God formed the first man and woman in His image and breathed within them the breath of life (Genesis 2:7).    The Creator of all things lavishly implanted the supernatural gift of creating life from within the bodies of a man and a woman.   God conferred a blessing with a command to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:27,28).  But what does the Bible say about the Creator’s involvement in the womb? Let’s consider the purpose, presence, and proof of God in the secret place.

PURPOSE

God blessed Adam and Eve with the ability to create a child.  The continuance of this gift of creation further identifies the purpose of each baby before being born.  Scripture validates the creation in the womb has a divine purpose, inferring that in God’s values there is no differentiation between being in the womb or already born. 

The word used to describe an unborn or living baby is interchangeable in the scriptures.  The original language Greek word “brephos” represents either the unborn or the alive baby.  This word is used to describe the unborn baby in Elizabeth and Mary, the mother of Jesus.  But it also represents the infants brought to Jesus. 

When Mary arrives, Elizabeth is six month’s pregnant.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,

the baby (brephos) leaped in her womb. Luke 1:41

Notice the same word, brephos, describes the newborn baby, Jesus.

This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby (brephos)

wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.  Luke 2:12

Another passage in Luke 18:15 uses the same word, brephos, to describe babies or infants. 

People were also bringing babies (brephos) to Jesus

for him to place his hands on them. 

Notice this further affirmation.  When Elizabeth though barren, becomes pregnant in her old age in response to prayer, an angel appeared to her husband and described the life of the unborn, complete with gender, name, and purpose.  The Holy Spirit was active within the womb, filling the child before birth.  Amazing! 

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.   He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,  for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.   And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.    Luke 1:13b-17

THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CONCEPTION 

Joseph, doubtful of Mary’s pregnancy by the Holy Spirit has a visit by an angel.  This child would be the Messiah, called Jesus, and again the angel gave his gender, name, and purpose.

An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Mathew 1:20-21).

One more scripture from the Old Testament calls the unborn twins in the womb, “the children.”  Once more the purpose of these twins is given before their birth. 

Later, Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD heard his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD, and He declared to her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger”(Genesis 25:22).

PRESENCE  –  GOD IN THE SECRET PLACE  PSALM 139

Psalm 139 is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible.  My mom was unable to have children after the first three siblings were born.  My siblings are eight, ten and twelve years older than I.  However,  though impossible, according to her doctor, I came along on April Fool’s Day!  My picture here with some tears.  This chapter from God’s word settled my questions regarding my value and purpose.   God had a divine destiny for me, as he does for everyone. 

Psalm 139, a psalm of the King and great musician, David, reveals his deep love for the Lord.  David undoubtedly indicates God was present and working before he was born, while still in his mother’s womb.  Read it carefully.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

God created life in the innermost part of the womb (v 13).  The knitting together is like a picture of beautiful embroidery work, delicate and miraculous.   “Your eyes saw my unformed body” in the “secret place” (from the Hebrew word sather – covering, hiding place, or be concealed) in the womb.   God is present in that safe, protected secret place of the womb, a place of refuge and safety as described in Psalm 91:1.  He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (NKJV).

                                                     Photo by Alicia Petresc, Unsplash

This sacred space in the womb is the work of the Creator from the first cell to the fully grown human.

This Psalm shouts the encompassing, inescapable, enveloping, encircling omnipresence of God. 

Your Spirit is everywhere I go. I cannot escape your presence (Psalm 139:7 ESV).

To be present with someone means you are near, close, hearing, touching, sensing, seeing, loving.  God’s omnipresence in the womb indicates the care and value God places on each life created.

SET APART BEFORE BIRTH

God’s presence in the “secret place” propels us to reckon with life before birth, specific purpose, name, and gender, another indication of God’s love from the womb to a full grown man or woman.     

Jeremiah

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.”  Jeremiah 1:5

Isaiah The prophet Isaiah writes all of Israel was chosen by God while still in the womb.  While in the womb they were not distinguished from or considered less than human. 

Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb

he has spoken my name (Isaiah 49:1)

Israel

But now listen, Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen. This is what the Lord says—
    he who made you, who formed you in the womb,
    and who will help you:  Do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant,
    Jeshurun (the upright one, Israel), whom I have chosen. Isaiah 44:1-2

David   

Besides Psalm 139, David wrote this verse in his old age.

Upon you I have learned from before my birth;  you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.  My praise is continually of you.  ESV Psalm 71:6

David also makes a significant remark when he says that while in his mother’s womb he was sinful at conception.  Only a person can have a sin nature.  Psalm 51:5

Paul, the Apostle 

But when God,  who set me apart from my mother’s womb

and called me by his grace. Galatians 1:15

Isaac

Sarah, at age 90 had a child, Isaac, after being barren all her life. 

Genesis 11:30  Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.

That child fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham that he, though his wife barren, would become the father of many nations.  This unborn child, a gift from God, carried the fulfillment of God’s promise with the birth of Isaac.  Even before Isaac was born, his purpose was rooted in God’s divine plan. Though in the womb, God visualized this new life as the child with a promise.

John the Baptist

The forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist, was divinely purposed before conceived by barren Elizabeth and priest Zechariah and were very old.  While Zechariah was on priestly duty in the Temple and an angel announced his wife would be the mother of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus.  (Luke 1:5-25).  Again, God saw the life of John the Baptist before he was born.

Jesus

 Mary, the mother of Jesus, heard the angel declare his life’s mission was inaugurated before he was born.

You will conceive and give birth to a son,

and you are to call him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 

and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever;

his kingdom will never end. (Luke 1:31-33).

PROOF – LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION

The cell formed by the union of the male sperm and the female ovum, the zygote, is a unique genetic microscopic cell containing the DNA of a child that is unique from any other human.  The Zygote biologically guides the development attributes and genetic factors that will be present in childhood and adulthood — such as personality, hair color, eye color, freckles, curly or straight hair.  That single cell develops into some 6,000 million cells that become a living, breathing person.

Scientific and medical professionals confirm life begins at conception.

• Alexander Tsiaras, the creator of the MRI and associate professor of medicine and chief of scientific visualization at Yale University in the department of medicine, shares a powerful medical visualization that shows human development from conception to birth and beyond. A MUST SEE!  https://www.ted.com/talks/alexander_tsiaras_conception_to_birth_visualized

“Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us? It’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity.”            —Alexander Tsiaras

From the Senate Judiciary Committee, The Human Life Bill,  of physicians, biologists, and scientists: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011342020

• Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic: “by all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
• Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”
• Professor of genetics at the U of Descartes in Paris, Dr. Jerome Lejeune, stated,  “Each has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

Professor Matthew-Roth testified before the Senate regarding embryonic stem cell cloning.

• “Physicians are not supposed to kill human beings of any age. Trying to justify the killing of what we know are very young (5 to 7-day old) human beings, even for the very laudable purpose of trying to cure disease, is ethically unacceptable: a good end (successfully treating disease) never justifies using evil means (killing a young human to get its cells) to obtain the good end.” https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/matthews-roth_testimony_03_19_03.pdf

The founder of the NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League), Dr. Bernard Nathanson, resigned as the clinic director of the largest abortion clinic upon discovering conclusive evidence the child in the womb is a human being, unlike anyone else. His study in the science of fetology and seeing an ultrasound Dr. Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine he was deeply troubled that he had performed over 60,000 deaths in the largest abortion clinic.

LAWS OF HOMICIDE

A life taken from a mother and her unborn baby is murder, a double homicide.  According to the law, when the mother and the unborn are harmed or murdered, the same penalty applies to the mother and the unborn.  The commandment, Thou shalt not kill (murder) includes the killing of any human life, born or unborn.

Exodus 21:22-25 states the penalty for killing or injuring a child in the womb. 

If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth

prematurely, but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined

whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.  But

if there is a serious injury, you are to take life for life,  eye for eye,

 tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,  burn for burn, wound

 for wound, bruise for bruise.

                                       Photo by Mon Petit Chou Photography – Unsplash

God is the author of life and the creator of the birth process.  Each person formed in “the secret place” is complete with a sacred, divine purpose.  Not all are called to be prophets or kings, yet God sees the unborn as a person with given purpose and meaning.  God, the author of life, values and loves each baby in the womb.  The little life that develops from one cell into 600 million cells is a miraculous gift from the Creator of all things, through the love of a man and a woman.   

You are a miracle! Let that sink deeply into your heart and mind today! God’s purpose for you is right.  You are valuable and known by God since before you were born.  If you are a parent or plan to become one, be encouraged that God has a divine destiny for each little life you bring into this world. 

God longs to be present with you, in your divine purpose, complete with God’s love as proof of God’s existence in the “secret place.”

My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place.  Psalm 139:15