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Life Issues - Matthew 16
A sermon preached by David Holloway

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This morning in our series of Biblical Thoughts for the Day we are to think about LIFE ISSUES. You read about these regularly in the papers or hear the subjects discussed on the Radio or TV. And there is great confusion and disagreement. When it was announced, just over two months ago, in the Evening Chronicle that "a cloned human embryo has been created by North East scientists" who "have made history after becoming the first in the UK to achieve the historic step", the "Chronicle comment" was:

"We should be proud of the achievement of the team of researchers from the Centre for Life. They have made a break through which can do much good for the future of mankind."

However, a famous journalist in a national daily newspaper, a day or two later, wrote the opposite:

"These developments are being hailed as scientific breakthroughs which hold out the possibility of cures for a range of dreadful diseases. And, of course, it is entirely understandable that those who are suffering in this way will desperately cling to anything which offers them hope. However, far from enhancing our humanity, this ... threatens to destroy it altogether. There is a strong sense of unreality about all this. Earlier this year, the United Nations voted in favour of banning all forms of human cloning because of the insuperable ethical problems that it poses."

Then take abortion. Late in 2002 a student at Ridley Hall, Cambridge - an Anglican theological college - noted the abortion statistics for the previous year. And there were ten abortions because of a cleft-palate. In one case the abortion was after the legal limit of twenty-four weeks. She thought this was dreadful. She herself was born with a similar disfigurement. But this has now totally been transformed. Also she has a down's syndrome brother who has his rightful place in the family. Our law, however, permits abortion in the third trimester (that is after the point of viability outside the womb). And that is when a doctor thinks there is, I quote, "a substantial risk that the child, if born, would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped."

Joanna Jepson, that was the young woman's name, did not reckon that a cleft palate was a "serious handicap". She tried to get the courts to take action. She succeeded with publicity for her cause, but not in terms of a court judgment to support it. So you can still commit foeticide on an otherwise healthy baby, simply because it has a cleft palate. That is partly because so many doctors support that position. This was clear at the recent British Medical Association conference, when a call to reduce the current limit of 24 weeks to 20 weeks was voted out. On 1 July Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the head of science and ethics at the BMA, was reported as saying that the vote [to allow abortions as late as 24 weeks] had been 'compassion winning out'.

And then take euthanasia. Last December the news broke that the Gronigen Academic hospital in the Netherlands has begun to carry out involuntary euthanasia on disabled babies including the use of lethal doses of sedatives. I quote: "the hospital said that it had drawn up guidelines on involuntary euthanasia and carried out four such killings of babies in 2003."

Of course, these are very ill babies. But it is one thing to realize that a baby in all probability will die and so you make them as comfortable as possible. It is totally different positively to administer lethal doses of drugs to kill them in a procedure now called "neo-natal euthanasia" or "post-birth abortion". Then soon after that Baroness Mary Warnock, who helped frame Britain's legislation on embryo research and so a key person, in Britain's liberal cloning regime, was asked about euthanasia. I quote from the interview:

"not only does she now think that assisted suicide should be legal ... she also feels the very frail should slink away like elephants to die quietly. She reckons doctors, when asked to assist in this, bang on too much about their consciences rather than their patients interest."

And on euthanasia - at that recent BMA conference there was something else that was truly historic. The BMA voted to adopt a neutral policy on euthanasia. This means from now on the BMA will neither campaign for, nor against, any future change in the law. Dr Evan Harris MP, who had called for this change in the stance of the BMA welcomed the vote and said: "this is now a matter for Parliament to decide and the role of the medical profession is ... not to oppose an overdue move."

CARE and the CMF (the Christian Medical Fellowship) were appalled. Roger Smith, speaking for CARE said: "Doctors are to be the agents of life, not agents of death." And Dr Peter Saunders, the general secretary of the CMF, accused the BMA of "turning its back on the Hippocratic Oath." These are indeed confused and dangerous times. I haven't time to repeat what I said the last time I preached in this series on THE CULTURE AND THE FUTURE. I spoke then a little about the philosophical drifts of our times and, so called "post-modernism" and our living in an age where nothing is right and nothing is wrong; and choice is everything. It is almost like the time of the Judges in ancient Israel. This phrase occurs in the book of Judges in the Old Testament more than once: "everyone did as he saw fit". It seems like that today.

But in all the confusion of today - and with all the complexities of today - how do you decide what is right and what is wrong? To help us answer that question this morning I want us now to look at our New Testament reading - Matthew 16.1-4. And I want to have two headings: first, HOW NOT TO DECIDE and then, secondly, HOW TO DECIDE.


First, HOW NOT TO DECIDE

Matthew 16.1-4 says you are not to be like the Pharisees and Sadducees in this incident in the ministry of Jesus. Look at verse 1:

"The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven."

They wanted a sign from heaven - perhaps some miraculous voice, coming as though from some great loud-speaker in the sky and thundering, "Jesus Christ is the Messiah the Old Testament promised would bring in the kingdom of God." This was the issue they were confused and arguing about. Perhaps you are saying, "what is wrong with a 'sign from heaven'. It would have solved a lot of problems then - and would solve them now."

But look at verse 4. Jesus says it is "a wicked and adulterous generation [that] looks for a miraculous sign." "wicked and adulterous generation" is referring to spiritual, not physical, adultery and with regard to God. It is being unfaithful to God and following other Gods - whether they be metal idols or mental idols. So it is a generation that is ignoring the true God of the Bible and his word - like much of this generation in Britain at this moment in time. And no miraculous sign from heaven will be given to such people because they wouldn't believe it even if they heard it. They would say today, "this is a freak of meteorology. It is a one in a billion chance and we are lucky. Or it is some hoax by the CIA." Such people are always asking for more evidence but never open to conviction. Their minds have already been made up. That is true today in the debates over these life issues. That is true of some Doctors, patients, ethicists, MP's, and clergymen who want to go their way and not God's way. Their minds are already made up. Ramesh Ponnuru in his article on Lapse of Reason and talking about personhood, says this:"I suspect that whether life begins at conception would not even be a question if we did not have interests - eg a desire for medical breakthroughs or fear of the burdens of pregnancy and parenthood - in denying the proposition. If we had no incentives to kill an embryo (but had today's medical knowledge), I doubt we would question it is wrong to do so."So, how not to decide - do not ask for "a sign from heaven". And that still needs to be said to Christians in the 21st century. I knew a Christian doctor who pioneered abortions after the 1967 Abortion Act and greatly influenced other doctors. He publicly admitted that an important element in his decision was a so called "word of knowledge" he heard at a charismatic meeting. But that, says Jesus, is not the way to decide when there are clear "signs of the times" telling you something to the contrary. So let's move on and ...


Secondly, HOW TO DECIDE

First, you are to use your mind. Look at verses 2 and 3:

"Jesus replied, 'When evening comes, you say, "It will be fair weather, for the sky is red," and in the morning, "Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast." You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.'"

Jesus is commending these Pharisees and Sadducees for their scientific knowledge. It was unsophisticated knowledge compared with today. But they knew, Jesus said, "how to interpret the appearance of the sky" for weather forecasting. So Christians should never be anti-science. Take biotechnology. This has been a huge blessing. Not everything in it is controversial like embryonic stem cell research and cloning and eugenics. Thank God for all the scientific processes that give us new and better prescription drugs, develop artificial heart valves, see the structure of DNA and scores of other scientific feats that were unimaginable even 10 years ago. And Christians are in the forefront of working on ANT-OAR (altered nuclear transfer - oocyte assisted reprogramming). That is argued to be a scientifically and morally sound means of obtaining human pluripotent stem cells.

You see, biotechnology needs bioethics, and bioethics that are based on God's law. Science - mere technical know-how - is not enough. For the Pharisees and Sadducees it wasn't enough just to be able to know "how to interpret the appearance of the sky." Their desperate problem was that they could not, as the last part of verse 3 says, "interpret the signs of the times." What does Jesus mean by "the signs of the times"? Scholars are divided. Some think it means the signs of Jesus - his miracles that validated his person and work and teaching. Others think it means the providential judgments of God and the evidences of God's working in history. Those should have told the Pharisees and Sadducees that no political leader and certainly no revolutionary leader could possibly bring in the promised kingdom of God. Rome was too powerful. So a suffering Messiah was the perfect fit for such a time in world history. They should believe in Jesus. Possibly the phrase "signs of the times" covers both those understandings. But, at least, what it means is that to know how to decide on vital questions, you need to understand God's revelation in Jesus. And Jesus, of course, as well as pointing to his own teaching, points you back to the teaching of the Old Testament and on to the teaching of his Apostles. So you need the Bible, where you have all that teaching.

This so parallels today. The Pharisees and Sadducees (who supplied the high priests) were learned men and involved in a number of technical activities themselves but they needed Jesus' take on life and the world. The new high priests in the post Christian West are often our Doctors who are also learned and involved in technical activities. But they too so need Christ's take on life and the world. They, too, need to interpret the signs of the times. They need medical ethics that are based on God's word. And as Paul in Romans 2.15 says even non-Christians can ...

"... show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness."

So Christians need to be confident and not ashamed about their ethics.

But what more can we say about the ethics relating to these life issues? Turn back, if you will, to Isaiah 44, our Old Testament reading this morning. That suggests some basics. Now, in all our thinking - so in all our ethical thinking - we need to keep in mind the fourfold scheme of biblical history. It is that that gives you the philosophy of the Bible. You see, the Bible divides history not by the rise and fall of empires or civilizations but by four major events - the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption and the Consummation. You must take account of all four of those realities.

So look, first, at Isaiah 44 verse 24:

"This is what the LORD says - your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:

I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself."

This is where it all must start - with Creation. God made the world, so he knows how it works best. And he not only made the universe; he also made you and me. True, the prophet is here personifying the people of Israel, but what he said is true for every individual - the Lord "formed you in the womb." So God clearly cares for the embryo and the foetus in the womb. We should do the same. He didn't treat you or me as a "thing". Of course, human life begins with that initial fusion of an ovum and a sperm. There is nothing you and I now have, genetically speaking, that we did not have when we were no larger than a full stop on a piece of paper. It has been noted that in the abortion debate many argue that the fetus is not human until out of the womb, while in the stem cell debate the embryo is not human until in the womb.

And that embryo and every baby and adolescent and young adult and senile adult is made in the image of God and so worthy of protection (Genesis 9.6). That is the verse that explains why you must never kill and so from the earliest days of the church there has been opposition to abortion and euthanasia. And created human life is a gift. That is what Job understood. Speaking of the death of his own children he said this (Job 1.21): "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away." A child is not a commodity, according to the Bible, but a gift.

And there was a creation mandate to "be fruitful" and "subdue" the earth and "rule". There were permissions for the first man and woman but also limits, for example, "not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." And modern medical science and technology also have their permissions and limits. But Tony Blair doesn't seem to see this. He told critics of Britain's plan to clone human embryos for research, I quote: "Our conviction about what is natural and right should not inhibit the role of science discovering the truth."

But the Nazis said that. However, they had to learn at the Nuremberg trials that truth cannot be gained by any means, certainly not by means that are destructive of human life.

That brings us to the Fall when the man and the woman decided to go their way and not God's and there was disaster. You read about that in Genesis 4 and following. Not all was bad. For culture evolved and so did technology. Genesis 4. 22 tells you of "Tubal-Cain who forged all kinds of tools our of bronze and iron." Then you read how science developed and they no longer needed those tools to chisel stone. Genesis 11.3 says that

"they used brick instead of stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens."

This was the Tower of Babel and they were wanting to be God-like - reaching to the heavens. So God stopped and scattered them. The fall also means there will be false teachers. Look at Isaiah 25:

"[The Lord] foils the signs of false prophets."

And you get false prophets today in medical schools and writing medical ethics books. Time doesn't allow me to elaborate.

Then there is the Redemption - the good news. Our God is a "Redeemer" - look at verse 24. He wants the best for us. So he sent Christ into the world to save us from our sins. I expect one or two here this morning, in this confused world, know they have messed up in some way or other in these "life issues". The good news is that there is forgiveness, if we confess our sins. Christ died on the cross to bear the punishment you and I deserve for any and every sin - including abortion. Yes, God's love is an accepting love. It is also a transforming love. He then wants you and me to live and witness for him. How do you do that if you are directly involved in one of these issues and pressure is put upon you to do something unethical or wrong?

Remember Daniel. Isaiah is prophesying about the captivity of the Jews in Babylon. When that happened Daniel ended up in a senior position. But he didn't compromise over fundamentals. He even risked his life. But God honoured him. And at the end of the day, the pagan government, in the person of Cyrus, came on-side and acted to fulfil God's purpose. You read about Cyrus in verse 28.

Finally, there is the Consummation - when Christ comes again. We were thinking about that last Sunday evening. All I shall say now is that many problems occur in medical ethics because many doctors and many patients do not believe in life after death or heaven or hell. But "the sign of Jonah" (Matthew 16.4), that Jesus told the Pharisees and Sadducees was the only sign they would be given, proves that heaven and hell are real. That sign was Jesus' Resurrection, (Jonah was three days in the great fish). And because Christ is risen, because that tomb was left empty that first Easter day, you can be sure that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. And so Christian medical ethics - the ethics of the medical profession of the modern world until the last few years - are the only sure foundation for deciding on all these life issues.