86 - Conception or Birth? [C]

Hebrews  Lesson 86 

  April 26, 2007

^NKJ Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

We are in Hebrews 7. We started this two or three weeks ago. Then I was gone last Thursday night when I went up to Preston City. I had three nights there and covered in three nights what I covered in I think 4 weeks here on Sunday morning on music and worship. So everybody got a break last Thursday night. Now we are back to our study of Hebrews. 

Just to give you a framework or reminder rather of where we are, we are in Hebrews 7 at a very important passage that is frequently misapplied and misunderstood. It has to do with the context of the paying of tithes from Abraham to Melchizedek. There is a statement made in Hebrews 7:9-10 that is somewhat cryptic. 

^NKJ Hebrews 7:9 Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak,

Even Levi (of course he was many generations after Abraham - 3 generations after Abraham) who receives tithes paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak. The key word there is that phrase "so to speak." "In a manner of speaking" indicates clearly the author is talking about a figure of speech here. He is not talking literally. 

It is so important to come back and to take the time to investigate details when we are applying a literal principle of hermeneutic. It can get confusing in places. We will see that when we get into some passages later on in our study of Revelation. But here the author is simply using this to reinforce a point within the structure of his whole argument that Levi being a great-grandson of Abraham (since Abraham was inferior to Melchizedek) that Levi, the head of the tribe for the Levitical priesthood, would also be inferior to Melchizedek; and therefore the Levitical priesthood is inferior to the Melchizedekean priesthood. But there have been those in the history of Christianity who have taken this in a more literal manner. They have developed a view that would suggest that Levi was in some sense actually there paying tithes to Abraham. That would mean that for parents whether we are talking about ancient history with Adam or Noah or Abraham or modern times that subsequent generations are in some sense fully present in the activities of the previous generations. 

This brings up a topic that is very important for contemporary issues on the origin and transmission of human life. As we have studied this I have pointed out that there are two positions historically. The position to which I just referred - that there is some level of physical presence of one generation in previous generations - is known as Traducianism. This is the idea that both the material body and the immaterial soul are transmitted through physical procreation. Now what I think is interesting and problematic for this view is - how can the material produce the immaterial? I think it is a problem for many Christians because they want to hold to an immaterial soul. What is interesting is that Tertullian who developed this position did not hold to an immaterial soul but held that the soul was material. I find that certain objections that Traducianists have to the other position still work only if you presuppose a certain amount of materiality to the soul. We are going to have to examine that as we go through some of the details. I just want to do a little review to get you up-to-date and up-to-speed with where we have been already. 

The other position is the creationist position. Now in the last 40 years or so, since the abortion debate has come along and with the decision Roe vs. Wade back in 1973, this position has fallen on hard times. That is because many people today automatically assume that a creationist position is somehow pro-abortion. Historically it is not a position that has been pro-abortion. I think that is the fault of theologians, and it is also the fault of liberal Christians who have taken this position. It is the fault of people who have politicized theological positions. Creationism teaches that only the body is generated through physical creation and that the soul is directly created by God. Hence for creationists God indirectly creates the body by intermediate means and the soul is created directly by God. The body is created indirectly through normal means of procreation. The soul though is created directly by God through immediate means. 

Now here is a key verse. The issue here (Bear with me. We are going to cover new ground. Each time we sort of peel back this onion, we are going a little deeper into it) is whether or not this describes the original creation or whether this describes a pattern that is true for every human being in every generation. Traducianists will say (I alluded to an article in the recent "Israel My Glory" magazine by Reynold Showers who did a very superficial job of interacting with the creationists position) this is a one-time event. Well, it doesn't do justice to many other passages, as I will show you. 

^NKJ Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Now last time I focused on the key noun which is neshamah for breath of life. Let's look at some other key vocabulary in this particular verse because it comes up in other subsequent passages in Isaiah and Job and places like that are important. They get their terminology from this passage.

This is a word used for how a potter would shape clay. It is the Hebrew verb yatsar. It is one of the three or four different verbs used for creation. You have bara which only God does. You have asah which is a general term for making or doing something. You have yatsar which is the idea of physically shaping or fashioning something - forming or molding it. You also have the verb banah which means to build. Yatsar here refers to God forming man of the dust of the ground. This is the formation, the structuring of the physical body of man and it's separate from that which energizes man which is clearly immaterial at this point. 

He breathes into man's nostrils. This is the Hebrew verb naphah. What is interesting is that I looked this up somewhere today as I was studying and doing additional reading on this subject. They said that this is a metaphor. This is just a figure of speech.  God didn't actually breathe into the body. The more we get into this, the more we battle this whole thing of literal interpretation. What in the text tells us that this would just be an image and not literal activity? Where do we go? If God didn't literally breathe into the dust of the ground, did God even use the dust of the ground? Did God even form it? How do we know He did anything when we start saying everything is just a figure of speech? You have to be able to demonstrate from the context and from usage that something is a figure of speech.

Neshama is the breath of life here. 

So "breathing" and "breath" are terms used to refer to that which is immaterial and is related to the concept of wind as it were. So man is described as a living being. We have two words here. We have a verb hajah which is a noun that means a living thing, an animal, a beast. The basic meaning of this is usually related to animals or beasts. Then you have the noun nephesh which is the word that is normally translated soul. But it also has a broad range of meanings. Just because you see the word nephesh there, people automatically jump to soul and the concept that it's later developed when we get to the New Testament. Here it just refers to the immaterial part of man. It includes both what we later call the human soul and the spirit. Nephesh can mean wind, breath, soul, the animating principle of life, emotion. It can be a term for a person – like how many souls went down when the Titanic sunk? That is the idea - a passion or desire. It has a broad range of meanings. Sometimes it really overlaps with the word ruach which is the word for spirit, normally referring to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. But ruach also means wind or breath. It is important to pay attention to these ideas because they emphasize the immaterial basis for what animates the physical body. It is the coming together of the material body and the immaterial soul that produces full human life here.

What is important as I pointed out last time is that we can't minimize the importance of the physical body here at all. I pointed out going to Luke 16 that even in the intermediate stage there is an intermediate body. The soul can't exist without a body. The body issue has been a problem for Christians for centuries, since the influence of neo-Platonism in the early church. We have to recognize that the Scripture puts a high value on the body. 

You see in Platonism (We go back to a chart I used when we talked about history of music and art) it is the house. The house represents the totality of creation. What happens in Greek thought is the introduction of a dichotomy – a separation as it were of two different levels of existence or knowledge. This goes back to Plato. Plato used a very famous image in his book The Republic where he talks about being in a cave. All people are in a cave. All they see is shadows on the wall. When you see anything in this life, anything that is in the material world, that is just a shadow of ultimate reality. So when you see a chair that is a pale imitation and reflection of some ideal chair that exists in some ideal realm. So ultimate reality (We might call it "real" reality without being redundant) is this upper story which he called the realm of forms or ideas. It has to do with the essences of things. 

It is interesting just as a little side note that the Greek word for form is morphe. It had to do with the essence of things. See it talks about how the Second Person of the Trinity in Philippians 2 is the morphe of God – the form of God. He didn't think being in the form of God was something to be held after. That is what he is talking about there - He didn't think being in the essence of God. So that word carries that connotation. 

You have this ultimate realm out there where reality is. That is where there is some sort of eternal reason, rationality, order, truth, and beauty. All exists at this upper story level. But what happens in reality - matter is basically evil. It is not really important. It is just a place where our souls get imprisoned for awhile. Remember for Plato, souls pre-existed physical life. They exist and then the body is created and then they are put there and sort of isolated, imprisoned in matter. Later on the Gnostics are going to take that - where you have to learn through knowledge - to be released from this matter or prison. You do that through knowledge and esoteric knowledge and mysticism to approach the upper story. 

What matters are chaos and irrationality and evil. A physical body that houses the soul is basically a trap. It is a prison. It is bad. When this came over into Christianity (because of Genesis 1 when God says that all of this is good, they can't say that matter is bad) it just isn't going to be very important. So the early church always had trouble dealing with the flesh. Not just in terms of sin, but in terms of the importance of the body. Yet when Christ was resurrected what happened there in the grave? Did He just get a new body outside the grave and the old body just stayed there? No. That body that He had from birth is transformed in some way and mortality puts on immortality. That is a terminology that Paul uses in I Corinthians 15. That physical body that was subject to death is transformed to a body that is not going to be subject to death.   

When we get raptured and we are given a resurrection body (that we are physically raptured) there is a transformation that goes up in the process. When you get raptured, your soul is not going zip up to heaven and leave your earthly body behind. Your body goes with you and gets transformed in the resurrection body on the way up so that the present physical body that we have is not insignificant and unimportant. You may not like it. It gets old and is subject to the ravages of time and disease and everything else that we have to put up with, but what I am emphasizing here is in biblical Christianity the physical body is important. We don't have the soul as the main thing and the physical body is just - well we have to put up with it. It is important. 

You can't go back to Genesis 2:7 and say that what is going on here shows the importance of the soul which is the real you and the body is just a bunch of cells and interaction between muscles and air and a lot of neurons and electrical circuits and a heart beating and all that. 

"There is nothing to it."

That is not right. 

When you come into Hebrews as we have seen, Jesus says, "A body You have prepared for Me" so that when God is shaping that body for Adam in Genesis 2:7 this is a body that is going to be the best conceivable physical finite home for the incarnation of the eternal Second Person of the Trinity to give Him the best and the greatest possible way in which He could express all that God is and reveal all that God is. Now that is a pretty developed understanding of the importance of the physical body. 

So we can't just come along and say that whatever this thing is that houses the soul is some sort of afterthought or secondary thing. That idea comes right out of Platonism and neo-Platonism. It is just as much a worldly idea. So we saw that since the original creation God uses indirect means to create physical life through the process of procreation. But since ultimately everything comes from God, the Scripture speaks of immediate creation and mediate involvement of God in the same way. God makes your body. We see that terminology in Psalm 139. We see how David talks about how God is intimately involved in the making of the physical body. That is talking about a more mediate involvement. It is not a direct involvement. It is indirect involvement because he is using the natural processes of procreation. Yet when it comes to the soul there is more of an immediate creation and impartation there. 

Now last time I talked about some passages that show that God uses various indirect means to create physical life talking about the physical processes of birth. Job 1:21; 33:4. Ecclesiastes 12:7 is a key verse.

^NKJ Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

There is the word ruach. The spirit will return to the God who what? Gave it. It directly relates God to the giving of the spirit in that particular passage - making a distinction between the physical, material dust that will return to earth as it was and the spirit that goes to God. 

^NKJ Isaiah 2:22 Sever yourselves from such a man, Whose breath is in his nostrils; For of what account is he?

We have the phrase "sever yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils" talking about life as related to neshamah. The simple point that I am making there is that if the claim is that God's breathing of neshamah in Genesis 2:7 was a one time event, then you wouldn't find that terminology used successively down through the generations. But you do- which shows that it is not a one time event! 

^NKJ Isaiah 42:5 Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it:

Neshamah - God is still giving breath to the people on the earth in spirit - ruach. It is used in parallelism there to neshamah.

We also looked at Isaiah 57:16. 

^NKJ Isaiah 57:16 For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would fail before Me, And the souls which I have made.

Then we came to a fourth point dealing with when does God impart the soul? In other words, does this happen at conception? Does it happen at birth? Is it carried through somehow in the process of procreation? Think about it. Does it come from the egg or the sperm? Which one? Do you get half a soul from one and half from the other? Where does the soul come from? It is interesting. We get into a lot of interesting questions here. Philosophy has always wondered and struggled with trying to explain how an immaterial substance can control a material substance. How can an immaterial thing like the soul control or interact? What is the exact connection between the immaterial soul and the material brain? We have all kinds of questions I can't answer. I can raise them. 

What happens when you have somebody who has a major stroke? What happens if – a case happened several years ago in Arizona where a lady had complete and total amnesia. This went on for years. She didn't know anybody. She didn't know her husband. Her husband rebuilt his entire relationship wit her. She fell in love with him all over again. They got married all over again. She has no recall of the ten years that they were married before the accident - none whatsoever. What happens if someone like that is a believer? What happens to the doctrine in the soul? I don't understand – what happens when parts of the brain are completely destroyed through strokes or brain damage through anything like that? The soul can't use that part of the brain anymore. So it changes things. But there is clearly from the language of Scripture - an immaterial component that links somehow with the material component and manages to utilize it. So when does that come together? Is that transmitted physically? I pointed out that even the angelic doctor Thomas Aquinas in his "Summa Theologica" said that it was heresy to think that the soul was transmitted through the semen. That is a direct quote. So that view was condemned for centuries in the Roman Catholic Church. 

We looked at various terms that were used as we went down through the passage. We looked at terms for birth and we looked at Psalm 22, Psalm 58.

The key passage that we looked at was Isaiah 46:3.  God says…

^NKJ Isaiah 46:3 " Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, Who have been upheld by Me from birth, Who have been carried from the womb:

Mirechem. I said that rechem was a term that referred to the bowels. It is used in synonymous parallelism with the Hebrew word beten which is the womb. The mi is the Hebrew preposition min means out from or from indicating source or origin. 

We see that this phrase from the womb is used in synonymous parallelism with the phrase "from birth". The point that I am going to make and continue through tonight because it is so important is that the Bible never, ever, not once makes the parameters of life conception and death. Not once. The vocabulary is there. I just want to make sure you understand that. The vocabulary is there, but it never uses that vocabulary. It always uses the imagery ofmibeten. From the womb doesn't mean in the womb. I am going to show you that tonight as we look at various passages. It doesn't mean "in the womb". It means from the time of birth. It means "from the time the baby comes out of the womb". That is the starting point. So when God uses a comparison with Israel He doesn't say from conception. He says from birth. That is the starting point - birth.

Job says… 

^NKJ Job 1:21 And he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."

He could have made a better point if he had said, "You know I was conceived and I shouldn't have even been conceived.  My mother should have just had a miscarriage." 

But you see he doesn't say that. 

^NKJ Job 3:11 "Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

Mirechem.

Rechem is sometimes used for the womb.

This phrase "from the womb" is consistently understood by translators as being identical with the concept of "at birth". 

So he doesn't say, "Why didn't my mother just miscarry?" 

He says, "Why didn't I die after I was born?"

The assumption is that he is not a full "I" until birth because it is at birth when that baby takes that first breath – neshamah- and receives a soul from God. 

^NKJ Job 10:19 I would have been as though I had not been. I would have been carried from the womb to the grave.

Carried from womb – mibeten – to tomb.  From womb to tomb - those are the parameters of life.

^NKJ Isaiah 44:2 Thus says the LORD who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you: 'Fear not, O Jacob My servant; And you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

That means from birth. We will see later on in my notes -  I did some research today and searched the phrase "from birth" in about 5 different English translations. It is interesting. All the different English translations translate mibeten as "from birth" at different points – not always at the same point. In the Old Testament they will usually have 8-10 verses that will translate it "from birth". But, they don't do it consistently in the same places. So if you looked at the totality of those you would probably have 16-18 verses in the Old Testament that by one translation or another mibeten is translated "from birth". So the translators clearly understand that this phrase means "from birth". It is not talking about activity inside the womb prior to birth.

^NKJ Isaiah 44:24 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, And He who formed you from the womb: "I am the LORD, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;

It is not talking about action in the womb again. It is very important to pay attention to those prepositions. They are very, very important. God is talking about God working on Israel after their birth, parallel to what we saw earlier in Isaiah 46:3. 

So you have two different verbs here. We went over this last time - the verb yalad which is the verb for birth. Now when you take a prepositional statement like "from birth" (preposition from, noun [object of the preposition] birth) that is how you form the prepositional phrase. There is no noun in Hebrew for "birth". All you have is the verb. Yalad means to give birth, to begat. It is used 388 times for giving birth.   

You do have a verb and a noun for conception. They are used a number of times. The verb "conceive" is used 52 times. There is a noun for conception used many times so you do have the linguistic tools to say "from conception". But, they don't do it. They use a circumlocution mibeten "from the womb" because that is how they say "from birth". They can't say "from birth" because there is no noun for birth. So, they have to use an idiom. 

Look at how this is used. 

^NKJ Genesis 4:1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the LORD."

There is our first verb harah. 

So it is talking about two different periods. Conception is when she became – in fact some dictionaries will define harah as "to become pregnant". 

Nine months later she gave birth to Cain. So these are two different words – two different events.   

^NKJ Genesis 4:17 And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son -- Enoch.

These are two different words describing two different events. So we have various biblical verses that give us those parameters for life.

Ecclesiastes 3:2 doesn't say, "a time to conceive and a time to die". It says a time to give birth and a time to die. 

^NKJ Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

For unto us a Child will be conceived? Is that what it says? The language is there. We have already seen that they had the verb for it. No, it says for a Child is born to us. 

^NKJ Matthew 11:11 "Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

It doesn't talk about the unborn. 

^NKJ Job 14:1 "Man who is born of woman Is of few days and full of trouble.

^NKJ Job 15:14 "What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that he could be righteous?

They have the language to say "who is conceived of a woman", but they never, ever use that verbiage - never, not one time. 

Now what happens in the abortion debate is people constantly come out and say that life begins at conception. If life begins at conception, you have to find passages in Scripture where the parameters of life are given from conception to death and you don't have it. 

I have challenged people with this and they say, "I have never thought about that." 

I have never had anybody come back to me with an answer on this particular point. 

^NKJ Job 38:21 Do you know it, because you were born then, Or because the number of your days is great?

Not that you were conceived then. 

^NKJ Job 1:21 And he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."

Womb to tomb.

^NKJ Job 10:18 'Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Oh, that I had perished and no eye had seen me!

^NKJ Job 10:19 I would have been as though I had not been. I would have been carried from the womb to the grave.

Okay now, what does the Scripture say about the development of the immaterial part of man? This is very important because I said earlier we have the original model in Genesis 2:7 where it talks about God breathing into man. The passages I have shown you already from Isaiah that talked about breath of life. We will review those again. 

^NKJ Isaiah 2:22 Sever yourselves from such a man, Whose breath is in his nostrils; For of what account is he?

^NKJ Isaiah 57:16 For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would fail before Me, And the souls which I have made.

You have a parallelism between ruah and nesamah in these two verses. The point is the breathing is the sign of life. That's what is indicative of life being present - breath. Without oxygen there is no life. There is no soul. There is no animating spirit. So that would argue against the idea that Genesis 2:7 was just a one time event when God got the engine of human life started. After that, everything transmitted differently. Well, after that the physical process was different, but the immaterial process is still immaterial and we still have the breath of God keeping man alive.

Now the next thing we have to look at – we have spent a lot of time in the Old Testament – we have to jump ahead into the New Testament and look at some New Testament passages. Now in the New Testament we have the Greek phrase ek koilia. Now ek is the Greek preposition that is parallel to the Hebrew preposition min. Ek means out of, away from, indicating origin. So this phrase ek koilia is used to indicate birth. It is picked up from the Old Testament. It is the same imagery meaning from birth.  However there is a Greek noun "for birth" that is used one time in the Greek New Testament. You have ek koilia used a number of times, but you see in Greek they did have the verbiage to talk about "from birth". They did have a noun for birth and it is used one time in the New Testament. That's in John 9:1.

^NKJ John 9:1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth.

It is from the verb genaoo. It is the noun form. That's the only time. There are 7 other uses in the New Testament where you have the phrase ek kolia. They are very informative.

^NKJ Acts 14:8 And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked.

Now New American Standard and New King James translate it literally – a cripple from his mother's womb. But the ESV translates it "from birth" understanding that that is the sense of that particular passage. That is the meaning of that particular passage. 

Now think about it a minute. Would it make sense to be talking about what was going on inside the womb and be making a point about the fact that he never walked? Nobody walks in the womb. Nobody walks until they get out of the womb. What I find interesting here is when did they discover that his feet were weak and he couldn't walk? The day he was born? A week later? Two weeks later? When do kids start walking? How old are kids when they start trying to get up and walk? Nine months, a year, a year and a half?  Something like that. At least a year. My point is - when did they discover that he couldn't walk. They say he is a cripple from his mother's womb, but they don't really realize that he doesn't have strength in his feet until sometime after he is born. I want to show you why I am making that point later. I would love to prove it, but I can't do it. I have never found documentation to prove that the phrase "from birth" isn't a literal term for maybe exactly birth, but it might be a term from anywhere from birth to early life – something like that. I will show why I wonder about that. It is because of things with John the Baptist.

Okay, another passage, another lame man.

^NKJ Acts 3:2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple;

Now there are several translations again who translate that "from birth". Now the NIV translates the phrase mibeten in the Old Testament 8 times as "from birth". It translates the phrase ek kolia in the Greek 5 times as "from birth". I am just saying that when I come along and I say this idiom means "from birth" I am not arguing outside the context of accepted normative scholarship.  All of these translations do it; they just don't do it consistently. But, they do it. The NET has the same number total. It still has 13 verses. But, they are different verses. So if we add them all up as I said earlier you have 18, 19 maybe verses where you translate ek kolia and mibeten as "from birth'. 

Let's go to one New Testament passage. Then we will go to the Old Testament.

I am not going to deal with the whole verse here. That is a whole other subject. I just want to point out the illustration that Jesus is using in the first phrase.

^NKJ Matthew 19:12 "For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it."

The word born is gennao which is the verb meaning to give birth to, to beget through procreation. 

There is no word for conception there. It wasn't that they were conceived that way. He is saying that they were born that way. Birth is when the process begins. They are born that way from their mother's womb. So the phrase ek koilia is used from their mother's womb indicating that ek koilia is a synonymous concept to being born. I am not making this up. Ek kolia doesn't mean in the womb. It talks about what happens after the baby exits the womb – comes out from the womb. 

We can go back to a passage we touched on a little bit on Tuesday night in Judges 13:5 related to Sampson. The angel of the Lord appears to his mother and says…

^NKJ Judges 13:5 "For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."

We have the same thing that we saw earlier when I was talking in Genesis 4 passages conceive is harah and to bear is yalad. But what is interesting here is when you look at the Septuagint (The Septuagint was the third century, second century BC translation by rabbis of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek) conception is translated with the phrase en gastri - en gastri , not ek, buten. Conception is what happens in the womb. 

Okay? Consistently conception is translated with the preposition en. But birth is translated with the preposition ek. Very important. That is why Jesus says no jot or tittle, no letter no yodh no tittle or part of a letter will pass away until all of  the Law has been fulfilled. We have to pay attention to these things. So the Greek clearly recognizes differences in these prepositions. So what this is literally saying is "you will have." It has the verb "to have" there.

The verb for birth is the verb yalad.  Here we go...

The Greek for conceive is tikto from Classical Greek or Septuagint Greek. 

Yalad is to bear or beget.

Now let's start looking at some of the problems and questions that people raise. One of them is in Psalm 139. So let's turn in our Bibles to Psalm 139. This is a fabulous psalm because it is talking about God's knowledge of each of us and the fact that we are not accidents. 

You might look at yourself in the mirror and think, "I am not sure why I am made the way I am made." 

But this passage is talking about the fact that even though the process of the production of your physical body is done through intermediate means, God is not disengaged from that process. 

You may get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say, "Ah, it is scary. I look so much like my dad (or my mother). The genetics are terrible things." 

We all do that. Every year I look in the mirror a little more and that scary image looks back. I realize more and more how much I look like my dad. 

That has been a good thing most of my life. But we have genetics. That isn't an accident. There are no accidents in the plan of God. Right? God is involved.  That is what Psalm 139 is talking about. Look down to verse 13. 

^NKJ Psalm 139:13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.

There is a preposition be in the Hebrew which is the preposition for "in". So it is talking about even though it is through intermediate means - God uses intermediate means all kinds of times in our lives but that doesn't mean just because it is intermediate that He is less involved and that it is less significant. 

^NKJ Psalm 139:14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

In this psalm David isn't praising God because David was a handsome man. David isn't praising God because every human being is born beautiful and strong and healthy. He is not saying that. He is talking about the fact that the ideal human being as originally designed by God is intricately made and designed by God and is thus important. 

It is the idea that there was care. The idea of fearfully there is a Hebrew verb which means fear but also has the idea of reverence and awe. When God is looking at that clay that He is making Adam's body with, He knows that the Second Person of the Trinity is going to be housing that. So there is a sense of destiny there in His mind. There is the sense that this is not some casual – well this looks like a good design plan, we will go with that. No, it is not some after thought. To say it somewhat anthropomorphically, God put a lot of thought into it. He carefully designed our physical bodies the way they are – all of the electrical connections, the DNA, the cell structure, all of the things that go into making us work the way we work.

It goes on to say…

^NKJ Psalm 139:15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

This is talking about what is going on through the process of development inside the womb. 

^NKJ Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

What does that mean – unformed? That is the opposite of jatsar, being formed. So, it is talking about the process of development inside of the womb. Now whatever else we can say about this particular passage, the one thing we have to say is that this passage is putting a lot of positive emphasis on the development of the physical body in the natural process of procreation. What is going on inside the womb is not the growth of a tumor. This is what you often hear from the pro-abortionists.

"Well, it is like a tumor. You can cut it out. You may get a hangnail. It is just a mass of cells."

No. You may get a mass of cells that develop into a tumor. That is what it is going to end up being - a tumor. You may get a hangnail. Guess what it is going to end up being –a hangnail. What is happening inside the womb of a woman is destined to gain a soul and unless something interrupts it, it is going to be in the image of God. It is going to be fully formed in the image of God and souled by God. Therefore what is going inside the womb needs to be taken very, very seriously. 

In the early church this view has been called the nascent life view. It is not the view of the Traducianists that what you have in the womb is full human life. It is not saying that. It is not saying that it is nothing either. It is saying that a process has begun at conception that is a very important and significant and serious process. That unless it is interrupted it is going to culminate not in a tumor, not in a hangnail, not in just a bunch of biological cells but in someone who is in the image and likeness of God. Therefore you can't treat this lightly. You can't treat this casually. When someone becomes pregnant this is a serious matter that is not to be taken lightly. 

Now the question then becomes, does this become murder? Well, if the soul is not there it is not murder. It may be immoral; it may be sinful; it may be carnal. But, it is not murder.

Now we are going to deal with a couple of passages that are usually cited for that case. I am going to have to properly exegete them in Exodus in order to make sure that we understand that it is not talking about that. It is not talking about the stillborn birth of a child.   

So what we have here in Psalm 139:13-16 is a passage talking about God's involvement even though it is mediate, even though it is indirect that it is nevertheless involved in that process and it is a process that is going to culminate in something that is going to very important, very precious.

Jeremiah 1:5 is another verse that is often alluded to or gone to in this debate. Here God says to Jeremiah…

^NKJ Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."

Guess what word we have there. Yatsar. That is the same word used for the formation of the physical, material body in Adam before He breathed life into him. 

That is talking about the foreknowledge of God, the omniscience of God that billions of years ago He knew who was going to be born. He knew that Jeremiah would be born.

Notice he doesn't say, "before you were conceived." 

This verse is simply saying that before Jeremiah was alive, before his parents were alive before any of this ever happened, God in His omniscience had a plan for Jeremiah's life and knew he would be born. 

Then we get into a couple of other passages. I think that I am going to save this for next time because once we get into dealing with John the Baptist we have to deal with both Luke 1 and Luke 2. Then we have to go back and deal with the Exodus passage where you have two men fighting and they get involved with a third person a pregnant woman who gives birth. We have good clear terminology there so we need to deal with all of those together. I will wait and come back. We will go into those and then address several of the objections that are typically raised from the Traducianist side of the house on how do genetic traits get passed on, how come your soul seems to have certain similarities to your parents soul and things of that nature. So we will come back and address those questions next time.