Does First Breath Make One a Human Person?
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Genesis 2:7 talks about when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. There are some that think that a child in the womb is not alive until they take their first breath. What does the Bible say about the child in the womb before birth?
In Jeremiah 1:5, God said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Here God tells Jeremiah that He considered him a person before he was born. God knew him, sanctified him, and ordained him a prophet. As far as God was concerned, He considered Jeremiah a person even before he was born and treated him as such.
In Psalm 139:13-16, David comments on how God considered him to be a person before he was born. “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.” David talks about how God “saw his substance,” fashioned the days for him, and that he was not hidden from God. In other words, God acknowledged David as a person before he was born.
In Isaiah 49:1, we read, “Listen, O coastlands, to Me, And take heed, you peoples from afar! The LORD has called Me from the womb; From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name.” In verse 5 we read, ““And now the LORD says, Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant.” This chapter is a prophecy about the Messiah and how God would make him His servant from the womb of a woman. The prophecy is clear that from the womb He was formed to be God’s servant.
In Luke 1:41, we read, “And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” The word for “babe” here is the same word used to describe Jesus after his birth in Luke 2:16. The Bible here acknowledges that John the Baptizer, who was in the womb of Elizabeth at the time, was recognized as a person even though not yet born. In verse 43, she says by inspiration, “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Notice that she refers to Jesus, who was in the womb of Mary at the time, as her Lord. She not only acknowledged him as a person, but as the Lord even though he was yet in Mary’s womb.
Finally, in Galatians 1:15, Paul wrote, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace.” Notice that God separated Paul, a person, from his mother’s womb. He was already Paul before he was separated from the womb. The Bible never speaks of a pre-born child and a child that has been born as though they were fundamentally different or in some way not human. Those who suggest that because a child has not breathed air before birth that he is not a child have no comfort in the scriptures to say so.