natural children were a widespread fact of life.¹⁸⁾Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (New York, NY.: 1986), p. 343

Lactantius (250-325 A. D.) refuting a Greek philosopher Varro, argues of the soul; “Therefore the soul is not air conceived in the mouth, because the soul is produced much before air can be conceived in the mouth. For it is not introduced into the body after birth, as it appears to some philosophers, but immediately after conception, when the divine necessity has formed the offspring in the womb; for it so lives within the bowels of its mother, that it is increased in growth, and delights to bound with repeated beatings. In short, there must be a miscarriage if the living young within shall die.”¹⁹⁾Lactanius, On the Workmanship of God, Chapt. 27; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 7, p. 297 Furthermore, Lactantius represented this life in the womb as light simply by assuming Scripture as truth, although it is almost as if he is predicting the zinc spark. “Therefore let no one imagine that even this is allowed, to strangle newly-born children, which is the greatest impiety; for God breathes into their souls for life, and not for death. But men, that there may be no crime with which they may not pollute their hands, deprive souls as yet innocent and simple of the light which they themselves have not given.”²⁰⁾Lactantius, The Divine Institute, Book 6, chapt. 20; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 7, p.187

It is also notable that as Christ spoke of spiritual life as being “born again” (John 3:3), this receiving eternal life is drawn to the creation account of light in comparison. “Dualistic language is frequently used in retrospect to describe the experience of conversion, in both early Christian and early Jewish texts, language that explicitly or implicitly alludes to the cosmological language of Gen. 1:2-5.”²¹⁾ David E. Aune, The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature an Rhetoric, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville, KY: 2003), p. 112 Paul wrote to the church a Corinth to draw attention to the darkness caused be blinded by Satan, or receiving sight through the illumination of God. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:3-6). Note how Paul alludes to the creation of light— “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness”—which in Genesis is precede with the Spirit of God moving over the waters as it is with coming to salvation, the Holy Spirit moves on our hearts (2 Corinthians 1:22; Galatians 4:6).

In Acts 26, Paul gives his testimony of when he met Christ on the road to Damascus. Christ appeared to him as “a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me” (Acts 26:13). The Lord gives Paul a mission to go to the Gentiles, “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18). Again, we find the turning from darkness to light is parallel to turning from Satan to God. Paul tells the church at Colossi that God “hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:12-13). The saints of light have been delivered from darkness. To the Ephesians he writes, “or ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). Walking as children of light is to fulfill the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16). Peter states of the Christians, “ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Philo of Alexandria, a first century Jewish author spoke of Abraham’s conversion with a similar descriptions. “The man who had been bred up in this doctrine, and who for a long time had studied the philosophy of the Chaldaeans, as if suddenly awakening from a deep slumber and opening the eye of the soul, and beginning to perceive a pure ray of light instead of profound darkness, followed the light, and saw what he had never see before, a certain governor and director of the world standing above it, and guiding his own work in a salutary manner, and exerting his care and power in behalf of all those parts of it which are worthy of divine superintendence.”²²⁾Philo, on Abraham, 70; The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition (trans. C. D. Yonge), Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1997),  p. 417 A Psuedoepigraph entitled Joseph and Aseneth presents the story of the Jewish man and a pagan woman who is converted to Judaism. Joseph speaking to Aseneth, states:

Lord God of my father Israel, the Most High, the Powerful One of Jacob, who gave life to all (things) and called (them) from darkness to light, and from error to the truth, and from the death to the life; you, Lord, bless this virgin, and renew her by your spirit, and form her anew by your life, and let her eat your bread of life, and drink your cup of blessing, and number her among your people that you have chosen before all (things) came into being, and let her enter your rest which you have prepared for your chosen ones, and live in your eternal life for ever (and) ever.²³⁾Joseph and Aseneth, 8:9; The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Ed. James H. Charlesworth) Doubleday (New York, NY: 1985), Vol. 2, p. 213

She later praises God, saying, “Blessed be the Lord your God the Most High who sent you out to rescue me from the darkness and to bring me up from the foundation of the abyss, and blessed be your name forever.”²⁴⁾ Josehp and Aseneth, 15:12; The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Ed. James H. Charlesworth) Doubleday (New York, NY: 1985), Vol. 2, p. 227 The Testament of Gad records: “I understood this at the last, after I had repented concerning Joseph, for according to God’s truth, repentance destroys disobedience, puts darkness to flight, illumines the vision, furnishes knowledge for the soul, and guides the deliberative powers of salvation.”²⁵⁾The Testament of Gad 5:6-7; The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Ed. James H. Charlesworth) Doubleday (New York, NY: 1983), Vol. 1, p. 815

Clement of Rome’s second epistle relates: “If, however, any shall disobey the words spoken by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and serious danger; but we shall be innocent of this sin, and, instant in prayer and supplication, shall desire that the Creator of all preserve unbroken the computed number of His elect in the whole world through whom He call us from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His name, our hope resting on Thy name which is primal cause of every creature, having opened the eyes of our heart to the knowledge of Thee…”²⁶⁾Clement of Rome, Second Epistle, Chapt. 59:1-2; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Allan Menzies; 1885-1887, Hendrickson (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1994, fifth edition 2012), Vol. 9, p. 247

As God created light in the beginning, when He creates life in the womb, it begins with  a flash of light and so does the same occur when one receives Christ and is born again, turning from darkness to light and becomes a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We also find an application that as in the creation of light, God divided light from darkness, and thus it is true for those born of this second birth, having turned from darkness to light, they should also be divided (i.e. separated) from the darkness. Indeed, Proverbs 4:18 tells us, “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”