Are IVF Babies Knit Together by God Too?
00:00:00.000 | Are IVF babies knit together by God, too?
00:00:08.320 | It's a question from Carly.
00:00:10.240 | Pastor John, hello.
00:00:11.560 | How can a Christian explain to non-Christians that every child is a gift from God when some
00:00:16.300 | children are conceived medically through IVF and other fertility treatments?
00:00:21.160 | I'm at a loss and I really want to be able to answer this question.
00:00:23.560 | I believe all children are from God, but how do I answer this question?
00:00:27.320 | I recently saw a story about a lesbian couple who conceived of a child through IVF.
00:00:32.880 | The child was fertilized by donor sperm and implanted in one woman and then harvested
00:00:37.660 | and implanted in the other woman to carry to term.
00:00:41.240 | It's so unnatural, but I know that this child is meant to be here.
00:00:45.200 | So, Pastor John, how would you help Carly answer this dilemma?
00:00:49.000 | Before I answer that question specifically and directly, let me just say a word about
00:00:55.520 | the larger issue of in vitro fertilization and third-party assisted reproduction, surrogacy,
00:01:04.320 | renting a womb, as it's sometimes called, egg donation, sperm donation, and so on.
00:01:11.240 | There is an entire global industry of baby making, which is shot through with unanswered
00:01:18.860 | ethical and medical questions.
00:01:21.080 | I think any Christian couple should be very careful, thoughtful, hesitant, I would say
00:01:26.120 | hesitant, to walk very far outside the natural processes God has put in place for making
00:01:34.800 | babies.
00:01:35.800 | Now, I know we've gotten ourselves into a real dilemma with thousands of frozen embryos,
00:01:44.520 | for example, waiting, as it were, for adoption.
00:01:48.440 | I'm not opposed to that.
00:01:49.720 | There are people in our church that have done that, adopted an embryo, put it in mom, raised
00:01:56.320 | a baby.
00:01:57.320 | But I don't think we should make decisions that contribute to that problem.
00:02:03.760 | We got ourselves with these thousands of frozen little babies because of all kinds of technological
00:02:09.440 | things that we didn't foresee would create all these issues.
00:02:13.400 | Now, if all that sounds fuzzy to you, like, "What is he talking about?"
00:02:18.520 | Which it does to me still.
00:02:20.480 | I want to recommend a website and an institution called Center for Bioethics and Culture.
00:02:27.600 | It's led by Jennifer Lall.
00:02:29.680 | I've met Jennifer.
00:02:31.480 | I think she is a faithful and wise, helpful guide in these matters.
00:02:37.940 | They have some very illuminating videos about these things.
00:02:43.120 | She's done a lot of good work, it seems to me, to bring clarity, wisdom to the issue
00:02:47.760 | of third-party assisted reproduction, making us aware of the significant health and psychological
00:02:54.440 | risks that often go untold as if you can just do anything you want.
00:03:01.680 | Not to mention the ethical issues, not the least of which is the looming issue of eugenics,
00:03:09.240 | that is, making designer babies by making sure you have a sperm and an egg from people
00:03:16.720 | with just the right traits that you want.
00:03:21.840 | But Carly's question is, "How can a Christian explain to a non-Christian that every child
00:03:28.440 | is a gift from God when some children are conceived medically through IBF and other
00:03:37.080 | fertility treatments?"
00:03:38.960 | The answer comes, I think, in two steps.
00:03:42.240 | First, this is, "What do you say to an unbeliever?"
00:03:46.400 | First, you gather biblical texts which show that creating human babies is decisively God's
00:03:55.640 | work, not man's.
00:03:57.840 | No baby decides if he or she is human.
00:04:01.260 | No parent decides if their baby is human.
00:04:05.100 | No sperm donor, no egg donor, no womb donor decides if the baby is human.
00:04:13.720 | No doctor who's putting all the pieces together decides if this baby is human.
00:04:19.840 | Well, who does?
00:04:23.080 | That's step one.
00:04:24.160 | God does.
00:04:25.480 | Step two in answering, after you show them these texts, which I'll point to in a minute,
00:04:30.080 | step two is to show the biblical principle that God often in the Bible uses foolishness
00:04:38.840 | and evil, even evil, to bring beauty into being.
00:04:43.400 | So here's a few texts that you could use in helping an unbeliever at least know why you
00:04:49.800 | think that God is the decisive baby maker, human baby maker.
00:04:56.200 | Psalm 139.13, "You formed my inner parts.
00:04:59.960 | You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
00:05:02.720 | I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
00:05:07.960 | That is made by God.
00:05:10.120 | Job 10.8-12, Job says to God, "You clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together
00:05:18.680 | with bones and sinews.
00:05:21.440 | You have granted life and steadfast love."
00:05:26.600 | So not just skin, not just flesh and bones and sinews, but life that can be experienced
00:05:33.240 | in relational love.
00:05:35.680 | God created that.
00:05:38.280 | Job 31.13-15, Job says to God about why he has treated his servants well.
00:05:45.600 | Job has treated his servants fairly.
00:05:48.040 | He says, "If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or my maidservant when they
00:05:53.480 | brought a complaint against me, what then shall I do when God rises up?
00:05:59.280 | When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him?
00:06:02.280 | Did not he who made me in the womb make him?
00:06:07.760 | And did not one fashion us both in the womb?"
00:06:12.560 | In other words, every human, whatever class, made by God in the womb.
00:06:18.600 | Psalm 71.6, "Upon you I have leaned, upon you God I have leaned from before my birth.
00:06:28.160 | You are he who took me from my mother's womb.
00:06:32.200 | My praise is continually of you."
00:06:35.220 | Before the psalmist was born, he was already leaning, depending on God in the womb.
00:06:41.640 | Ecclesiastes 11.5, "As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb
00:06:50.520 | of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything."
00:06:57.840 | We don't know how the spirit, the life, the soul of the human nature comes into this union
00:07:09.000 | of egg and sperm.
00:07:10.520 | It's one of those works of God like so many we do not understand, but there it is.
00:07:15.800 | He does it.
00:07:17.240 | One more, Jeremiah 1.5, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
00:07:23.120 | And before you were born, I consecrated you.
00:07:25.480 | I appointed you a prophet to the nation."
00:07:27.600 | So God was already dealing with Jeremiah as a person before he was born.
00:07:34.800 | So I conclude from these passages and others that humans don't bring humans into being.
00:07:44.920 | God does.
00:07:46.480 | Humans contribute genetic material, but God makes the union of egg and sperm, the living
00:07:53.440 | eternal human soul.
00:07:56.080 | Amazing.
00:07:57.080 | That's the first thing you try to share with your non-Christian friend.
00:08:03.800 | The second step is to show the biblical principle that God often uses foolishness and even evil
00:08:15.080 | to bring beauty into being.
00:08:18.040 | Now, you can say in general to your unbelieving friend, "If God really creates a human soul
00:08:27.920 | that once did not exist and now exists forever as a person, then doing this God-like thing
00:08:36.600 | through natural or unnatural or good or bad, sinful or unsinful ways of uniting egg and
00:08:43.760 | sperm is a piece of cake.
00:08:46.040 | It's relatively easy.
00:08:47.280 | I mean, creating a human being is the great glory and mystery.
00:08:53.240 | The how is relatively unimportant when it comes to whether God can do it or not."
00:09:00.840 | But I'll close with this.
00:09:02.920 | I just try to think, "Now, what would be the most evangelistically, personally caring
00:09:08.720 | way to get across the principle you're trying to to the unbeliever?"
00:09:13.360 | And I think the answer is to go to the most amazing text of all, Acts 4, 27 to 28, to
00:09:24.640 | show how God used four Christ-haters to accomplish Christ's saving will, to bring about the most
00:09:35.720 | beautiful, glorious, wonderful act of salvation in the history of the world.
00:09:42.120 | So here's what it says, "Truly in this city, there were gathered together against
00:09:47.120 | your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles,"
00:09:54.320 | that's the Roman soldiers who drove the nails in, "and the peoples of Israel who cried,
00:09:58.560 | 'Crucify him, crucify him,' to do," what were they gathered together to do?
00:10:03.160 | "To do whatever your hand and your plan predestined to take place."
00:10:10.880 | Whoa.
00:10:11.880 | I mean, I can imagine an unbeliever maybe hearing that and saying, "Whoa."
00:10:19.280 | I never heard anything like that before.
00:10:21.840 | If God can orchestrate Herod, Pilate, brutal Roman soldiers, unbelieving Jews to bring
00:10:29.680 | about the greatest life-giving event that ever was, the death and resurrection of Jesus,
00:10:37.720 | then making a human baby with sinful humans is not a problem.
00:10:43.600 | That is a fascinating take on the miracle of life, the origin of human life.
00:10:48.320 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:50.240 | And whether you listen in the car, at the gym, doing chores, thanks for inviting us
00:10:53.640 | into your busy day.
00:10:54.920 | And if you have not yet done so, you can subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast
00:10:58.640 | app, YouTube, or in Spotify.
00:11:01.520 | And to find other episodes in our archive or to submit to us a question of your own,
00:11:04.960 | go online to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:09.520 | We'll each of us have our own unique struggles in life, and each of us know what it's like
00:11:13.280 | to meet times in life when we find ourselves out of gas.
00:11:18.280 | So how do we keep pressing on when we feel completely depleted?
00:11:22.520 | That's up next time on Wednesday.
00:11:23.520 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:24.520 | We'll see you then.
00:11:24.520 | We'll see you then.
00:11:25.480 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:11:35.480 | [BLANK_AUDIO]