Imagine you could speak to an embryo within the womb. In that conversation, you told that newly forming baby that what he or she is currently experiencing is all there is to life. “There’s no life after the womb; there’s no meaning to your presence in that womb,” you would inform him. “The short life you live in your mother’s womb is all there is to existence.”
So, if this was true, the termination of a pregnancy has no significance. To think otherwise is religious foolishness.
Saying such things to a pre-born child teaches him or her to be an atheist. It leaves the child spiritually bankrupt and hopeless. It’s the same thing as saying to an adult “there’s no afterlife upon death, there’s no eternal existence of a heaven or a hell, there’s no God.”
The Baby’s Response
How do you think that tiny embryo would respond if he or she could verbally reply?
That new human life in the womb would respond, “But here are arms and hands and fingers growing on me. I don’t need them in here. I can’t even stretch out my arms. If life in the womb is short and all there is, then why are these things growing? Why is this happening if I’m not meant to grasp things or hug my mommy or reach up and hold daddy’s hand?”
“And, here are tiny legs and feet and toes growing. I have to keep my legs bent into my chest because there is so little room in this womb. If my human life has no purpose or meaning then why are they growing? Aren’t I designed to walk and run and play? I have eyes and eyelashes and eyebrows that are developing on my unique face, yet I exist in a dark place where eyes aren’t needed. Why do I have eyes if not for a future use where there are light and form, and color to see?”
The Baby’s Challenge
“No. I think you’re wrong,” the pre-born baby would say. “To teach me atheism is true leaves me spiritually bankrupt. These arms, legs, and eye are designed for a purpose. I have yet to experienced life outside the womb. And no one knows what my life will be like after I am born.
But the fact remains that I am developing limbs and organs and muscle and tissue. This clearly indicate I was created to function in another place. I am meant to survive outside the womb.”
Why Does an Embrio Develop?
Why do arms, legs, and eyes grow on an embryo? It’s for what comes next in his or her life. Since there is life after birth, it logically follows that there must also be an afterlife after birth. The baby in the womb prepares to live in a world he or she has yet to experience, just as you and I are preparing in this life to live in eternity though we have yet to experience it.
The developing human person in the womb is a divine picture of the reality of eternal life. Each developing baby in the womb reminds us that God creates human life and has a purpose for every child developing in the womb. Babies are forming so they can exist in another place. Every embryo is a sign that for those living outside the womb they too are meant for another place. We are conceived so we might spend eternity with our Creator. There is real life after death.
God Has Plans For that Little One
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the LORD” (Jer 29:11-14a ESV).
Inspired by a story found in Tortured For Christ by Richard Wormbrand. Published by David C. Cook. Colorado Spring, CO. 2017. p. 114-115. ISBN 978-0-8307-7206-5. Order the book here.
Copyright © 2018 Jim Klukow
