Psalm 139:13–16
“For You created my conscience; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
God’s purpose for human life doesn’t begin with cellular formation — it begins in eternity. Before a single heartbeat, before conception itself, God declared and established His plan for every human being.
Psalm 139:13 says,
“For You created my conscience; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
God did not simply oversee biology; He authored it. He fabricated the soul and then united it to the body. The cellular makeup of the body becomes the vessel for the image-bearing soul, created in the likeness of God. Every life carries divine intention, not by accident, but by design.
Less than 1% of abortions occur due to rape or life-threatening circumstances. The overwhelming majority are not acts of necessity but of choice.
So why doesn’t God sovereignly stop abortion? His sovereign will is always fulfilled, yet within His sovereignty He allows permissive will — the freedom He grants humanity to choose. Though we cannot fully comprehend His ultimate purposes, human beings remain accountable for the choices they make..
Abortion in the U.S. is framed as a matter of “personal choice,” but it’s a decision centered almost entirely on one will — the mother’s. A woman can terminate a pregnancy without the father’s consent. Yet, even in that imbalance, choice remains present on both sides: the man who may encourage abortion and the woman who can resist it.
Take Tim Tebow, for example. His mother faced pressure to abort due to medical concerns. God knew the outcome of that life, but He permissively gave her the choice — to protect or to destroy the life within her womb. Her obedience to life became a testimony of faith and courage
Human life in the womb, at every stage, bears the image of God. This is the sacred distinction that sets humanity apart from every other created being. We are not random organisms — we are crafted in the image of a magnificent, intelligent, and holy Creator.
When Cain murdered his brother, God condemned him for destroying an image bearer (Genesis 4:10–11). When David arranged the death of Uriah, he faced severe judgment — the loss of his child and the disintegration of his household (2 Samuel 12). The shedding of innocent blood has always provoked divine justice because it strikes at the very reflection of God Himself.
This leads to a difficult question: If taking life is wrong, how is it right when God does it?
The answer lies in authorship. God defines life because He is the Creator of it. As the Author, He alone holds the authority to give or take life according to His will.
When God took David’s child or judged Egypt’s firstborn, it was not murder — it was justice from the One who created both life and breath. Humanity bears His image, but we are not His equals. We live within the bodies He has given us, and He retains the sovereign right to do as He wills with what is His.
I write this assuming you value, as I do, God’s perspective on His image bearers. My aim is not argument but understanding — to remind us where human value originates and when it begins.
Human worth does not begin at conception; it begins in eternity — in the mind of God. Life is sacred not because of its biological function, but because it reflects the eternal God who made it.
May we see every heartbeat as holy, every soul as divine craftsmanship, and every unborn child as living evidence that God’s plans were written long before time began.
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart.” —
Jeremiah 1:5
