When Does "Life" Begin?

I don’t know how many times during the “pro-life” vs “pro-choice” (or “pro-birth” vs “pro-abortion”) debate I’ve had to answer or comment on the question, “When does “life” begin?” Is it an embryo? Is it with a heartbeat? Is it at birth? Etc.

The Bible does answer this question. But that doesn’t mean the Bible affirms any one group’s political or social position. It simply declares God’s truth impartially. It is our responsibility to choose to stand on one side of that biblical line—for it or against it. And yes, I know this is a hot-button, touchy topic. So this short write-up is not to argue or promote some political/social agenda. I’m simply stating matter-of-factly a plain declarative of Scripture. Deal with it how you will.

The Bible’s Answer to this Question

According to Scripture, “life” begins with God, from its formless state to its formed state. God’s Word unambiguously declares life is God’s domain to determine, no one else’s.

Psalm 139:15-17 (CSB) says,

“15 My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. 17 God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is!”

Verses 15-16 are clear. A plain reading of merely those two verses tells you what the Holy Spirit (the divine Author of Scripture) and the original covenant people of God think about when life begins. But let us all dwell more on v17 than the argument of being for or against vv15-16.

I would ask that you read v17 aloud to yourself. Now ponder the weight of those words. God has innumerable precious thoughts about you!

You!

The “you” before your parents or even you knew you.

How great is this for people wondering: Does God care? Does God see? Is God here? Will God forgive? Does God love me? And so on. The answer to all of these is yes! Even more, in Christ Jesus, we find solace, love, assurance, and hope of God—Father, Son, & Holy Spirit—being eternally for us (Rom. ch8). God fully displayed His precious thoughts of us in the incarnation, atonement, and resurrection of Jesus Christ! Only in Christ can we experience how much God loves the “life” He created “in the depths of the earth”!

Just these three verses in this one Psalm are why all lives are precious. From formless in conception to one’s last living breath is all glory to their Creator, whether they know it or not, or whether they live 100yrs or 100 seconds. Their mere existence is the glory of the Creator who determined that life.

Life begins when the Creator of life says it begins. And the Creator says life begins first in His precious thoughts of that individual life and is then formed from something formless. So the whole process, from God’s thought to childbirth, is a life.