Is Abortion A Sin?

 by Leonard V. Johnson

Good Morning, Altoona, IA; Prineville, OR; Ashburn, VA; and Tokyo and Milan. And, thank you to everyone here today. Welcome to the Church of Jesus Christ Online Ministries. I’m Leonard V. Johnson.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever addressed the subject of abortion directly before ── but today I would like to do so. Yes, I realize that it is a controversial subject that many don’t want to talk about ── they tend to shy away from it. Just simply saying, “It’s the woman’s right to do with her body what she wishes.”

But, we’re going to view abortion how the LORD God views abortion, and not how mankind views it. Is abortion a sin? Is it a crime? The LORD God is the family of God, which at this time consists of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Now, for those of our faith and belief, this will likely be redundant ── I will cover things that we, true Christians, have already likely been taught by the LORD God. For others, it will certainly astound you to finally rightly learn what your Bible truly says on this subject of abortion.

Let’s begin by giving the definition of what sin is. 

“WHOEVER commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” – 1 John 3:4. 

Sin is the transgression of the LORD God’s spiritual Law ── summed up in the Ten Commandments (cf. Exodus 20:117). Crime as defined in the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is ── 

\’krīm \ n [ME, fr. MF, fr. L crimen accusation, reproach, crime; prob. Akin to L cernere to sift, determine] (14c) 1: an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law. 1

During the last presidential debate, I gave a Personal From… The Trump and Harris Debate, and the Christian Vote, in which I briefly spoke about the fact that Taylor Swift had endorsed Kamala Harris as the next president. 

“After last night’s Presidential debate, the pop star publicly endorsed Kamala Harris because “she is a steady-handed, gifted leader” who fights for “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body. . .” 

CNN had posted an article on what was her “banking issue” ── 

A fired-up Vice President Kamala Harris adopted a rapid-response mentality to seize on the key issue of abortion rights …

Referring to people behind abortion bans as “these hypocrites,” she argued at a hastily arranged campaign event in Atlanta that some US communities now dealing with abortion bans have for years been neglected on the subject of maternal care. “Where ya been?” she asked. 

(https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/politics/kamala-harris-abortion-whatmatters/index.html, retrieved 29 June 2025).

It’s evident that the majority of this world, truly, doesn’t know what is right, and what is wrong ── morally, ethically, or spiritually. 

On planet Earth, there is only ONE WAY to properly know what is right and what is wrong. And all human governments ── with their legislations, and laws, should come from that ONE WAY! – the LORD God’s Way. In your Bible, we find the LORD God speaking – and there is only one supreme authority throughout the known universe… and as I just read today, are you aware that Voyager I has only traveled into outer space 1 light-day distance from Earth? At some 15.5 billion miles from Earth at a speed of roughly 38,000 miles per hour ── it’s only at 1 light-day from Earth! The LORD God’s universe is ENORMOUS IN SIZE! So, there is only one supreme authority that knows, definitely, and tells us whether abortion is or is not a sin. 

The Beginning 

Let’s turn in our Bibles to the Book of Genesis, chapter 1. The very first words written down for all humanity ── “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

And down in verse 26 ── “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; …’”

So, notice that it does not say, “Me,” or “My,” but rather, “Us,” and “Our.” The reason being is that God is a family. Sadly, that is something that most people are ignorant of ── or blatantly disregard. “’ Let Us make man in Our image.’” And what this means is that God is reproducing humans after the God kind. After His own likeness. And sure enough, we see in verse 25 this fact is brought to the forefront, “And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”

Now, in the article Why Death? I speak of whether there was death before Adam sinned. Be sure to read that article, it’s very interesting and informative. Discover in that article ── taught directly from God’s living word ── that animals indeed did die before Adam sinned (death and decay are a natural law), and that God still considered what He saw as “very good.”

So, God created the beasts of the earth after their kind, the cattle after their kind ── wolves after their kind, elephants after their kind, horses, and so forth and so on. And then in the very next verse, He addresses man. That God would reproduce man after the God kind. And, sadly, this is a living truth that practically no one appears to accept ── including many of the religions of this world.

The greatest truth on planet Earth is the fact that God ── the Creator of the whole universe, with all of its galaxies, suns, gases, and dark matter, and everything else ── is reproducing the God kind from physical human beings. A truth that I have shared with my unconverted wife, in which she responds, “It’s hard to believe that,  as vast as the universe is, with the billions of planets throughout the universe, there is no other life out there!” And my answer to her is ── unless the LORD God, or a right representative of God (i.e., an angel), tells me different. The only physical life in the universe is on planet Earth.

A single human being is of great value ── because one single human being can lead to an immortal spiritual God.

Turning to the 2nd chapter of Genesis, verse 7, we see that the LORD God “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” 

Here is that word, soul. In Hebrew, it is nāpash, meaning “life, soul, creature, person.” 2 

So, “man became a living being.” A soul came from the dust of the ground, and not from spirit. A soul is not immortal and is not spirit. And to this soul “formed from the dust of the ground,” the LORD God said there was a tree in the midst of the garden that was forbidden to eat. The LORD God said, “’ In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” So, he was not immortal. As I’ve said many times, even if Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life, they would have died anyway, no matter whether they had chosen the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Had they chosen the tree of life, they would still have lived out their days and died. But, like what the apostle Paul wrote, “at the twinkling of an eye,” they would have been resurrected wholly spiritual beings. Have you ever thought of this before? The LORD God was speaking of a second death ── a death in which you are not resurrected again. A permanent death (cf. Revelation 20:14; 21:8). The LORD God says here that the soul would die.

Now, whether there were literal trees, or this is just a metaphor ── shouldn’t be the issue. I personally believe there were literal trees (I reference our Lord Jesus’ words, “ …’ On earth as it is in heaven.’”), But there were two trees, the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. A tree that was real life ── not only a temporary existence.

Mankind was given “the breath of life” ── in other words, a chemical existence. Mankind has not been granted life like the LORD God has. The LORD God is immortal – eternal life. The LORD God does not need to breathe oxygen. Mankind requires oxygen to live. This “breath of life” fuels our cells by oxidizing food, which creates energy and heat.

However, the LORD God offered life to man. Adam, the first human being ever created, was offered the life that the LORD God has. But man chose to take unto themselves the knowledge of good and evil. They disobeyed God and partook of the forbidden tree. Thereupon, God “drove out the man; and placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” – Genesis 3:24. It wasn’t until the time was fulfilled ── until our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, that the tree of life was able to be accessed again. 

Appointed For Men To Die Once 

The LORD God has appointed men “to die once, but after this the judgment” – Hebrews 9:27. In 1st Corinthians chapter 15, verse 22, we see that “in Adam all die,” and indeed, all of mankind has been dying in Adam ever since. “Even so in Christ all shall be made alive” ── all by a resurrection. And, as I’ve said so many times, the LORD God, from the beginning, had a Master Plan. Mankind was no afterthought. Everyone who has ever lived – past and present – is going to be brought back to life and be given an opportunity to be given God life and made immortal children of God. 

So, when the time was fulfilled ── and according to biblical dating, at around 4,000 years after Adam was created ── the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us” as the second Adam to accomplish what the first did not do. Our Lord Jesus says that He “’ came that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.’” – John 10:10. He came that we might have life ── which the first Adam could have had, but refused to take it.

And sure enough, in 31 A.D. when the Day of Pentecost had fully come, the Apostle Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’” – Acts 2:38-39.

We see in the Book of Romans chapter 8, and verse 9, that we, true Christians, live not in the flesh but in the Spirit ── the Holy Spirit of God ── if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they are not His. In other words, they are not a true Christian. Truly, those who are true Christians are those who have truly repented, been properly baptized and have had hands laid upon them, and have received the glorious gift of the Holy Spirit. Those that have come “out of her” ── came out of this world’s religions and ways. They are Christ’s. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.” – Romans 8:14. 

Also, the Apostle Paul – under divine inspiration – in that same chapter says, that “if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit [that] dwells in you.” – Romans 8:11.

So, if we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us, and we are led by His Spirit, we are already children of God ── the unborn children of God. 

Returning again to 1st John chapter 3, this time verse 2, we find it says that, “now we are children of God.” We are already children of God, but not born yet. And it’s basically the same way that a baby inside a mother’s womb is yet unborn.

So, we find ourselves, true Christians that is, yet unborn, and when we are born, we’re going to be quite different. We will be changed “in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet [the SEVENTH TRUMP]. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” – 1 Corinthians 15:52. Notice in the 1st chapter of Revelation, we see just what our Lord Jesus Christ looks like in His glory. “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters.” – Revelation 1:14-15.

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus who came to our Lord Jesus by night and said, “‘ Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs [these miracles] that You do unless God is with him.’” It’s amazing – here it was that he understood that Jesus was someone of extreme importance and that His ability to perform these miracles – he knew that the Man came from God, yet here he is out at night – incognito – so that no one sees him. It reminds us of religious people today. They claim to be Christian, but are very afraid to truly keep the commandments of God and have and defend the testimony of Jesus Christ. They are afraid to speak out against such issues as homosexuality, marriage, bi-sexuality, or even what they are now calling pansexuality. They are afraid to speak out against such terrorist organizations as Black Lives Matter, Antifa, or even radical Islam. 

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”

And Nicodemus said in bewilderment, “ …’ How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’” 

Nicodemus just couldn’t understand. And our peoples today also cannot properly understand.

Sadly, the overall majority of this world’s ministers DO NOT properly understand it. Again, from the popular Protestant website Got Questions, they answer ──  

“The phrase translated “born again” can also be translated as “born from above.” … How does the new birth come to be? … When one is saved, he has been born again, spiritually renewed, and is now a child of God by right of that new birth.” 3        

They are wrong! 

They claim that they are “born-again Christians.” Are they? Well… I’m going to tell you about an article in PDF format, which is free to read and study. What do you mean… BORN AGAIN? It’s important to know the truth. Far too many people are just believing whatever a minister says and are not going by the living word of God, the Holy Bible. And God’s living word is indeed inspired by the LORD God. It is God speaking. Our Lord Jesus answered, “’ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’” – John 3:1-8.

So, the LORD God is Spirit. God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ are the Spirit ── 2 Corinthians 3:17. These so-called Christians are still human beings, not spiritual beings. They are not spirit and are not composed of spirit. Our Lord Jesus said, ‘You are a spirit once you are born again.’ 

Then we can turn in our Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 15 again. Verse 50. A verse that groups such as the Seventh Day Adventists seemingly don’t properly understand. “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.” Also, we read in verse 53, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” A simple and straightforward verse. Brethren, the very second (“at the twinkling of an eye”) that you lose the irreversible loss of consciousness, and the inability to breathe (in other words, death), you will be changed from mortal to immortal ── and “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Notice Romans, chapter 1 ── 

“Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God 2) which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3) concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4) and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, BY THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD.” – Romans 1:1-4.

So we see, brethren, that it is in the plainest of language ── easy to understand. Those who have truly repented of their sins, that is, turned away from the way they were living to the Way of God. And again, sin is the transgression of God’s Law. And, we notice ── and it is indeed a prolific teaching throughout the world ── that the churches of this world teach that God’s Law is done away, “nailed to the cross” as they say. And they also claim that all one needs to do is just “accept” Christ, and you will be saved. That if you will only receive Him and accept Him ── then He’ll just forgive all your sins. And, apparently, you can just go on sinning, as long as you confess to your local priest once in a while. Or, like they tell my Sister, “You have to stand up and confess your sins to the congregation!” Certainly taking 1st John 1:9 completely out of context! All of that is a deception! All of that is a blatant LIE! It is not the truth of the LORD God! It is not the truth of God’s living word! Because, when you sin against God, you are a sinner, and you are under the condemnation of sin, which is the wages of death. Eternal life is a gift from God. Only the LORD God holds the power of life or death – cf. Romans 14:9.

Back when I had first read Romans 6:23, some 44 years ago now, I was ecstatic! Because I began to understand it the correct way. Once, when I was 5 years old, while I was living in Lakeland, FL., I went to Sunday school with my neighbor and friend, Rusty. And I can distinctly remember hearing the teacher talk about “the immortality of the soul,” along with “going off to heaven.” In essence, they are teaching just the opposite of what our Lord Jesus is teaching us. They are saying that the wages of sin is immortality ── either eternity in heaven, or eternity in hell. Yet, we read the LORD God’s living word, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And we also see that, “’ the soul who sins shall die.’” – Ezekiel 18:4, 20. The LORD God said to Adam, the day that you eat of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil ── you will die. It was not ambiguous.

It's truly a matter of believing the LORD God, or not. You know, there is a great difference between believing in Christ and believing on Christ. Our Lord Jesus is the living Word of God in person ── and the Holy Bible is the same loving and living Word of God, only in print. And these words are living. And whether you have the penalty of death still hanging over your head, or whether you have now accepted the glorious promise of the resurrection and of eternal life, all depends on believing on what Christ Jesus says in His living Bible.

 Is Abortion a Sin? 

On this question of taking a human life that is called an abortion ── it’s truly the taking of a human life.

I say to you on the authority of Jesus Christ and of His word, the Holy Bible, that whether a fertilized egg or an embryo ── or even, God forbid, a newly born baby ── abortion at any time after conception, it is the taking of a human life and it is therefore the breaking of the 6th commandment! It is murder! “’ You shall not murder.’”      

  

Will aborted babies (aborted for any number of reasons), along with babies that die not long after being born (such as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), will the baby live again?

Unborn or born babies, little children ── and even our loved ones that have died,  having not understood the mysteries of God, or not understood enough for them to have been responsible ── had no true opportunity for this kind of spiritual growth. They were not called out of this present evil age. They all were mortal and had no eternal life within them because they had not received the glorious Spirit of God ── the very life of God which imparts eternal life. Almighty God be praised forever more! 

There will be a time when the LORD God will raise from the dead those that are dead, “small and great, standing before God, and books” will be opened. And “another book” will be opened, “which is the Book of Life.” – Revelation 20:11-13. They will be offered for the first time the glorious gift of eternal life. And, all aborted babies and all of our loved ones that had died, having not understood the mysteries of God, or not understood enough for them to have been responsible ── will be there in the “Great White Throne Judgment”!

To further understand this hope in us (Titus 1:2), watch our sermon “Salvation OFFERED To All.” 

You have heard that it was said that aborted babies will not be resurrected because they had not breathed “the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). But, is this what makes them human? “But there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.” – Job 32:8.

Animals do not have a spirit. Man needed this spirit to empower his brain with mind power - see 1 Corinthians 2:11. This human spirit enters the human embryo at conception. The spirit is like the “hard drive on a computer” – it stores information. The spirit essence is NOT an immortal soul or an eternal spirit. The spirit in man is NOT the man. It is something in the man. It has no life of itself. At death, it has no consciousness of itself, for it sleeps (1 Corinthians 11:30; 1 Corinthians 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:14). Like a tape recorder, it forms a permanent record of the qualities of mind and character built by a man during his lifetime. And much like a used tape is stored lifelessly on a shelf till activated in a recorder, so also does the spirit of man “return to GOD who gave it” after death, until the resurrection when life is again given to a person (Ecclesiastes 12:7). This was the way that our Lord Jesus Christ – through His servant – explained it to me and I hold fast to this that is good. Furthermore, the spirit in man was transmitted from Adam. Spirit comes from the father from a sperm cell, from Adam, all down through all humanity.

So, of all life forms – be it amoebas, humpback whales, or spiritual angels – in all of God’s creation, MAN ALONE was created to eventually be born into the FAMILY OF GOD! 

And, the LORD God ── gracious, merciful, and full of compassion ── will never forget an innocent unborn child. □ 

Bibliography

1 Webster, M. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, “Crime” Merriam-Webster's Incorporated, 1996, pp. 274.

2 Harris L. R., Archer, L. Gleason, Jr., and Waltke K. Bruce. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 1980, #1395a, pp. 587.

3 Got Questions, What does it mean to be a born-again Christian?, Retrieved 30 June 2025.