One of the primary failures in our nation under the banner of the Pro-Life movement has been to address the issue of abortion as Christians. Those on the side of life have fallen into a category of wanting our message to be more palatable to an unbelieving world. This simply will not end such a horrendous atrocity as the holocaust of the innocents in our land. God simply will not honor a fight that does not honor His Word. Unfortunately, our society has deemed the use of Scriptural language as “hate speech.” Many Christians respond to this subject in such a way as to agree with that premise. They are ashamed that God in His Word files this act under the category of abomination. Such a position is believed to be unhelpful, insensitive and offensive. In order to understand the necessity of rightly seeing child sacrifice the way that God does we must understand that its origins are ancient, and its progenitor is the one the Bible calls our greatest adversary.
“And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne…” Revelation 12:1-5
From Genesis to Revelation, the great cosmic conflict of history can be summarized as: The Seed of the Woman vs. The Seed of the Serpent. As the Apostle John points out, the goal of the Dragon is to abort the work of Christ. This enemy, with whom the offspring of the woman are to be at enmity, is the one who was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). His homicidal rage is seen first in Eden where our first parents sinned and plunged all of humanity into the curse of the fall. Even in the midst of such treason God proclaims the first evangel and the triumph of the woman’s offspring over the Serpent’s brood (Genesis 3:15). This is where the conflict between Christ and Satan is announced. This is the war of the two seeds which comes to define the warfare of history from beginning to end. The Serpent is at war with the woman and her Seed (Christ) and is obsessed with either keeping the Messiah from being born, or with killing him when he finally comes into the world.
It is under the inspiration of the Serpent that Cain commits the first murder against his righteous brother, Abel in an effort to destroy the Righteous Seed (Genesis 4:25). Next, we observe the preservation of Noah and his family from the corruption of Seth’s descendants and the judgment of the flood sent to destroy the wicked (Genesis 6:1-12). The theme continues through the Patriarchs and into the account of the children of Israel in Egypt where Pharaoh commands the execution of the male firstborns (Exodus 1). Five hundred years following, we see the Devil’s work to inspire Saul’s ravenous pursuit of David to destroy the Messianic Seed (1 Samuel 18:10-11). With the aid of Queen Esther, the nation of Israel escaped extermination from the wicked Prince Haman (Esther 3:9), saving the Jewish people and securing the line of the coming King . But perhaps the most vivid example of the siege on the Seed is seen in the constant temptation of the nation of Israel to murder their own children and offer them to demons (Leviticus 18:21, Psalm 106:37-38). In the case of the New Testament we see the jealous, bloodthirsty King Herod’s attempt to cut off the King of kings by slaughtering the first fruits of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:13-18). It was not only at the birth of Christ but also throughout his earthly ministry that the Dragon tried to stop Jesus by temptation (Luke 4:1-13), demonic oppression (John 13:2), and climactically in the crucifixion. However, the Bible tells us that our Savior was delivered up according to the definite plan of God (Acts 4:27-28), and that he made an example of the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame by triumphing over them in his completed victory at the cross (Colossians 2:14-15).
The Scripture is clear that the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the Devil (1 John 3:8). The purpose of tracing the Biblical conflict of the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent is to show that abortion is most assuredly a work of the Devil whose head has been decisively crushed by the One whose heel he bruised. Therefore, the task for every Christian born again through the imperishable seed (1 Peter 1:23) is to make war on societal evils like abortion. As we partake in this cosmic conflict we are being conformed to the image of Christ, defending image-bearers of God from the one who would strike at the Heavenly Family (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) by striking first at the earthly family in abortion. The mission of the Dragon is to remove any opportunity for the second birth. The choice tactic to accomplish his objective is the eradication of the first birth. Make no mistake the murder of the unborn is an enemy, but it is an enemy that Christ will place under his feet. The assurance for the children of God in this fight is victoriously certain because God will continually demonstrate Himself faithful to His promise of overturning the effects of sin’s curse as far as they are found. The Dragon stands ready to devour children, just as he waited to swallow up Christ when he was born. Jesus Christ hallowed the womb of a virgin as a baby to grow up and be the Ultimate Dragon Slayer. When he was successful in his task he was “caught up” to sit on His throne, where he presently reigns to ensure the conquest of His Church against this great evil. The one who cast down the power of the Serpent will give us the power to abort abortion and end its infamous scourge once and for all.
