In death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise? (Psalm 6:5)

Jesus, the Lord of glory (James 2:1), the beautiful and glorious one (Isaiah 4:2), the radiance of God’s glory (Hebrews 1:3), full of grace and truth (John 1:14) is the person for whom God does all things. Everything was created for Christ (Colossians 1:16).

This truth must be where we begin and end any biblically grounded discussion on a question of morality.

On a recent trip to Chile, I was able to have lunch with a presidential candidate, a senator known as a conservative, particularly on the issue of abortion. We had a chance to share with one another our perspectives on abortion, and he led off with a remarkably eloquent defense of the pro-life position. Now it was my turn — what was I to say that he had not already heard and read?

Most Precious to God

I asked the senator, “What is the most precious thing to God in the universe?” Instead of answering, he waited for me to continue.

I said, “The Son of God, Jesus, is the most precious thing to God in the whole universe. And where did God place his most precious possession? In a womb.”

God did not send his Son to earth in the form of a grown man to live and die for our sins. Instead, God began with conception in the womb of the virgin Mary. The safest place in the world for Jesus was his mother’s womb. God so values the womb that he put his beloved Son there.

Perhaps we fail to grasp how incredible this truth is. God was placed in a womb. It is as shocking as the truth that God lay in a tomb (in both places he was given physical and spiritual life). Killing children in the womb is therefore tantamount to entering a safety zone created by God and ransacking the things he loves most.

Robbing God of Glory

God loves the womb of a woman. He created the womb for his Son to dwell in at the most vulnerable stage of his earthly life. By extension, God has done the same for each of us. The womb is God’s designated place of safety, but now it has become, tragically, the most unsafe place in the world.

God also created the womb as the place from which he would bring people into the world for his Son (Colossians 1:16). When an unborn child is killed, it is not just a sin against God but also a sin against Christ’s glory. Why? Because that eternal soul will never have the opportunity to glorify Christ in this world.

Each abortion potentially robs Christ of an embodied, living worshiper — the kind God seeks to glorify both himself and his Son. Abortion is so wrong because it robs God of his highest prerogative in this world: a creature made in the image of Christ who worships God by the Spirit.

If there’s anything that should grieve us about abortion — and there are many things — it should be that Christ has been robbed of his glory.

We want children to have life. But more than that, we want children to have life in Christ — the life he came to offer by entering this world in the womb of a virgin.