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by Ernie Klassek |
"No, do not be surprised-the time is coming when all those who are dead
and buried will hear His voice and out they will come-those who have done right
will rise again to life, but those who have done wrong will rise to face
judgment!" That is how J. B. Phillips rendered some words of Jesus in
"Then the sea gave up its
dead. Death and the world of the dead also gave up the dead they held. And all
were judged according to what they had done" (Revelation
All-when we read that word we think of every human being, past, present and future; our ancestors, people here and now and those yet to come.
But is that "all"? Are human beings only those who are like us, folks
we can see, touch and interact with?
What about those many of us only hear about, or are vaguely aware of-the little
ones who die before they are born? Should they be included in
"all"?
In my grandmother's time, a pregnant woman carried her child under her heart.
Yes, that's how she described her unborn baby. I believed my grandmother then,
and I still do.
In the meantime-not all that long ago as history goes-some fellows had come
along and told pregnant women that what they had in their wombs was either an
embryo or a foetus, depending on what stage of
development it was in. Embryo is Greek for "something that swells
inside." Foetus can be traced to the Latin verb feurere, which means "to bring forth," so
it's "something that is about to be brought forth," if you like. It
almost looks as if they had come up with some Latin and some Greek to get away
from the words "baby" and "child."
You won't find words like embryo or foetus in the
Bible, because worldly fellows didn't write it. Men who were inspired by God
did. God made people with the ability to multiply, and I believe Him-just as my
grandmother did.
Luke was a doctor (Col. 4:14), and he also wrote what we now call the third
gospel. By way of introduction he tells us that he had studied the reports of
others and thought it would be good to write an orderly account, and that the
full truth about everything would be known (Luke 1:1-4),
Who could be better qualified than a doctor like Luke to tell us about
pregnancies and babies? First he reported the case of an old lady called
Then we read what happened when Mary, a young virgin who would be the mother of
Jesus, visited
Many pregnant women throughout the ages have told of similar experiences, and
many a mother will readily tell us about the capers of the child she carries in
her womb. Some of our five children were livelier than others. My wife and I
somehow seemed to know what they might be like long before they were born. Talk
about personalities! They were real people already, and we had not had a chance
to set eyes on them.
Right from the moment of conception, a baby's influence on its mother can
become evident-some sooner, some later-but it's there. I always knew when my
wife was pregnant. She would do things that she normally wouldn't do, such as
eat raw vegetables straight from her garden.
Come to think of it, we didn't need a doctor to tell us.
Those are all part and parcel of a happy family life.
Then, living in the world we live in, there are the sad moments. An unborn
child dies.
What we think at times like that may be less important than what God might
think. What if God includes children that die before birth in the number of
people to be resurrected, or, as J.B. Phillips put it, among those who
"will rise again to life"?
Look again at that sentence at the beginning of this article. It mentions those
who have done right and those who have done wrong. Surely unborn babies have
done neither, just like those who are born-and we call them innocent, don't we?
Imagine the multiple millions of mums and dads coming up in their resurrection,
parents who had lost children before they had a chance to be born.
Imagine a loving, caring and merciful God raising back
to life those lost children, popping them into the laps of their mums and dads
and saying to them, "Here is your chance to love them and to rear them
up."
Neither the parents nor the children had seen justice in this life. At the
resurrection they will rise to face judgment. At that time they will know and
experience justice, because Jesus is the judge. And you couldn't get a more
compassionate judge than Him.
Impossible?
The Bible is the book that tells us about the resurrection of the dead. It also
contains a verse in which Jesus is recorded as saying, "With man it is
impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matthew
All things.
And if someone is still in doubt: As I have said to
many an atheist, just wait and see.
Better still, as J.B. Phillips worded it: "No, do not be surprised
..."
File translated from TEX
by TTH, version
3.66.
On 08 Dec 2005, 19:27.
