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The First Right: Why Abortion Is Not Merely "One Issue" · reIMAGED: Bringing Pro Life Into Gospel Focus

• 0:01
  Alissa: Have you heard people say before that all sin is equal in God's eyes?
• 0:05
  Chris: Yes.
• 0:06
  Alissa: And what do you think they are trying to communicate, and how does that get a little complicated or cloudy for people?
• 0:13
  Chris: Well, I think there's a couple ways that people talk about it. I think many people say that and many people mean different things by it. So I think there's one... Let's just call it two sides of the fence. One side of the fence says, Any sin separates us from God.
• 0:33
  And it's true. It's... Yes. All sin is equal in the eyes of God, and it all separates us from God. Meaning, like what I said earlier, the little white lie that was just this miniscule little thing all the way up to murder, all of it separates from even if you don't ever commit murder, but you lied.
• 0:51
  Right. That separates you from God.
• 0:53
  Alissa: Because God is holy His standard is perfection. Which is why we need the blood of Jesus.
• 1:00
  Chris: Right.
• 1:01
  Alissa: And it is His life, death, and resurrection reconcile us to God.
• 1:06
  Chris: So all sin equal in the eyes of God. I think what some are trying to say is that all sin condemns us Equally. Yes. Equally. Correct.
• 1:14
  I agree with that.
• 1:15
  Alissa: Doesn't mean Right. Which I think is where it gets confusing that
• 1:19
  Chris: The other side of the fence.
• 1:20
  Alissa: That doesn't mean that every sin is morally equal.
• 1:24
  Chris: Right. So And this is where people's red flags are going to be like, what do you mean by that?
• 1:30
  Alissa: Right.
• 1:30
  Chris: We'll get there. We won't be able to spend six hours on it, but we'll get there.
• 1:34
  Alissa: Okay. So welcome back to Reimaged. We are looking forward to this podcast episode where we're going to talk about why the first right matters as it pertains to abortion, being the right to life. So we've already laid out in previous episodes, the Gospel and the sanctity of human life. Today, I think we'd like to dive a little deeper into the theological question underneath and hopefully explore why abortion is so important to us and keeping in mind that all theological and moral issues carry significant weight.
• 2:20
  But why do we focus primarily abortion? Why is that something, you know, like how Kurt had said, it's the tip of the spear for us. Why do we say that abortion is the tip of the spear?
• 2:32
  Chris: Yeah, because ultimately our heart is to help other, we believe anyway, that if people see things through the Father's heart for life, that that would raise this issue in their everyday life. Correct. So I hope that today's conversation will help more people enter into that conversation in that way and maybe get to that place where we say, Oh, I see why you're making claims that abortion might be a bigger issue than issue X, Y, Z kind thing. Not to say that there's issues that aren't worth spending time on, but that why we say this is the tip of the spear for the enemy.
• 3:19
  Alissa: What if being pro life is bigger than we think? We're asking honest questions and exploring what scripture says about the value of every human life. This is Reimaged, bringing pro life into Gospel Focus. So, yes, we will try to unpack this the best that we can and give what we think there are some good scriptures
• 3:55
  Chris: Right.
• 3:55
  Alissa: As a foundation. In fact, there was a verse in Proverbs that you wanted to read.
• 4:01
  Chris: Right? So Proverbs six, it's one of the primary verses that always passages that stands out to me. And we use this in our training, and I'll just read it. Proverbs six sixteen-nineteen says that there are six things that the Lord hates, some versions will say detests, seven that are an abomination to him. And then he lists them and it says in 17, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among believers or brothers.
• 4:46
  So this is saying that... It's not saying that God doesn't hate all sin, but what he's doing is he's pointing out there are these specific things that the Lord particularly loathes or hates or detests. That, by implication, says, I think there are some moral differences between one sin and another.
• 5:09
  Alissa: For sure. And I think we all intuitively know that as well. And that's definitely true in the human realm. Right? We have very different degrees of punishment for different ways that we break the law or whatever.
• 5:25
  Chris: Our... I mean, as much... Even if you're a non believer, like, you don't have to agree with me, but history points back to biblical times. The first times where there were judgments on earth were things that
• 5:39
  Alissa: Mhmm.
• 5:39
  Chris: Human beings were experiencing, looking to God for guidance, and the 10 commandments were given, and all these other laws. And God basically said, oh, here's what I want you to do in that situation.
• 5:50
  Alissa: Right.
• 5:50
  Chris: And in that situation, your goat's killed? Well, here's what you do.
• 5:53
  Alissa: Mhmm.
• 5:54
  Chris: Or somebody does this crime, this is what you do. So even looking back to that, like, we get our standard of how we cast judgment based on historical things pointing back to Moses and the law and the law of God. So even back then, God didn't say any sin equals the same judgment. Why?
• 6:17
  Alissa: Right.
• 6:17
  Chris: Because some sins are different or morally weightier than others.
• 6:24
  Alissa: Yep. And our claim would be that shedding innocent blood Right. Abortion is at the top of one of those of... If you wanna say a moral category, that would be at the top. Another thing that came to mind while you were talking, though, is...
• 6:42
  You'll probably have to help me with the exact wording. But when God was going to judge the earth with the flood Right. It was that the amount and the level of sin had gotten so profoundly wicked. What was the wording that men did hide only evil? Like...
• 7:02
  Chris: Genesis six:five says, The Lord saw that the wickedness of man, mankind, was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So it got to the point where God was like, this is getting so bad. I'm going to hit the restart button.
• 7:22
  Alissa: Right.
• 7:23
  Chris: And I'm going to save one family, and everything else is going to be demolished.
• 7:27
  Alissa: Right. Were there other verses that are good reminders or good to talk about as far as establishing how God views sin in different categories? Or should we
• 7:42
  Chris: Yeah. I think one that stands out is even thinking of Pilate. Where is it? I think we have it written down here somewhere where Jesus is in front of Pilate.
• 7:54
  Alissa: John 19?
• 7:55
  Chris: Yeah. John nineteen eleven. Yeah. Where Jesus says that those who put him before Pilate are of the greater sin. Meaning, you know, he's not blaming Pilate saying, you're the one that put me in this.
• 8:08
  It actually was their sin. And there's speculation. We were talking about this earlier where... Was that Judas or was that the Pharisees? But, like, there's that...
• 8:19
  Maybe it's implying both, but either one, whether Judas or the Pharisees, what he's saying is those who knew better.
• 8:27
  Alissa: Right.
• 8:27
  Chris: Now going back to the Proverbs thing
• 8:29
  Alissa: Mhmm.
• 8:29
  Chris: Like Proverbs six
• 8:31
  Alissa: Yep.
• 8:31
  Chris: What he's pointing out is these leaders or Judas who was with me Yeah. All of these people who put me before you, their sin is greater because they knew better.
• 8:43
  Alissa: Right.
• 8:44
  Chris: They saw this coming. Yep. They knew the prophecies. They saw me fulfill these prophecies. Yet they still advised wicked plans.
• 8:52
  Yet they still... Their feet moved toward wickedness. Their hearts were lying. They used their mouths to speak lies against me, and then they even devised brothers amongst each other. Like, you look at that Proverbs six passage, he's saying they were doing all of that.
• 9:10
  Theirs Right. Is the greater sin. So even that points to there's a different distinction between...
• 9:17
  Alissa: Moral weightiness. Yeah,
• 9:19
  Chris: And in the line of abortion, hands that shed innocent blood. Correct. Now does that mean hands that shed sinless blood? No. No.
• 9:30
  Because there is no sinless, innocent per se on earth. We're all born into wickedness or born into sin or conceived in sin. So what it's saying is that you're somebody who's undeserving of that act.
• 9:47
  Alissa: Right.
• 9:47
  Chris: Like, this is not war. It's not people warring against each other. This is not an enemy... Like, somebody who's innocent, who is not deserving of any of this, you're shedding their blood. Right.
• 9:59
  And who is the most innocent among all creation?
• 10:03
  Alissa: A child in the womb who has never even had the opportunity to make a decision for themselves. So in that sense, they are innocent from that perspective. From a human perspective, they are innocent of all decision making culpability, though we obviously would affirm the doctrine of original sin. Yes.
• 10:25
  Chris: Yes.
• 10:25
  Alissa: Yep. So... And you already kind of talked about this. A lot of the things that makes a sin more grievous than another would be things like deprivation, serious injury, intentional taking of life, knowing, kind of like what you were saying, like, having that knowledge and still acting in wickedness. Because, obviously, we can still commit a sin almost in some ways unintentionally or without forethought.
• 11:00
  Right. Specifically, I think... And it was make... It made me think of this when you were speaking earlier, the passage about even saying not all of you should be teachers. Right.
• 11:12
  It's hiring that standard for the more that you know, the more that you're taking on responsibility, especially within the church itself.
• 11:23
  Chris: Yeah. There's a different culpability. There's a different responsibility.
• 11:26
  Alissa: Yes. You have a higher standard as a teacher of scripture than someone who has not studied scripture because you know more. Right. And so it makes it more grievous when someone who has that knowledge still chooses to go against what they know to be right.
• 11:47
  Chris: Yeah, in fact, somebody who misleads, somebody who knows the truth and then misleads people away from the truth and teaches a false gospel, false doctrine, basically are called wolves. Yeah. Like they're made in to be the enemy kind of thing. So there is many things in scripture that point to there's a different weight to different things.
• 12:08
  Alissa: Yes.
• 12:09
  Chris: And again, pointing back to abortion, the reason that we are so passionate about that issue, not singularly, but as the issue that the enemy uses at the tip of his spear. And we always say the tip of the spear because it's first moment that life exists, but it's also the most attacked life in all of creation. There is no other cause of human death greater than abortion. And again, saying that means you have to recognize that that is a life. But we're entering that conversation from that understanding and that agreement with each other that at conception or at fertilization that that is a life.
• 12:53
  Alissa: Right.
• 12:54
  Chris: And if it is, we know, I mean, according to an organization that doesn't benefit from telling this, Guttmacher Institute reports seventy three million, I think, a year globally in abortions. And again, that's just what's reported and tracked or able to be tracked. The numbers could be way higher than that, could be moderately higher than that. But even if that number is a 100 accurate, that's more than twenty five percent of all conceptions every year reported. There is no other human cause of death greater than that.
• 13:33
  You could even take the other greater, like really large causes of death and combine them and they don't Right. Match So we call it the tip of the spear from the enemy because it's a, the first moment that life exists and also the greatest attack on life where there's no other cause of death greater. Yeah. Wars, heart disease, kidney disease, anything. List any of those things.
• 14:00
  There's nothing greater than that cause of death. Yeah. And it's innocent life, meaning they don't make any choices. Right. There's...
• 14:10
  They're kind of voiceless. There's nobody speaking for them except for those
• 14:13
  Alissa: They're definitely voiceless. Yeah.
• 14:15
  Chris: So we're passionate about saying, let's stop people being led to the slaughter.
• 14:21
  Alissa: Right. And not only that, we're saying that is the first human right.
• 14:26
  Chris: Right.
• 14:27
  Alissa: And everybody wants to claim that they're for human rights. Right. And we're just saying you have to take it a step back further to where human life actually begins. And if we've... If we value human life enough and so much that we value it from the moment of conception, then it's just gonna naturally follow that you would value human life in every point following that.
• 14:50
  Chris: Right. We say it all the time in our trainings. If you can devalue the most innocent of life, it's far easier to devalue less innocent life. Right. Like, I've made poor choices in life.
• 15:01
  I've sinned against people. I've hurt people. It'd much easier to devalue my life than a very innocent life.
• 15:08
  Alissa: Right.
• 15:08
  Chris: Because I actually have done wrong against people. I actually have sinned against people. Yep. So I'm easy to not like at times.
• 15:16
  Alissa: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But in in all seriousness, bringing that back around. So even though we feel strongly and feel like we could pretty easily defend the fact that abortion is one of the most weighty moral issues, Even someone who has had an abortion, even a doctor who has performed hundreds of abortions
• 15:47
  Chris: Or thousands. Yeah.
• 15:48
  Alissa: Or thousands. We are not saying that they are beyond God's grace.
• 15:53
  Chris: Right.
• 15:54
  Alissa: So how would you...
• 15:55
  Chris: So this goes back to, again, all sin is equal in the sense of judgment.
• 16:06
  Alissa: Separating us from God.
• 16:07
  Chris: Separating us from God. Yep. But Christ's sacrifice on the cross, fill in the blank, equally forgives for any and all sin.
• 16:20
  Alissa: Yes.
• 16:21
  Chris: Pays... So Christ offers his redemption for equally all of it. Right. So in any way that we sin, any way that we separate ourselves from God, we can also be forgiven from that. Not only just forgiven, like, okay, the cost of that debt is removed Mhmm.
• 16:44
  You can actually be set free from it and actually be healed Yes. Because of that. And I'm not just talking physically. I think we talked about this in our first episode, but also emotionally, spiritually. The shame can be put off.
• 17:00
  Yep. The anguish can be put off. Like, all of these things, you can actually walk free from that. Right. And that's kind of all in the earthly realm, but also live and walk as a new creation now on earth, but also eternally.
• 17:19
  So Jesus' work on the cross and not only the cross but the resurrection gives us all we need for life and godliness here and eternal life in heaven. Correct. So let's summarize where we've been. We established the whole first point we made was that at conception, at the earliest stage of life, we all have a right to life. That's something that Life International, we're very passionate about.
• 17:46
  Alissa: Yep. That's where human rights begin.
• 17:48
  Chris: Right. And then we started to look into sin and how there's different things between different sins, but that all sin is equal in condemnation as far as it separates us from God, but not all sin is equal. In this earthly realm that we live in, there are different consequences to sin and different weight to sin or brevity to sin.
• 18:11
  Alissa: Yes. Yep. There definitely... I mean, just to reiterate what you said, we are all equally fall short of the glory of God. Right.
• 18:23
  But that doesn't mean that we all have the exact same things that we struggle with or the exact same sins that we deal with in our lives. But it's like the separation from a holy God is true of all of us Right. Which also makes it so that none of us ought to ever feel self righteous or like we can
• 18:43
  Chris: We have nothing to stand on.
• 18:45
  Alissa: Be condemning of anyone else. Right. We can still call sin sin, obviously, and say what is right and wrong because of what the Lord has revealed to us. But there's never a place for a true Christian to stand in judgment over someone else. Right.
• 19:00
  So... Right. Yep. And then I think...
• 19:03
  Chris: So in that, we all need the righteousness of Christ Right. Which is only given... Just to make it clear Yep. Which is only given and done through the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• 19:17
  Alissa: Right. We can't look to our own righteousness, and we can't look at our own sin and bad works. We are
• 19:23
  Chris: fully dependent on the Lord. Place of being separated from God and brings us into his presence, And I am now a child of God. Right. Not just an image bearer, now a child of God. Yes.
• 19:34
  And I can stand in freedom before him, in righteousness before him.
• 19:38
  Alissa: Exactly. Yeah. And then I think maybe just to talk a little bit about the consequences that come with sin, there are differences in consequences, too, which I think points back to the point that we were trying to make. Abortion doesn't only affect the baby, of course, and it doesn't only affect the mother, even though those are the two closest to the act that, you know. So certainly, there are major consequences there.
• 20:09
  But it also has ripple effects on people surrounding that.
• 20:15
  Chris: Yeah. I think of any area of sin in my life. And let's like... I've often thought of, like, food as an area of my life where I could easily sin, and it does not have a long ripple effect that affects other people. It mostly affects me.
• 20:29
  If I overeat or I eat unhealthy things all the time, it starts to affect me. I don't feel as good, I might gain weight, I might not be as healthy, etcetera, etcetera. I might become more prone to be addicted to something. That's affecting me and it might affect my family to a certain extent. It might affect other people to some extent.
• 20:49
  But when you talk about things like abortion, it's not a simple somebody chooses to have an abortion, then it ends there. There's a long ripple effect, which the abortion industry does not
• 21:03
  Alissa: Want you to know.
• 21:04
  Chris: Give much time to or much reality to. They work hard to make sure you understand it's just a simple decision that you can take care of this crisis you're in very quickly and simply. It's not as simple and quick as everybody says. There's a long ripple effect that happens because of that. In our trainings, like in our journey of a life giver training, we talk about this and we say it obviously affects the person who's had the abortion.
• 21:35
  It obviously affects the person who's being aborted. A life has ended. Sometimes there's another person who's aware or is involved in that decision, the father of the child. Sometimes they're involved, sometimes they're not, but it affects them. Parents of the person who's choosing the abortion.
• 21:58
  Sometimes the parents choose it for that person, so there's a ripple And if you just play that out to the siblings, if they exist, who don't have a brother or sister now, or the grandparents, society... And on top of that, if somebody who chooses that and is not open about it, they often experience shame and confusion, anxiety, which that alone then affects their other children if they have them or the people they're in relationship with. So there's a long list of ways that abortion causes many ripple effects. So there's consequences, not just from a judgment standpoint, but from a personal, emotional, spiritual, relational standpoint. There's many effects and consequences from that choice.
• 22:55
  Alissa: Yeah. And like you've already mentioned, we have the privilege of working with people all around the world, not only Christian leaders who often are a part of our Journey of a Life Giver training, but the people that they are then ministering to. And we we have the opportunity to walk alongside and hear the stories of many of these people. And I think a lot of it, a lot of the stories that I hear in particular, have to do with people coming to an understanding of the truth of how destructive abortion is, what, you know, kind of all of the stuff that we've already unpacked with it being an attack on God directly Right. Because of being an image bearer of God.
• 23:42
  But also, that's why we have found it so important to offer abortion healing and to explain God's goodness and forgiveness for people and the freedom that they can have to walk in the truth that they are forgiven. And then also see them have that redemption and want to then use their story for good and the way that God redeems not Right. Only the individual Yes. God not only redeems the individual, but He redeems the situation and uses it for His purposes. And so that has been such a big part of what we do.
• 24:26
  And I would say a big part of what motivates us to continue this work is seeing the healing and the freedom that comes with people recognizing these truths.
• 24:36
  Chris: Yeah. One of my favorite moments in our trainings, it's always difficult, it's challenging, but one of my favorite moments is when you get to witness somebody who's able to put off sometimes years long of burden and shame, something that's been hidden and they've said, I haven't felt like I could talk to people about this. But you see them understand the Father's heart, not just for life in this category of life, but the Father's heart for them.
• 25:06
  Alissa: For them.
• 25:06
  Chris: And you realize they are able to express this gratitude and thanksgiving and to just surrender it to the Lord and they literally, it's almost like you can see their shoulders lift and they walk away from that saying, I've carried this burden for so long because of all these ripple effects.
• 25:25
  Alissa: Yeah.
• 25:25
  Chris: And now I feel like for the first time in however many years I'm walking free from that. To be able to witness that is, again, what motivates us to say, Why do we fight so hard for this? Well, because I want people to see their freedom in Christ and recognize you can actually have it. Yes. Even though you made that decision or somebody made that decision for you.
• 25:46
  Now, whatever that tragedy was, whatever that crisis was Yeah. He can actually do the work of redemption in you. Yeah. What... However complicated and tied up knot of a mess that is, he can do it.
• 25:59
  Yep. And he does. And I'm telling you, we've seen some crazy stories come to reality where you just walk away and say, can't believe we just witnessed that. Yeah. People come back from trainings all the time and say this.
• 26:16
  And we just keep shaking our heads thinking, are, at this point, why are we surprised? God keeps doing all this amazing stuff.
• 26:22
  Alissa: We
• 26:22
  Chris: should just expect it.
• 26:23
  Alissa: Yeah.
• 26:24
  Chris: So we do kind of get to that point. But that's why we're so passionate about this. To see people, not just the life of the infant saved, which is a major driving point for us, but also to see people walking in freedom who have even made choices before that they regret.
• 26:42
  Alissa: Yeah. Hope and a future, right? It's for all of us. Even those of us who have not experienced abortion and those who have. Our only hope for each and every one of us is Jesus.
• 26:57
  So, all right.
• 27:00
  Chris: So thanks for joining us. This has been another episode of Reimaged. So email us. I'm sure there's questions that people have. We'd love to have you write in, tell us what you, have questions about this episode or previous episodes or what you'd like to hear about.
• 27:18
  Maybe there's things that you have that you'd like to ask questions about. So email us at reimagedlifeinternational dot com and we're looking forward to the next episode.
• 27:27
  Alissa: Sounds good.