I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast. The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand the test of scrutiny. As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people in the right direction.

In this episode, I've asked Dr. Jeremiah Chang to join me so we can talk through the subject of embryonic adoption. He'll also be featured in the next episode as well, which I dropped together. The reason for these episodes and future episodes with Dr. Chang is very simple. There have been so many developments within the area of biotechnology and infertility that we have to stop, breathe, and just ask ourselves before we make use of this new technology.

What does God's word have to say about all of this? In particular, as Christians who profess belief that life begins at conception, and coupled with that, that life intrinsically has immense value, what are the ramifications of holding to such a view? To explore questions such as these, I want to publish a set of episodes that I'm going to refer to as the Imago Dei series.

The first episode in the Imago Dei series will cover one man's journey through embryonic adoption. These convictions that were developed over time through the word and the spirit. I hope you find this episode edifying. Dr. Jeremiah Chang, I asked him to come on to this podcast, I'm going to ask him some questions and this episode is going to cover embryonic adoption, but before we get into some of the more technical things, I want to spend a good portion of this episode just talking about Jeremiah's journey because I know even as I say that word, embryonic adoption, a lot of people won't know what that is, what that means.

We'll get to that a little later, but before we get to some of the minutiae of that, Jeremiah, I want to just start off with you just sharing your journey regarding embryonic adoption. Kind of start from the beginning because this is directly related to the doctrine of the conception of life.

If you can kind of take us back to the beginning, the impetus that started to build some of the convictions that you have today that ultimately led to you adopting an embryo amongst other things. Take us back to the beginning. Absolutely. This journey sort of started several years ago, back in maybe around 2019.

I came across a video of some people who were evangelizing, preaching the gospel to men and women going into abortion clinics, seeking to murder their own children through abortion. At that moment in time, I had not really considered much about abortion. I would say I was most definitely as a Christian would identify as pro-life.

I definitely affirmed that life began at conception, that God created every child at that moment of conception, and so certainly identified as pro-life. But when I saw the video of people preaching the gospel, sharing the gospel with desperation, knowing that people were going in to commit a sin of such evil nature, a sin of consequences that could not be reversed, it began to dawn on me the gravity of what's going on.

I think God opened my heart at that point to the reality of what's happening in our culture and mainly the dehumanizing of unborn children that we see. What really struck me was just the reality of what's really happening because as I look around where I live, there's several Planned Parenthoods just really locally within a 10-15 minute drive, and to know that in each of these Planned Parenthoods, whether through medications or through surgery, they are slaughtering thousands upon thousands of children, image bearers of God.

That struck a chord with me. I think God really convicted me because it made me realize that though I profess to be pro-life, though I profess that these children that had not been born were, in fact, created by Him to be His image bearers, that profession really had no weight to it prior to watching that video.

I hadn't really given much consideration to the reality of abortion. To be honest, I didn't really pray much for these children, for these men and women who are seeking to abort their children. It seems that just mere profession was happening where I would profess a certain biblical stance but there would be no real manifestation of that.

I think God really broke me at that point in my life where I saw how I could hold certain beliefs and yet there would be no real application to that belief or manifestation of that belief. When I saw what was happening in our culture and even within the professing church community, there is a tendency to be influenced by the culture around us that we do see unborn children as somewhat less than fully human.

There certainly is the reality of unborn children being dehumanized. That sort of began this journey of just kind of researching more about what the scriptures were saying with regards to this issue. What was God's truth? As I began to research more and study the scriptures, God just reaffirmed the reality that every child is created by Him at the moment of conception.

Then I began to reflect on the ramifications of that. If that's true, that every unborn child is truly a child, then what's happening in our society is horrendous. Really words can't describe the gravity of what's happening. I think God just showed me just the brokenness of this world in a new way that I had not yet known and grew in me a love for these children to rescue them, as Proverbs 24, 11 talks about, to deliver those who are being taken away to death and those who are staggering to slaughter.

That sort of propelled me on this journey to glorify God through the proclamation of God's truth in this area and then God sort of led us on this journey of how do we practically apply those realities. We became exposed to embryo adoption. Carrie had introduced me to a book, a memoir of a family who had adopted through multiple avenues.

They had adopted internationally, domestically, and then through embryo adoption. That was our first real exposure to embryo adoption. For me, with a science background, I was intrigued by what was happening. That technology would even make this possible. To be honest, I had not even heard of embryo adoption before.

I didn't even know it was a reality, a possibility. Being intrigued by the science, that's sort of what made me do more research into embryo adoption. As I began to do more research, it was very clear that embryo adoption is really just adoption of a child at their earliest stage of development.

In its simplest form, that's all it is. It's simply like any other adoption, just adopting a child in their embryonic stage. The reality is there are millions of frozen embryos, frozen children. Many of them orphaned, many of them abandoned legally by their biological parents and in need of a womb to continue to live and to grow and to develop so that they could live outside the womb.

God broke us for this reality that millions of His image-bearers are being frozen, abandoned, orphaned. The practical application for us was to adopt some of them. That's what we ended up doing. We went through an agency called the National Embryo Donation Center. We connected with them and they held very similar beliefs.

We went ahead and back in September of 2021, we ended up transferring three embryos. Unfortunately, one did not survive, but we are thankful that two did. Gary is pregnant with twins and is due soon to deliver. We did end up, in our batch of adoption, there were six total embryos.

Unfortunately, two did not survive the thawing process. We do have one more embryo that's kept frozen, but that's sort of where the journey has led us thus far. It's interesting because for many who develop this conviction, a lot of people will end up, say, going to a Planned Parenthood and sharing the gospel at a Planned Parenthood, which actually you do.

As today's recording, you actually did today, joined by some other people. What's interesting about your journey is that, for you, it didn't stop there. That would have been great, the fact that you are sharing the gospel at a Planned Parenthood. You are trying to convince these expectant mothers to not abort their unborn child, at the same time sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

But it also developed in you this conviction for embryos. What's interesting is that, you didn't mention this, but I want to go ahead and mention this. You have two biological children of your own. We have Bible study together, and every other week we're at your house and they're here.

Even when we're not at your house, we see them and they're beautiful. Carrie has no issues, you have no issues with respect to your bodies. You guys could have continued to have children naturally, however, that wasn't enough in the sense that you and Carrie were convicted to do something more.

That's what led you on this journey. I'm saying all this because you and I have had many conversations about this before. I want to share that because there are people who go into and who begin to look at alternative ways to build a family. A lot of times I think God will use certain circumstances to maybe nudge you in certain directions, which is fine, generally speaking is fine.

But for you and Carrie, that wasn't the case, meaning you guys could have continued to have children naturally. That's been something that's sort of been a great light, so to speak. It's been a very compelling testimony. I remember when I first heard about you and Carrie doing this, it was like, "What?" Right?

I mean, it was like, "Huh? What? What? Oh yeah, I've heard of that. What is that?" And then you kind of investigate and you dig a little deeper into this and you're like, "Whoa, there is a lot here." And according to the biblical worldview, we say embryos, but embryo is just describing the stage of development.

These are people. Right, Jeremiah? Absolutely, yeah. These are people. And I think you told me, we're not exactly sure, but the amount of frozen embryos right now, maybe about a million? Absolutely, yeah. And I mean, no one keeps track, but certainly most would say up north of a million.

North of a million. And it's relatively expensive, but the technology is getting more efficient and we're making strides in this area. There's a lot of money here. So typically where there's a lot of money in a certain technology, there's more investment in it. So the chances are it could become cheaper in the future, which would mean that there would be more embryos.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you look at the numbers of those using IVF as a reproductive technology, it's growing exponentially and whether or not the number of families willing to adopt grows with it is hard to tell, but either way, there is definitely a problem of even the reality of these frozen children even existing.

Right. Yeah, so there is this interesting dichotomy that I see with that. When you look at traditional adoption agencies, the children who are selected to be adopted prior to that, and rightly so, they have rights. You can't just starve them, which is a good thing, obviously, which is a good thing.

But the embryos that we're talking about do not have rights because they're not considered human. They're considered chattel, they're considered property. So there's a lot that goes with that. There's a lot that goes with that worldview and that's part of the reason why so many embryos are created. They're not viewed as human beings.

I know this is something that - Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, completely. The dehumanizing of unborn children we see most manifestly and obviously in abortion, but you see it with the treatment of embryos in IVF. You see it with how they're commodified. You see it with how they're viewed when couples go through IVF.

They're simply treated as objects, as a means to an end, but not life, as God says they are. Yeah. Yeah, and it's one of those things where we're born in a world where Roe v. Wade, at least today, is still law. And so we live in a world where a huge portion of our country doesn't see unborn children as children.

But then when you do a sonogram or whatever else, you see the features. With embryos, there aren't those humanoid features. So it's hard for people to just naturally think of them as embryos. It takes a lot more convincing. Absolutely. I mean, even for us, on an emotional level, it's difficult.

We always have to fight against, I know Carrie and I, we had to fight against that tendency of just viewing our emotions as a reflection of reality. Because sometimes, we saw the pictures of our embryos, of those frozen children we adopted and they were at five days post-conception, so five days of life.

We saw pictures of them and they don't look like how our toddlers look, they don't look like how our newborns look. But the reality is, we all look like that five days post-conception. That's just how human beings looked. And we had to fight against the tendency to allow our emotional connection to dictate reality.

The reality is what God says, that these are human beings. Emotionally, it can be difficult, on an emotional level, in a fallen world, to really bond with them and love them as if you would bond and love with a newborn. There certainly is that difference there. But it's important for us, we always had to reflect that these are children.

And that certainly was something that we had to continually pray about and ask for repentance at times in the way we even talked about them at times. And so it was a constant struggle because they physically don't appear the same way as how we would, maybe how our culture would say human beings ought to appear.

It's one of those things where if you don't have a biblical worldview, then it's really arbitrary in terms of who gets to dictate when life begins. Does it begin at six weeks? Does it begin at eight weeks? Does it begin at 12 weeks? What's interesting is, it was even Joe Rogan, I think, he said a couple of weeks ago, he's pro-choice, but even he was like, "Look, when a baby starts to look like a human being, some of the pro-life people got something right," or something of that nature.

But when it comes to embryos, they don't look like they're not developed enough to even have arms and legs. So we don't view them as human beings, but as you've mentioned, we all started off that way. They're seeds. And so if you think about a tree, everything that is necessary for a tree to grow and to have its roots and the trunk, the robustness of a tree, is contained in that seed.

The seed is not any less a tree than a tree, except it just needs time and nutrients of that nature. But in a child, in an embryo, there's a unique DNA package, unlike the mom or the dad, but one that has never been seen before, right? Exactly, yes. I mean, that's at the moment of conception, that baby has a unique set of DNA that is distinct from the mother or the father.

And every other human being, obviously. And every other human being, absolutely, yes. So it's at that moment, they are a distinct entity. And so you have to call it something, right? And God says that that's the moment that He created them. Yeah, you know, I want to just pause here for a moment, and I know the people listening to this are mostly Christian, but I want to just share some Bible verses here.

Isaiah 44, 24 says this, "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the One who formed you from the womb, I, the Lord, am the Maker of all things, stretching out heavens by Myself, and spreading out the earth alone." Jeremiah 1, 5 says this, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you, I've appointed you as a prophet to the nations." Psalm 139, 13, and 16 says this, "For you formed My inward parts, you wove Me in My mother's womb.

I'll give thanks to you, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen My unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for Me, when as yet there was not one of them." But the psalmist here, David says here, in the beginning of the psalm, verse 13, beginning of verse 13, he says, "For you formed My inward parts, you wove Me in My mother's womb." So this podcast is not meant to be a defense of life at conception, but at the same time it is appropriate to share some of these verses.

The Bible is absolutely clear. I don't know of a single, like an actual sound theologian who disagrees that life begins at conception. So the issue is not doctrinally, does life begin at conception. Doctrinally speaking, life begins at conception. The issue is what is the consequence of that. That is the issue.

So I want to talk a little bit more about some of the details regarding your embryonic adoption. You mentioned it, but you adopted a family of six embryos. Yes. And I don't even know this because we've talked about this before, but these six embryos are siblings. Is that correct?

Absolutely yes. Genetic siblings. They're genetics. And they were, just comment on them a little bit more. Sure, yeah. So they are of Asian descent. They're frozen. They're frozen for 10 years. And so that's always interesting to think about because they've been technically alive for 10 years, just frozen in time.

And so we have six of them and like I was saying earlier, we did transfer three. The reason it came out to three was partly because of the grading process and two unfortunately didn't survive the thaw and so one is left. And the thing about embryos is that they can be frozen for a long period of time.

And so a lot of people aren't aware that you can freeze them for essentially, as far as we know, an indefinite period. And our organization sort of got recognized last year or the year before for transferring a 26 year old, I believe, a 26 year old embryo that was frozen.

And the mother was I think, 27 years old. So had they been born at the same time, they would have really been about a year apart. But because of the technology, you know, that obviously wasn't the case. So these children, you know, like I say, they are dehumanized in the way we see them and the way we treat them and I think you can see that in just the way that how long some of them have been frozen for.

And that's just a result and a consequence of how we as a society have used certain technologies in a fallen world. Yeah, yeah, you know, you mentioned, I know we're going to get into that we do get into this in the next episode, but you did mention that two didn't survive the thawing process.

So when when you adopt a family of six embryos, six people, they're frozen, not because of anything you did, but that's, that's how they survive, they're frozen. And so in order to implant them, they need to be thawed, they have to be frozen. So this thawing process is something that's a must.

And then during this thawing process, two don't survive, so two pass away. And that's, that's common, right? That's not some mishap by by the organization that that's just, that's just the state of the technology today that a certain portion of embryos do not survive. Yeah, yes, absolutely. That's just the reality, unfortunately, that that our technology has provided us thus far.

I mean, we hope that will get better. But the reality is that, that in nearly all cases of IVF, embryos, children are frozen at some point, that's just for various reasons that we won't get into now. But that is just generally how IVF procedures are done, it does result in the freezing of these children.

And unfortunately, the reality is that when you freeze them, you will unless you plan to freeze them indefinitely, you will inevitably subject them to the thawing process and many children don't survive that process. So that's, that's a concern. And we've sort of had a grief, you know, the loss of those two children, right?

You know, we'll never get to see what they look like. But we know, you know, you know, I know, people have different views on this, but but we hold that one day we will, we will be able to see them Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think about after they're born, which is probably going to be in less than a week, we don't know, but at least humanly speaking, it's probably going to be less than a week from the time of this recording.

But they're gonna grow up, they're gonna have questions, right? And you mentioned they were Asian, but they're actually a different ethnic descent than than you and Carrie. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. They are Korean. Yes. And so they're gonna grow up in a in a household that loves the Lord, they're gonna grow up in a loving family, and they're going to be taught Scripture, they're going to be encouraged to repent, they're going to grow up in this, this home.

At the same time, they're going to be asking, right? Where did they come from? They're going to be asking about these things. And I can't help but think that they're going to look at their mom, Carrie. And at some point, it's going to hit them that their mom saved them from slaughter.

It's just gonna at some point, it just it just hits you because and that's that's not an exaggeration. Right? I mean, that's just a logical consequence. And you know, you mentioned, they can be frozen indefinitely, but you mean, humanly speaking, because, you know, at some point, something happens, I mean, power can go out, or, you know, Christ comes back, or Yeah, you know, there, you know, and if someone's got to pay for preservation, so let's say you pay for preservation up until the point of, you know, your death, I mean, at that point, you stop paying, exactly.

So they discard the embryo. So and again, we talked, we're gonna talk about this, but we don't even like to use that word discard, discard embryos, because they're people. But the point is that at some point, their life does cease to be and so it's not when I say at some point, these children will grow up, they'll look at their mom and realize that their mom saved them from slaughter.

Just the testimony that that gospel testimony of just how God has given us this understanding of the value of life and the implications that that arises from it, I think is going to be such a great testimony, you're you're you and your family are kind of like a trailblazer of sorts for this, but I say trailblazer because in the short time, relatively short time that you've been open about this and and been talking about this, you have a blog, which I'm going to put in the information section, but you have a blog and carries me to Facebook group and you've you've been writing about this and I invite everyone to go to that blog to read some of your thoughts on this issue.

But in a short amount of time, I know of at least two couples, which I there I won't name, but but they're probably public, they're pretty public about it. But I know of at least two other couples who are undergoing this process. One other couple, she's already had gone through the implantation process.

Yeah, you know, we're, we're praying for for that couple. So it's already happening. God is God is God is using this. So you know, when you when you kind of reflect on that, do you have any thoughts on that? Like, just, yeah, yes, I think it's been a great encouragement to know that there are other couples being convicted in similar ways, we know that the body is made up of different members, and, you know, everyone is gifted in different ways by the Spirit, and convicted in different ways, too.

And so when a couple comes, and is convicted similarly, and walks with us through the process, and we see them walking as well through the same thing. It's an incredible encouragement that it's it's it's a grace of that God gives through the church. It was certainly difficult in the beginning, because we didn't really know whether we were like many hearing about embryo adoption and having no idea what it was, what it is about, and thinking all these weird thoughts about, you know, that sounds really like fiction.

That sounds like, just very odd. That was us in the beginning. And apart from the conviction of God's word, and what he was saying, there were a lot of doubts in our minds whether this was even a real act of obedience, whether this was a proper application of scriptural truth, because at the time, we didn't really know people going through it.

I mean, we just read it in a book, you know, and we didn't know if this family in the book was, you know, really had was like minded in many ways. So we just kind of got exposed to it through it, you know, through Providence, you know, but we didn't know.

And then fortunately, God did bring other people alongside of us, you know, Cary connected with other people who had gone through it. And then now that our church, there's more and more people, it's become just a tremendous encouragement to us that God would just bring us alongside other people to rescue souls for his glory, physically, but but also, you know, I trust in a spiritual sense as he brings people who are not genetically related, these children who are not genetically related, but he allows families to adopt them into families that love him, and that want to raise children in the discipline instruction of our God, that God will save these children's souls.

And so it's, it's just a profound thought to think that God would advance his kingdom in this way. Yeah, it's, it wasn't, I had no idea this was going to happen, you know, a couple years ago, but to think now that God is using our church in this way, and he's advancing his kingdom in this way, by families adopting frozen children into their families.

Yeah, that's, that's an amazing thought. And I'm thankful that so many families are just have been supportive throughout our whole journey, you know, from the pastors, the elders, the leadership, and then just members of the church just incredibly supportive, just affirming that this is biblical, that this is a proper application of biblical truth.

And then, you know, like you mentioned, several other families just, you know, taking that step to do it as well. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I, it's one of those things where, you know, sometimes when I hear stories like this, I hate to make qualifications, but I want to go in and do so just to be a little cautious here, but in no way, and I've spoken to Jeremiah many times about this issue and related issues, in no way does he believe or do I believe that if you've had an abortion in the past, that you've created an irredeemable, you've committed an irredeemable sin, a sin that you can't repent of, neither one of us believes that.

In no way do Jeremiah and I believe that if you've utilized IVF before and you created an excess number of, in the process, there was a creation of an excess number of embryos and those embryos are now gone, in no way are we saying that that's also some sin that you cannot repent of, but that's not what we're saying.

We're also not saying that if you don't adopt traditionally, or if you don't adopt embryonically, if you don't adopt that, that you don't take God seriously, we're not, we're not saying that either. And, again, I don't want what we say to die the death of a thousand qualifications as Vodie Bauckham would say that sometimes if you qualify things so much, you don't really say anything, so I kind of want to stop there, but the reason I say that is because sometimes when people have strong convictions, even if they go about it in a godly manner, because convictions can sometimes be painful, because when someone else's conviction is made clear, it forces the person listening to the conviction to reconcile certain things in their own heart and I think just a matter of, you know, just our fleshly intuition is to discredit that person, you know, and to pay an excess amount of attention on their tone or their delivery or these other things.

And there's a time and place for that kind of criticism, but I want, the reason I want to say that is because I want to make it clear for the listener that Jeremiah is not saying that, that is not, I didn't invite him here to shame other people and I've spoken, again, I've spoken to him many times, he doesn't want to do that, he's very careful that he comes off in a proper way and so I did want to take a little bit of time to state that, so with that said, you know, Jeremiah, there are other things that we can talk about with respect to some of the more medical nuances, but this podcast is already getting a little bit longer, this episode is already getting a little bit longer, so I do want the listener to know that, especially if you go to Brigham Coming Church, hey, you're available to talk to, right?

- Absolutely, yes, I love to talk to anyone and share our story about what God has done through us, but also, you know, with regards to future podcast episodes about related topics, you know, the science, as we will discuss, is very nuanced and I think it would be great to just continue to discuss these things and maintain a biblical worldview.

- Yeah, yeah, don't worry, that's not Jeremiah butting himself in, I told him that we're gonna do future episodes together, so, so, he knew that, he knew that, but yeah, it is very, very nuanced, it's changing, Jeremiah tries to keep up-to-date with all the new information, and that's hard, you know, that's hard, but again, I invite you to follow him on Facebook, Kerry has a Facebook, The Littlest of Lives, The Littlest of Lives, you can talk to Kerry about it, you can message me about it, he also, if you go there, he also has a blog, you'll see it right away, I'll link to all of this, in the next episode, we're gonna get a little bit more into the particulars of IVF, because as, Jeremiah, you kind of stated this earlier, but a lot of the embryos that are available for adoption are because they are excess embryos from IVF, is that-- - Absolutely, yes, that's where almost all of the embryos that are available for adoption are created out of, they're all created out of IVF technology, but yes, mostly because couples do choose to create more than they plan to implant.

- Yeah, and what's wild is that that one million is a fraction from the excess that are created, because the majority, correct me if I'm wrong, Jeremiah, but the majority are either just terminated, I'm using euphemisms here, but they're either terminated, or they're, I'm using air quotes, donated to science, where they will be terminated, or last step is they're donated to a center like this, hopefully that they'll be adopted.

- Absolutely, yeah. - Well, Jeremiah, I wanna thank you for coming on, I look forward to talking about this issue a little bit more in depth, and I hope for the people who are listening that God has moved you, and when I say that, I don't mean to imply that if you're not moved to share the gospel and apply in parenthood, then you're not a good Christian, I don't mean to, I don't, I'm not implying that at all, 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12 makes it clear that God has given the body differing gifts, and some people God will raise up to just be prayer warriors, their gift is, they just pray, they pray and pray and pray and pray, and I hope God will raise up more prayer warriors, but there are some that are listening to this that God will raise up, and say, you know what, I wanna share the gospel, I'd apply in parenthood too.

There are others who will just, you know what, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna engage in conversation with my coworkers about this issue, and hope that this is gonna be an entrance way for the gospel, or, you know, you affirm and you support the work that people who are passionate about this are doing, and you might be involved in something else at church, you are involved in, for example, like the avian ministry, or you're involved in, you know, cleanup ministry, and we can just glory in our God together, that God would raise up some people to do this, and some people to do that, and that we are all striving together, differing gifts, but we're all striving together, standing as one man for the gospel, for the proclamation of the gospel, and so, I know that's Jeremiah, I know Jeremiah, that's your heart, that's my heart, that we want to see truth proclaimed, and we wanna see unity affirmed in the body of Christ, so, anything else you wanna share before we end this episode, Jeremiah?

- No, I think we're gonna cover them in the future episodes. - All right, yeah, so I'm looking forward to that, well, Jeremiah, thank you very much, and I will see you guys later. I hope this episode was helpful to many, this is a very difficult topic, and anyone searching for answers, and ultimately conviction on this issue is going to have to do some hard work, lots of digging, lots of investigating, searching the scriptures in prayer, as stated, I've included the Facebook group and Jeremiah's blog in the info section, I'm really hoping this will serve as a springboard of sorts, for anyone that's looking, I get it, this is going to be difficult.

Thanks for making it to the end, I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it, to Him in the honor, glory, and eternal dominion, James Hongo. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)