What The Bible Says About Abortion

The Four Biblical Babies in the Womb

Jeremiah in the Womb

(Baby # 1)

Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations. Jeremiah 1:5

The scripture passage above, is what God said to Jeremiah when Jeremiah was a young man. In this conversation, God reveals a mystery to Jeremiah. The mystery is that God knew Jeremiah before he was formed in the belly…yes, actually before God even formed him in the womb.

Is God meaning that he knew Jeremiah’s spirit before conception? Let’s remember that our spirit is the part of us that is eternal…and therefore the most important part of us. And since the spirit of a person is our most important and immortal essence, it seems most likely that God was speaking primarily of knowing Jeremiah’s “spirit”, before Jeremiah was formed in the belly.

Further, the calling of Jeremiah to be a prophet, is a spiritual calling. So, God would have been setting-apart and appointing Jeremiah’s spirit to be a prophet, even before placement in the womb.

As individual humans, we possess a bundle of identities.…

1. A flesh nature (cravings)
2. A soul nature— animals have a soul nature also… a personality if you will, even though not possessing an immortal spirit.
3. A mind—which can ponder and offer different conclusions than which either the soul nature, or spirit nature might have preferred.
4. Instincts—which may be categorically different from other identities.
5. And an immortal spirit—the part of us that immediately lives on after the physical death of everything else listed above (as in the Titanic reference).

We all hope that our hearts (our spirits) will live on… because they are the most important part of us. But on earth unfortunately, we spend much of our time interacting with activities involved with the other essences within our bundle of identities. Those other activities can often seem more immediate, distracting from the eternal…and the spiritual. The apostle Paul clarified that this is why he endeavored to focus on spiritual things. His purpose was to minimize the focus on everything else except the spirit.

We are…willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. [Meaning to be present in the spirit with God]. II Corinthians 5:8

If we live in the Spirit [Paul said], let us also walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5:25

Nevertheless, the entire cluster of our bundled identities, including our spirit, are conversationally lumped together for convenience, into just one identity. This is usually referred to in the singular, as our personal identity.

When these multiple elements of our bundle of identities are not all acting in harmony, people often refer to their condition as being “torn” between two directions. But the larger point here is, that the spirit is one of the identities within this bundle, and a separate nature from the other identities. (And God wants us to be led by our spirit nature.)

For a scriptural example of being “torn” between two paths, Paul says,

Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh [the other identities].

For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other…

Galatians 5:16, 17

So, now we have distinguished the separate identity of our spirit. But to understand how God could possibly know Jeremiah’s spirit, and by extension our spirits, before conception, we have to contemplate the abstract thought that God is beyond space and time. He knows the future somehow before it happens. This is how God’s prophets have predicted the future, as recorded and fulfilled many times throughout the Bible.

For an example of the mysterious aspect of the Biblical perspective of God seeing the future (and being outside of space and time), in the Scriptures it was foreknown before the foundation of the world that mankind would sin. This pre-knowing Biblical revelation is nearly never discussed in depth, and seldom even spoken of here on earth. Consequently, it is virtually unknown. Nevertheless, it is a point of comparison, in our discussion of how God could foreknow our individual spirits (but in a related way, a perspective on the concept that God foreknows the future).

The Bible reveals that it was actually foreordained in heaven, before the foundation of the world, that Christ would come and redeem us from our sins through his death in our place, as that of a sinless sacrificial lamb. This, because it was foreknown that the original sin would occur, and if God is merciful, then God’s desire for a redemption from sin for us, was foredecided as well, and provision was made for us in advance,

…with the precious blood of Christ, as of a [sacrificial] lamb without blemish and without spot:

Who truly was foreordained before the foundation of the world…I Peter 1:18, 19

And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, [even those] whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

The Apostle John, in Revelation 13:8

So, how God could foreknow Jeremiah’s spirit, and ours before being formed in the womb, is a mystery to us. But it fits with God’s transcendent ability to pre-know all things on earth, and in history. We ourselves, are bound within the dimension of human space and time, compared to God, who apparently is not.