Marriage and Techno Trojan Horse

Anthropology Matters

This article is the third installment addressing Embryo Transfer. What is apparent from some who have responded to previous articles, is that the main point has been missed: That being a defense of marriage. One pastoral response reflected as to why this is missed: Christians "have been steered into foolish, syncretistic practices by unthinking compassion."

By way of note: Embryo Transfer is descriptive as originally used, whereas "Embryo Adoption" is a label coined later, and then popularized by "Christian" organizations as part of a government-funded marketing campaign. Lord willing, I will address this in detail in a later article.

This is a seduction directed specifically at young marriages. Couples in the church struggling with childlessness, and those with altruistic desires, are presented with images of a beautiful young couple holding a baby, accompanied by heartwarming stories that reach no further than the emotions. The aim is not to engage a thinking mind, nor to provoke from Scripture, rather, it is meant to stir emotions with a sense of compassion and empathy.

A cautionary flag, at the very least, should immediately be raised when a technological experiment from the world is being introduced into marriage and marketed to the young in the church. The added fuel to this trend is the lack of in-depth thinking, coupled with the evident absence of knowledge of what constitutes the essence of marriage. Therefore, because of this eroding trend that is brewing in the very midst of and being promoted by the church, it warrants continuance -- and pressing the issue forward.

The words of Yahweh are pure words . . .
You, O Yahweh, will keep them;
You will guard him from this generation forever.

Psalms 12:6-7

It Begins Here

"In the beginning God" (Genesis 1:1). The very first words in the first book of the Bible declare in unconditional, definitive terms, that all of life begins, continues, and is about God. "For with You is the fountain of life" . . . "who establishes us among the living" (Psalms 66:9; 36:9). His authorship of life is testified throughout Scripture. "In whose hand is the life of every living thing" (Job 12:10). Therefore, Yahweh the Holy God is the root, the origin and the cause of life, and He directs the living.

Daniel 5:23 speaks of God's totalizing involvement in His creation: "The God in whose hand are your life-breath and all your ways." This authority is exclusive as He directs His created people according to His desire and will. This includes marriage.

Genesis 1 makes immediately clear that God’s creating activity instills the entire natural world with order and purpose. His creation is objectively meaningful.

David VanDrunen

Declaring Knowledge

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And the expanse is declaring the work of His hands" (Psalms 19:1). The Psalmist is affirming that there is a natural order, created by the handiwork of God. His handiwork from "day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge" (Psalms 19:2). The heavens speak as a witness, "telling of the glory of God."

On the sixth day of creation, by deistic decree and immutable appointment, a divine prescription founded upon omnipotent authority, God, created an institutional order intended to be holy and permanent and unchangeable (cf. Nehemiah 9:6).

Behold, to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.

Deuteronomy 10:14

As the heavens speak, so too on earth marriage speaks declaring God's handiwork. He embedded into the very being of men and women a native desire for marriage. The fact that this natural affection was deposited into the human heart is testified to in Scripture, and experientially in every culture since the dawn of creation. In other words, the normative, natural essence of marriage was intentionally made knowable.

This knowledge, by way of example, was writ large on the faces and spontaneous applause given when a secular classroom full of people learned of the instructor's 45th wedding anniversary. Not condolences, rather, congratulations were offered.

This is the common testimony that emanates from marriage as being right and good: A virtue universally sought after and desired throughout cultures that points to its divine authorship. So much so, that even homosexuals in their perversion want to lay claim to marriage -- even when it is an illusion to the real.

This institution was created essential to human existence, and it provides the baseline for normal man and woman relationships. Marriage is not incidental to man, it is an imperative. The creation and order of it was not some arbitrary act. Rather, it was appropriated specifically by the Creator for humanity's well being. Marriage, then, reveals knowledge and declares "the glory of God" in nature as well as in special revelation.

The Point

Here now is a key point: When we understand that all of life is to be lived to and for God, it will maximize our understanding of the degree of sin when denying the Creator's rightful place in and over creation. Humanistic scientism wants to take control of creation by reducing it to a material, biological tool to produce children. This is the documented objective of IVF: To usurp and manipulate the created order so as to weed out the inferior. Embryo transfer is a product of, and therefore, inseparable from IVF.

This scientism, that of IVF and Embryo transfer (adoption), has been intentionally brought into the church, hidden behind the facade of "health care." In both cases, the natural function of marriage is replaced with the synthetic -- and Christians suffering from marital amnesia have welcomed it. What must be recognized is that the foundation of marriage is under a particular assault, one never before seen.

Foundational

This calls for "wisdom from above" (James 3:17). "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock" (Matthew 7:24).

This behooves us to consider the flow of the natural creational order of marriage and that of begetting:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:27).

Man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).

What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate (Matthew 19:6).

For the married woman has been bound by law to her husband (Romans 7:2).

Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it (Genesis 1:28).

Marriage is to be held in honor among all (Hebrews 13:4).

These scriptures tell the story of man's transcendental and unique essence, and the reason and purpose for his existence. "And they will sing of the ways of Yahweh, For great is the glory of Yahweh" (Psalms 138:5).

These six verses also reveal that humanity has dignity, worth, and a soul from which he derives his identity (cf. Ephesians 4:24). These come by virtue of semblance to his Creator and owner.

Laid out for us is a blueprint that man and woman are created for each other for the purpose of marriage, a relationship that is sealed with a binding covenant, fulfills the law, produces offspring and is esteemed as the preeminent creational institution. Marriage, then, is the orbicular body encompassing all of humanity and consequently the capstone of life's very existence.

This doctrinal structure of marriage is witnessed in the past, binding in the present and is testified to in the future by Holy writ. Marriage is not about us, nor is it man's idea -- rather, it is created and designed for us, for the flourishing of the human race, and contained within a mystery.

Thus, marriage is a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. It is not a secondary issue. It is the formational source and origin for all humanity and the existence of the church.

Marriage is not a creational anecdote; it is a human archetype. It is the very plan of God for human existence and by extension human flourishing.

Dr. Owen Strachan

This first and preeminent institution (that of Man, marriage and begetting), must not be thought of in terms of disconnected elements or events. They blend to form a whole and are integral to the flow of God's creational order.

This, Yahweh God blesses by way of a directed blessing. "God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Genesis 1:28). Yahweh God provided us clear institutional intent via an unambiguous command -- the man and his wife are to fill the earth with offspring.

In other words, husband and wife originate, cause to exist, and bring forth new life within the sacred bond of marriage. Such fruitfulness, not inclusively, rather is exclusively "blessed."

Behold, children are an inheritance of Yahweh,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Psalms 127:4

Therefore, the imperative is to understand marriage anthropology in order to behold and uphold the wonder, the what, and the why of God's creation of this institution.

Why Anthropology

In "Why Study Anthropology" Dr. Joel Beeke writes: "Our origin as God’s creation reinforces our moral obligation to obey his commandments. Anthropology, therefore, lays a foundation upon which we build our ethics."

If ethics is built on anthropology, the primary source of anthropology must come from the illuminating detail of Scripture. This working foundation must be central to any declaration as to what is moral or immoral regarding marriage.

Creation of man, woman, wedding, marriage, and the command to multiply, all are recorded before the seventh day of rest. God rested once He established what is normal by putting all of His creation in order.

The fact that this institution of marriage was established in the first two chapters of the first book of the Bible, predates all other institutions, and even predates the promised seed (cf. Genesis 3), speaks to its vital importance.

If you want to really understand something, one of the best things to do is to study its origin.

Dr. Richard Phillips

"Right views of anthropology significantly strengthen our overall system of belief" (Beeke). If this is true, then it is also incumbent on Christians to have a full-orbed understanding of God's order of law -- that which is baked into the nature of His creation and into every human being.

Breath of Being

"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. . .'" (Genesis 1:26). The personal nature and involvement of the godhead in the making of man is something quite different from the rest of creation.

Instead of authoritatively speaking into existence, such as with the animals, man is affectionately made, face to face, in the "image" and "likeness" of his loving Creator and Father. Here we see the special origin, or specialness, of man. "How great are Your works, O Yahweh!" (Psalms 92:5). Certainly the Psalmist understood this (cf. Psalms 139:13-16).

In chapter 2 of Genesis is a continuing account of man's creation with added intimate detail: "Then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and so the man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7).

From Yahweh God comes "being" (cf. John 5:26). Only He possesses aseity. He is self-existent, eternal, immutable and independent. He is infinite in perfection and complete in Himself, absolutely so, and therefore, the only true Being and author of being with power sufficient to give the "breath of life", bestowed by His creative authority, to another.

When God "formed man of dust from the ground," He gave man his material, bodily being. When God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," He gave man his invisible being, a soul: An individual human being consisting of body and soul.

The moment "man became a living being," this included the "image and glory of God" -- that of dignity, worth and identity (1 Corinthians 11:7; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18 ).

Right here in the book of beginnings we are given the origin of essence -- the anthropological essence of man, his very substance that distinguishes him from all others. Man is given a physical form and invisible attributes such as personality, morality, spirituality, rational intelligence and will. These invisible attributes of Man make up his resemblance to his Creator.

Man's existence and being is contingent: God not only grants being at the moment of creation, but in like manner His sustaining will upholds man's being moment by moment throughout his earthly existence. "For in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Man, then, is continuously dependent on and accountable to his Creator.

This places Man at the very pinnacle of creation. Louis Berkhof writes: "Man is not only the crown of creation, but also the object of God's special care." In other words, man intrinsically is of great value, far above and vastly more intricate and complex in his being than all of remaining creation combined.

So that they will have dominion . . . over all the earth.

Genesis 1:26

Berkhof continues, "this accounts for the fact that man occupies a place of central importance in Scripture, and that the knowledge of man in relation to God is essential to its proper understanding" (emphasis added).

The superiority and specialness of man makes him the sole being in creation that has been given the faculties to communicate, commune and fellowship with his Creator. It is only upon man that God sets His love (cf. Ephesians 2:4) -- he who mirrors His likeness. From dust to breath of being is the first anthropological building block of marriage.

Man he created as the parent of a race about to spring from a single head, and having its unity in that head.

Albert Barns 

Bone and Flesh

God, by way of progression, further sets His creation in order. Next we read:

It is not good for the man to be alone (Genesis 2:18).

But for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him . . . And Yahweh God fashioned the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman, and He brought her to the man (Genesis 2:20; 22).

Here, the flow of creation moves from God to man to woman, whom also was personally made by the hand of God, who "fashioned the rib." At this point in the creation account, "he [Adam] had met with his superior in his Creator, his inferiors in the animals; and he was now to meet his equal in the woman" (Albert Barns on Genesis).

Even her given name implies union, equality and sameness of essence: "This one shall be called Woman." Why? "Because this one was taken out of Man" (Genesis 2:23). From man, being is conferred to another. Since the flesh and essence of the male is used to create, the "image of God" is bestowed upon the "female" as well.

Though man is distinct in creation, he now lives with woman in unity with distinctions: Man ... wo-man (ish and isha). With the creation of woman, the origin of oneness of marriage comes into view. Two lives distinct, yet inextricably woven as one in essence.

From Genesis 2:23 we read what was obvious to the first man. He immediately recognized his kind, his kindred. A woman, one of a kind like no other, a gift -- she was made out of him, she came from him, she was like him, she was made for him and she was brought to him. This pictures an intimate, inseparable union, man to woman, the binding of souls as husband and wife. A union, one in image, being and flesh.

Kenneth A. Mathews writes an important summary: "The woman was taken from the man’s side to show that she was of the same 'substance as the man and to underscore the unity of the human family, having one source'" (emphasis added). The woman, then, in her being with and from man, completes the identity and foundation of marriage, family and the means of building it up.

Wedding - Marriage - Family

We must note here, Adam did not take a wife to himself by his own will, but received her as offered and appropriated to him by God, "and He brought her to the man" (Genesis 2:22). This first wedding demonstrates the Creator's direct action in the creation of marriage. From His holiness, He instilled sanctity into very substance of marriage as its author and initiator.

Following the wedding, the next verse declares the exclusivity, the intimacy, the inseparability and permanency of marriage -- the natural cohesion of one man to one woman into oneness of being.

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). This oneness is the birth of the first family. The family is the ordained means to pass being down to the next generation.

From this verse we also learn that families derive from families -- the first indication of lineage, that of descendants in line from a common progenitor. In clear view is the consistency of the creational flow.

"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). This newly minted marriage of man wedded to woman, who stood naked before their Creator God, visibly pictures holiness as seen in the absence of shame and clothing -- their nakedness a demonstration of purity. Marriage is to be understood as a holy institution, derived from a Holy God, who can do nothing less than perfection.

And a people yet to be created will praise Yah.

Psalms 102:18

Consanguinity

What comes next in this ordered flow of creation is blessed. "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply'" (Genesis 1:28). God, by fiat, spoke personally and directly to man and woman. His blessing is specific: It is to them and to them only as they become "fruitful and multiply."

In view here, is the one and only means to "multiply," the cultivation of children. The husband begets, the wife gives birth to children, and thus continues the creational flow. This requires marriage, that of one man and one woman, joined by God, in order for them to carry out His will.

Adam with his wife was formed for the production of offspring, in order that men might replenish the earth. (John Calvin)

Therefore, man cannot be alone. He cannot multiply apart from help. "I will make him a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18). The intent and progression of God's created order is obvious. Man needs a woman and wife. Only the woman as a wife is made "suitable" for him and God's purpose.

Next we see how multiplying is performed:

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth (Genesis 4:1).

Then Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth (Genesis 4:17).

Then Adam knew his wife again; and she gave birth (Genesis 4:25).

Provided here is the final element of the creational architecture -- that of man and woman, as the sole agents, who are designed and bestowed with the inherent power to bring life into the world. These verses ratify the descriptive and prescriptive means of bearing children, both of which are ingrained in the fabric -- the inmost being -- of creation. In other words, this is what having children looks like. This is the "how to" of procreation of children.

The act of multiplying also is the act of becoming parents. It is important to note that as parents, a blood relationship is established -- from the fruit of the man's body (cf. Acts 2:30). This bloodline moves from the father to the child via his wife. This is "the relation of persons by blood; the relation or connection of persons descended from the same stock. By birth" (author unknown).

It is worth noting here that Noah Webster in his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language states the common-sense understanding of what is a parent:

A father or mother; he or she that produces young. Latin parens, from pario, to produce or bring forth. A father or mother; that produces young. That which produces; cause; source.

Consanguinity, therefore, permanently binds the child to his or her parents, as well as the parents to the child, by blood. This, in and of itself, mirrors the binding nature of the marriage covenant. Nothing is to separate husband and wife, and nothing can separate parents from their progeny. The truth of the one flesh of man and woman, is seen in their offspring.

Toledot

Moving now to the beginning of Genesis chapter 5, we find how this all ties together in the creational flow -- God, man, woman, marriage, family and children:

This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth (Genesis 5:1-3).

These verses summarize the creational order by way of historical lineage. Note these points: "God created man," He gave him being. "He made him in the likeness of God," He gave him identity. The "male and female" union was "blessed." As Father, He "named them."

Then we read Adam "became the father of a son." And this son was born "in his own likeness" and "according to his image." The child is given being and identity. This progression concludes with Adam as "father" naming his son "Seth." Just as Adam was made in the "likeness" and "named" by his Father.

To back our way into this order: Seth was procreated in the likeness of his father Adam. Adam, the man, was created in the likeness of his father, Yahweh God. The lineage of "likeness" and "image" is always traced back to the father. In other words, the lineage in the likeness and image is passed from father to his descendants. This is the normal means of connecting one generation to the next -- the tracing of family roots.

Matthew Henry here is most helpful: "That which is most observable here concerning Seth is that Adam begat him in his own likeness, after his image . . . a man like himself, consisting of body and soul." The entirety of normal flow in creational order is carried forward, as seen in a complete, chronological cycle. Keeping Genesis 2:24-25 in mind, the scriptural directive is not simply procreation, rather, it is the natural (prescriptive) procreation within the context of a family creating a generational bloodline that flows from father to son, thereby establishing what is normal.

The human image and likeness in which God created mankind was procreatively passed to the second generation.

Dr. John MacArthur

From One To Whole

What Genesis demonstrates when taken as a whole, establishes the normal ontological order of humanity. We must not read over the plain wording of the text. A child comes from his father, not from anyone else. The duty of a father is to beget, as represented in Adam, and is carried out with his wife who gives birth to a child, thereby establishing the child's permanent identity.

Genesis 5 also catalogs Adam's family history -- the propagation of a family of descendants generation by generation. We see the normative in lineage, the intentional listing of an extended genealogy.

Adam "became the father [fathered or begets] of a son." Seth became the father of Enosh. Enosh fathered Kenan. Kenan fathered Mahalalel, and so on. Ten times to the end of chapter 5, the natural means of fathering children is laid out. What Genesis 5 enumerates is a family identity by blood, by way of genealogical history.

This "book of the generations of Adam" records history with purpose, and is absolutely consistent with the normal creational order seen down through the ages.

Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
In the innermost parts of your house,
Your children like olive plants
All around your table.

Psalms 128:3

Providentially, this anthropological design is the natural order forwarding humanity. This anchors humanness to being, to husband and wife, to marriage, to begetting, to family, to children and generational lineage. This is indeed significant in order to fully know and comprehend the nature and essence of marriage. What began with one man is now a complete whole.

This was first pictured in Genesis 4:1: "The man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth." These words are specific and intentional. The man, the husband, knew his wife. Who is the man's wife? Eve. And who caused his wife to conceive? The man married to his wife. Thereby, the family and historical birth linage is established.

Here it must be recognized that the covenant of marriage is one of a kind. A kinship bond first seen in Genesis 2:23-25. A bond in a one flesh, sexual covenant, a union found only in marriage. Husbands and wives have connubial rights and sexual duties. Each's body belongs to the other. Those duties are exclusive, they are not to lend their bodies to another (cf. Proverbs 5:18-19; 1 Corinthians 7:3-4).

Therefore, anthropology of marriage is neither nuanced nor oblique. The procreation normative is one of interdependency. Men and women, as husband and wife, are to carry out Yahweh's divine command as prescribed in Genesis to be "fruitful and multiply." The husband is to father children in "his own likeness, according to his image." The wife, "she gave birth" to a child, fathered by her own husband's seed. No one or no thing is intervening -- it is a simple, unmediated love. This prescriptive act derives directly from Yahweh God.

Let your fountain be blessed, And be glad in the wife of your youth.
Proverbs 5:18

These inculcations belong exclusively to the inviolable sanctity and essence of marriage. Nothing, then, trumps God's creational order, the natural and covenantal law that governs what constitutes normal, conjugal marital relations that begets progeny.

Telos

Is not this anthropology, then, at the heart of "this mystery" which Paul is "speaking with reference to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32)?

Benjamin L. Merkle, citing O’Brien, sheds helpful light: "Note that Paul’s argument cites Christ’s relationship with the church as the template after which human marital relationships are patterned, not vice-versa. The mystery is not merely the Christ-church relationship but is more specifically the 'interplay of human marriage and the divine marriage between Christ and his people. . . . A Christian marriage . . . reproduces in miniature the beauty shared between the Bridegroom and the Bride.'"

God created human marriage with purpose, so that his people would have a category for understanding the relationship between Christ and his church. Ephesians 5 points directly back to and is deeply steeped in Genesis 2:24. The normative, invisible and unbreakable union of Christ and His people (His body) may be seen in the unbreakable, visible union of husband and wife.

Imagery is useful and becomes an emblem of instruction when words fall short. The love which Adam expressed towards Eve, and his union with her by marriage, are lively images of Christ's love for believers, His bride, His body and of His eternal union with them. The imagery pictured is inner-relational, a kindred joining in purity as one with purpose.

The marriage of Adam and Eve, in whom represents all of humanity, means that their marriage and the covenant that binds them "was a type of Christ and his church . . .  for in this the first Adam was a figure of him that was to come" (John Gill).

To that end, what is depicted in Ephesians 5 is a deep love one for the other. The husband, like Christ, will guide, protect and sacrifice himself for the sake of his wife's purity -- his bride. There is cleanness, free of heterogeneous matter or any substance or action that would defile their relationship. There is a profound, intimate, inner oneness in marriage, a mirror image of the oneness found in Christ

"A truly Christian marriage has an excellence, holiness, and unity in it, that cannot be easily described; and let it be observed that, while it prefigures the union of Christ with his Church, it is one means of giving children to the Church. It is an ordinance of God, and, cannot be too highly honoured" (Clarke Commentary on Genesis).

Anthropology Matters

The anthropology of marriage is one appropriated by God for unity, order and structure, and in prominence and permanence that holds man accountable. In other words, the fundamental ethical criterion begins in the book of beginnings. It counsels us, by bringing into view as prescribed by the Creator, what being is and the means of passing being to the next generation within His creational order.

This is Yahweh God's providential care over the world He created and owns, by giving His creatures grounding and foundation for common morality of what it means to live as an image-bearing human.

Anthropology matters, because with any attempt to understand and order marriage apart from the Creator's defining institution, dehumanization becomes inevitable.

G. K. Chesterton is believed to have said: “When people reject Christianity, it is not that they believe in nothing, but they will believe in anything." What is alarming here is Christians rejecting Christianity -- refusing the Lord's counsel, believing they have the right to some form of self-determination regarding the structure of marriage.

Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Ephesians 5:15-17

Christians are believing that they can use pragmatic, worldly theology to come to moral conclusions outside the discipline of Scriptural anthropology. Whether intentional or not, they are rejecting the foundation of what gives humans worth, dignity and identity -- without which we cannot know what it means to be a husband, wife, father, mother, parents and a family. And, where does that leave the children?

The pillar of a Christian's worldview must stand firmly on the transcendent, special revelation of God’s Word. "In the beginning God created . . ." (Genesis 1:1). "Then God said . . ." (Genesis 1:3). "In the beginning was the Word . . ." (John 1:1). The intended emphasis is obvious.

From the enduring and unchangeable character of God comes truth from the Word that gives us His prescriptive, natural order that illuminates the normal. Thus, we have at our disposal, unique intellectual and spiritual tools to analyze, critique and come to morally correct decisions.

The weight and necessity of sacred text in this regard cannot be overstated. "For the commandment is a lamp and the law is light" (Proverbs 6:23). Do we understand the importance of these words?

A "commandment" is God handing down divine wisdom to the creatures whom He owns. It is a lamp to illumine the dark and confused world we must live in. The "law", then, is what He commands. Law (lex) is not a suggestion, a proposal, or a recommendation. Law means it is a fixed code, a statute prescribed by the supreme authority. It is the source of boundaries and draws the line between sin and righteousness.

It is here, at this precise point in daily living, that which separates Christians from the unbelieving world. By act of the will, desiring with joy, to fulfill our merciful and gracious God's commands, to yield with purpose and without reservation to His law. This is love lived, a life that shows our words (cf. James 3:13).

The Scriptures lay out for us a clear and God-honoring worldview -- and firmly and deeply embedded in those words is a proper anthropology of marriage. "Therefore, lays a foundation upon which we build our ethics" (Beeke). That is, to properly orient our thinking.

Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

Psalms 119:105

Artifice Sex and Natural Law

This technology, developed from humanistic scientism, has thrown the church into a debate over the meaning of marriage and that of procreation. Further, the church has now moved beyond debate into assisting scientism in seizing control of creation -- by wrestling marriage away from Yahweh God.

When the common, ethical understanding of marriage is lost in the bifurcation of sex and begetting, the unnatural rewriting of the creational order into a mere material, biological tool is indeed succeeding. Dehumanization, then, is unavoidable.

Gregory E. Reynolds comments: "Technology has given us tremendous power to manipulate the created order. [I]t has also given sinful, autonomous man the false idea that he can redesign human nature." This technology brings with it the "false idea" of a new way to get a baby. This redesigning of a human is now happening within the very core of young marriages.

Christians are abandoning millennia of historical common knowledge and understanding of marriage for a new technology developed over the course of just a few years. This is what I would call thinking that lacks principal.

We must connect the dots from Reynolds' observations and that of the loss of marriage common sense understanding.

Chasm Fall

Much has been written and said by Christians about this new technology. Oliver O'Donovan writes, "if talk of 'making' our progeny fails in any way, it fails only by falling short of this unplumbed chasm that opened up in our experience of what it is to be human. . . . Because we can neither think nor say what it is that we have done."

This was spoken prophetically four decades ago, of married Christian couples birthing a child neither the wife nor her husband begot. This is indeed an "unplumbed chasm," a deep vacuity that no one knows the outcome for the husband, the wife, their marriage and the child, if one is birthed. Why? "Because we can neither think nor say what it is that we have done."

What can be said for certain regarding a child's identity born via embryo transference? Which man is the father? Who is the actual mother? Who are the child's real parents, siblings and family? How does this not rupture a child's understanding of Scripture such as, "You wove me in my mother’s womb"?

What is actually occurring, is that the child's identity is disordered and essence hopelessly confused. Family becomes a stupefied muddle. The blood lineage and the family tree becomes a tangled weed. Such disconnectedness becomes a certainty.

This is causing birthed children of IVF (when one or both gametes are donated) and embryo transfer, reaching adulthood to question their identity -- "Who am I?" They question their very essence -- "What am I?" They question their existence -- "When was I actually conceived?" They question their worth and dignity -- "I feel like I was just an abandoned commodity." This much of the chasm, has now become a sad reality we are reading and learning about.

The artificiality of embryo transfer is undeniable. This is "surrogacy," except the child is kept by the substitute. Couples are seeking God's blessings on their own terms. Such tampering with God's design defines abnormal. It is the antithesis of natural law, a 180 degree departure from the anthropological nature of marriage.

The technology behind embryo transfer is an overt, autonomist act of denial of God, to rob Him of His sovereignty over marriage and the womb. This is why O'Donovan was spot-on in pointing out our failure, to have any idea as to what it is we are doing or done.

When normal principles are side-stepped, when the prescribed natural order and the morals governing marriage are disregarded, there is no rational means by which to understand the essence of marriage. Here the chasm is wide, and with no way of knowing what the extent of damage will be.

This indictment is against young Christian couples who have usurped divine authority and seized for themselves technology developed by God-hating man in order to get a baby or "save" an embryo. They have dehumanized themselves, their marriage, the process of birthing and the child, if one is born.

Is it not presumptuous, when the parties in a binding marriage covenant violate their pledge and covenantal conditions, then expect to receive the blessing of that covenant? They will not.

It is breathtakingly naive to think that defying God's creational good in marriage will have a good outcome. Couples are using science and technology to replace the God of creation, while at the same time believing there is virtue in their actions, and that it will turn out well. Failure to honor God or to highly esteem marriage has taken us down a dark road.

But What About?

But what about all the frozen embryos? In addressing this issue with a fellow pastor I wrote, "Man does not decide in himself what is moral or immoral. It is impossible for man's goodness or love to be above that of his God -- regardless of the magnitude of the tragedy created by sin, or the amount of felt compassion of the Christian."

How, at the expense of violating the natural creational order, the sanctity of marriage and the binding covenant, can anything be justified? Desire, compassion, empathy or copious amounts of prayer do not overcome God's covenantal law governing marriage. Since when do we pray asking whether or not we should sin?

THE FOLLY, IS THAT MARRIAGE IS VIEWED AS A TOOL, A SOLUTION TO FIX A PROBLEM.

Christians have no right to pragmatically reorder nor sacrifice procreational norm within marriage in order to artificially multiply. Nor are they to self-determine what is good in order to "save" an embryo. This contradiction is entirely missed in the plethora of evangelical writings on this topic.

The singular focus of this issue is on the "problem" of frozen embryos -- without any consideration given to the biblical anthropology of marriage. This is evident in their written nonsense -- by condemning as sinfully immoral the technology used in IVF, but then magically this same technology is morally elevated as righteous in order to "adopt" an embryo. Does sin beget righteousness? Where is the logic? We are to hate evil and not be hypocrites (cf. Romans 12:9).

Some even dare to use Christ's adopting repentant sinners as an equivalent -- ignoring that Christ demonstrated His love in righteous fulfillment of the Law in order to adopt. Such attempts to justify only reveals man's reasoning run aground by abusing Scripture.

Hate evil, love good, And set justice at the gate!

Amos 5:15

What has found its way into, and is being promoted by churches, is the apotheosis of man. It has lead to the folly of modernity that assumes man can improve and do better than God. We are not more loving than God! This is what Christians have bought into -- when they slice and dice the wonder and mystery in the intimacy of begetting children within marriage into disconnected elements and events performed on a clinic office table.

The disjointedness and degree of divergence from God's normal creational means is unmistakable. This is a present and real danger to the marriages of young couples. The degree of deviation from the divine standard cannot be misunderstood.

This is what happens when God, the sovereign owner of creation, is kicked to the curb in order to fulfill a desire or in the name of compassion and empathy -- that of "saving an embryo." Have we not elevated human life over and above the Creator of life?

"But what about God?!"

Sanctity Of Life

Consider the wisdom of Psalm 139. Neither the sanctity of life nor personhood is ever lost in God's sight. An embryo that is the result of man sinfully manipulating creation in IVF continues to be precious; "how precious are Your thoughts to me, O God!"

Embryos are not beyond God's sight: "My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And intricately woven in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unshaped substance." God sees, they are not hidden, Why? Because God has woven them -- each and every one of these little ones.

They are not lost: "Where can I go from Your Spirit? . . . Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me." God is not passive, He is active, His caring hand has not been removed. He has laid hold of and is leading each life.

Man abandons embryos, but our loving God does not. The Psalmist calls us to remember that God has ordained every moment of these unborn lives: "And in Your book all of them were written The days that were formed for me, When as yet there was not one of them."

When left with no moral means to help the oppressed, can we not trust God?

It is not for us to attempt nor determine the length of someone's life. We must lovingly trust them, in all dependance, to Yahweh God's sovereign care, His care even in death (cf. Psalms 116:15). Is this not what Psalm 139 so eloquently tells us? Do not these words of Psalmist include an embryo?

Indeed, we must show our concern and lament over such sin -- but a good concern cannot cause us to set aside righteousness and obedience and attempt to do what only God can. We cannot take to ourselves the right nor attempt to take life into our own hands. Only God's "right hand" is sufficient.

Christians must leave the responsibility for sin committed, and what that sin produces, at the feet of the offending sinner. We are to hate evil (cf. Proverbs 8:13), but our hatred, or compassion and empathy, or love, cannot step outside of what God has ordered.

Our trust in God is to extend to His judgement -- that each and every death of an embryo caused by the hand of man will be accounted for: "He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death" (Exodus 21:12).

Stop This Craziness

As one writer states: "The moral law in the Bible is not contrary to natural law but its perfect expression." In six days the earth, the sun, and all living things were created for Man, God's crowning achievement. The image of God gives man his specialness. Man was given dominion and with his helpmate, by covenant law, to bear the fruit of their marriage and fill the earth. This constitutes the creational flow spoken of as a whole -- a mystery later spoken of as the Christ-church relationship.

Here at this very point we use marriage anthropology to condemn homosexuality, transgenderism and all forms of perverted marriage, do we not? Why, then, do we not apply this to ourselves? The answer is painfully simple -- it is the "spirit of the age", the application of a pagan definition of love and compassion that elevates feelings (a high view of self), mixed together with pragmatism. Is this not elitist hypocrisy?

What is unfolding right before us is the launch and success of a technological trojan horse. A never-before-seen assault carried right into the very essence of young marriages. The young are being seduced with emotional manipulation, slick marketing and erroneous counsel. This technology, once slipped inside a marriage, causes disruption of the normal and natural order of creation -- the damage then, is done.

Yahweh is the author of morality, the singular person with the authority to weave into the fabric of His creation what is normal -- that which is the natural order of humans as His image-bearers. Paul declares: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20 emphasis added).

Much blame for the present success of this trojan horse is rightly laid at the feet of learned men and leaders. Those who write, advise and counsel others yet fail to understand the most basic truth written and objectively revealed in Scripture, and that which is obvious in natural law.

There is no excuse for ignorance, nor is there any claim to innocence or blame-shifting. Leaders are culpable for having allowed sin into the camp! "So Yahweh said to Joshua, “Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also trespassed against My covenant which I commanded them" (Josiah 7:10-11).

This issue is not a lower level debate such as the mode of baptism, eschatology, or the structure of church government, where we can and do hold differing positions. This, is an assault on humanity. A blatant disrespect for God's creational order. An assault aimed at the very core of the premier institution, the foundation of what it means to be a human being.

In other words, the natural law order of God is being undermined and molested by Christian leaders and organizations who are naively assisting in the overthrow of marriage, and therefore humanity. Here is the indictment: "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?" (John 3:10). Today, a well deserved rebuke!

When men -- even those with some combination of letters before or after their name -- write articles, essays and books without the prerequisite study and deep critical thinking, or iron sharpening, mishandle or fail to read (or willfully ignore) the basic plain text and context of the Bible, and fail theologically, factually, legally, logically and anthropologically: What is forgotten is that they are mere men (cf. Act 10:26).

Care -- much greater care -- is called for. A man's credentials, his articles, books or academic achievements mean nothing when this kind of error is published. Casualness when dealing with marriage is dangerous. This calls for robust pushback, and not assuming the author has it right.

When it comes to marriage, there is no middle ground!

You who received the Law as ordained by angels, and yet did not observe it.

Acts 7:53

Marriage is the foundation of humanity, therefore Yahweh God's uppermost created order. This lands at the highest level of doctrinal importance.

There is no wiggling out of this. A divine institution has been scandalized and the enemy has been aided by complicit Christians!

What is needed now, is a call to repent.

At this point, I do not see any complaisant way to end this article. This Techno Trojan Horse needs be shot dead. Instead, it has been lead right into marriages. We are not singing to a "great is the glory of Yahweh," but rather, He is spurned. Great harm is being done to young Christian marriages. I fear in the decades ahead we will look back and ask, "what is it we have done?!"

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Proverbs 1:7

Jesus Christ stands ready to forgive the repentant. Herein is my prayer and purpose for writing: We must stop this craziness!