In our world of easy mobility and tremendous choice, life can feel like a hallway with a hundred doors.

We choose one among a hundred majors after having chosen one among a hundred schools. Then a hundred careers confront us, along with a hundred places to live. And these decisions aren’t even the most important. We choose a church among not quite a hundred options but many, consider a potential spouse from a hundred physical and digital possibilities, prioritize friendships from the hundred people we have known. True, friendships and jobs and marriages don’t always come easily (our world knows many jobless and lonely people) — yet, for many, the possibilities can seem dizzyingly diverse.

In such a world, we might feel tempted to believe that freedom consists in keeping as many options open as possible. Or if we do walk through a particular door, we would prefer to keep it propped open, just in case something better appears. Many enter one door only to retreat to the hallway shortly after, and then enter another door only to do the same — job to job, church to church, friend to friend, place to place. Or if we did choose to lock ourselves into a room (say, by getting married or having children), we might find ourselves chafing, itching, imagining what life might be like through a different door.

How hard it can be to believe, then, that in this hallway with a hundred doors, the best, most freeing decision we can make is to close ninety-nine of them. Only then will we discover the blessings of being bound — by covenant, by commitment, by friendship, by faithfulness.

Bound in the Beginning

From the very beginning, the Bible teaches a principle that seems paradoxical, and especially in a day like ours: Binding relationships liberate. Personal autonomy enslaves.

The principle appears as soon as people do. Almost immediately after he is formed from the dust of the earth, Adam, free and sinless Adam, finds himself bound by the two most enduring relationships in the world. He hears his Maker, he beholds his bride, and to both he gives his covenant loyalty (Genesis 2:16–17, 23–24). And so he becomes a worshiper and a husband, bound in spirit to his God and in flesh to his wife. He is not his own — at the same time, however, he is the freer for it.

The short story of Eden gives us glimpses into Adam’s paradoxical freedom. In being bound to God, Adam may have forfeited the freedom of self-rule, but he gained the freedom of enjoying God’s presence, reflecting God’s character, and fulfilling the mission God made him for (Genesis 1:28; 2:9, 19). In being bound to Eve, he may have lost the freedom of bachelorhood, but he gained the freedom to be fruitful and multiply and to live with one who was bone of his bones — his home in human flesh (Genesis 1:28; 2:23–24). Here is freedom without bitterness or regret, freedom naked and unashamed.

The joy of Eden was a binding joy, a committed joy, a joy where you found yourself by losing yourself. It was a joy that would weave a whole fabric of relationships, each with its own kind of binding: children, kin, and neighbors to love as yourself. And in such joy, we get a glimpse of the life God made us for. As fish need water and birds need air, as trains need tracks and cars need roads, so we need the kind of relationships that tie us to others with cords far stronger than convenience.

We need marriages bound by covenant and sealed with vows, children who call forth from us a glad fidelity to family, church communities that feel as indivisible as the human body, friendships sturdy enough to withstand opposition and offense. We need loyalty strong as a tree with roots long grown.

For as Adam and Eve show us, the alternative to such loyalty is not freedom, but a far, far worse kind of bondage — the tyranny of autonomy.

Our Great Unbending

As we watch Adam and Eve walk out of Eden, with shame wrapped around them like shackles, we see the true choice that lies before us: not whether we will be bound, but to what. In cutting the ties that bound them to God and to one another, they became entangled in a different cord, barbed and cruel. They became slaves to sin and self-will.

“We need the kind of relationships that tie us to others with cords far stronger than convenience.”

When humanity fell, we fell not only downward, but inward. We became “lovers of self” (2 Timothy 3:2), “haters of God” (Romans 1:30), and all too frequently, users and abusers of others. No wonder, then, that when God redeems us, he calls us upward (to him) and outward (to others). He begins a great unbending of our concave souls — teaching us that our great need is not to find freedom from others, but to find freedom from our dogged devotion to self.

No wonder, then, that God often speaks of our redemption using images of new and holy bindings. When we believe, God unites us to his Son (Colossians 3:3), engrafts us into his people (Romans 11:17), makes us members of Christ’s body (Ephesians 5:25), welcomes us into his household (Ephesians 2:19), and places us like living stones on the wall of his temple, surrounded on every side (1 Peter 2:5). We left our God alone; he binds us back home.

God knows that such relationships — and not only with church members but with spouses, children, roommates, and friends — have a way of freeing us from our slavery to self. And really, what else will? If our relationships operate on a kind of end-at-will basis, then what else will challenge our inward allegiance? People, with their pesky requests and intrusive needs, are marvelous foes of tyrant Self. They will become, if we allow them, so many saws that cut our inward chains.

But only if we allow them. Only if we refuse to let a little trouble take us out of the door that led us to them. For freedom is found in the binding.

Freedom Lost and Found

What kind of freedom do we find in the binding? Many kinds.

On a relatively small level, we find freedom to live within the bounds of a decision. God did not make us to continually walk through life’s hallway, wrestling again and again over the biggest decisions — whom to date or marry, which job to take, what church to join, where to live, which people to love. Nor did he make us to constantly question what life would be like had we made a different choice.

How much time, emotion, and mental energy do we spend on choices that would be wonderfully settled if we were more willing to be bound? Rather than repeatedly wondering how to live, we could get down to the business of actually living.

More significantly, we find the freedom of a broader, deeper vision, the kind that comes only with long acquaintance with the same people. Just as residents of a place know far more of its true pleasures than tourists do, residing long in certain relationships opens our eyes to marvels we would otherwise miss. For those with eyes to see, familiar people become not boring, but more beautiful, in time.

If we will allow spouses and children, church members and friends to lay their claims upon us far after the relational tourist leaves for new people, we may become like Psalm 104 explorers — this time tracing not the hills and valleys of earth but the expansive landscapes of human souls. We may discover wonders as broad as the image of God.

Most significantly, however, we find the freedom of increasingly becoming the people God made us to be.

Loveliness Born of Loyalty

The unbound life may be free of many commitments, many requests, many demands that come from close relationships, but often at the incalculable cost of a human’s highest dignity: love. “Love your God” and “love your neighbor” are not only the two greatest commandments; they are the blueprint for the fully human, the fully free, life (Matthew 22:37–39).

God made us to be burdened and bent by the glorious weight of other people. He made us to find greatness in serving others (Mark 10:43), blessedness in giving to others (Acts 20:35), joy in sacrificing for others (Philippians 2:17), true life in dying for others (Matthew 16:25). He made us to remove the bubble wrap of a selfish life so that we might see and hear and taste and touch and smell the beauty of binding relationships — relationships that can hurt, yes, but whose scars are so often better than safety.

Even in the harder seasons of our relationships — a troubled marriage, a conflicted church, an unreconciled friendship — there is a loveliness born of loyalty we will not find any other way. For God gives strength to those who set their faces like flint toward faithfulness (Philippians 4:13, 19). He has an infinite reserve of steadfast love to offer (Exodus 34:6). And as many discover, relational wildernesses can lead to a land of milk and honey, where married couples laugh again and friendships bloom again and churches bear the fruit of holy love again.

True, not every loyalty in this world is for life. Some friendships fade and church memberships transfer and jobs transition for upright reasons. But those who remain loyal longer than their flesh wants, and longer than the world advises, will discover the stunning loveliness born of loyalty, the untold blessings of being bound.

Audio Transcript

What’s the big deal with fearing man? What’s the problem with trying to impress one another? The desire for peer approval, that dopamine hit we get when we impress others, that desire to be admired — what’s the problem with it all? Well, on Monday we looked at 1 Peter 3:15. There we saw the commission that we honor Christ or revere Christ in our hearts. It’s a text about fearing God. And it brought to mind a sermon Pastor John preached 42 years back in the fall of 1980. I wanted to share a clip from that old sermon today. Here’s 34-year-old Pastor John to explain this connection between revering Christ and dying to the approval of others.

What is this reverencing the Lord Christ in our hearts? What’s this amazing thing that has the power to turn the fear of men into hope and the power to always give us a reason for the hope that is in us that we can speak to others?

Now, to answer that question in accord with the immediate context, what we need to do — instead of importing our ideas in there and saying, “Well, everyone knows what reverence is” — is to notice what Peter’s doing. Peter is quoting from Isaiah 8:12–13. And I’d like you to look at that with me. He’s taken this quote that God gave to Isaiah for his day, and he’s adapted it for his own situation. God gave Isaiah a warning in these verses about how he should feel about his adversaries and about how he should feel about the Lord God.

Let Him Be Your Dread

We’ll start reading at verse 11, and you’ll hear immediately the similarity to 1 Peter.

The Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” (Isaiah 8:11–13)

You can see clearly that Peter was alluding to this text. It’s not an exact quotation but an adaptation for his own situation. God had warned Isaiah, “Don’t fear what men fear. Fear me — reverence me in your hearts.” Peter takes it, adapts it to the people who are being persecuted in his own day, and says, “Don’t fear what men fear — reverence the Lord Christ.” He puts Jesus right in the place of Jehovah in the Old Testament, which is done more than once in the New Testament.

So if we can find out what Isaiah meant by reverencing (or regarding as holy or sanctifying, depending on which translation you have) the Lord in his heart, then we will have a sound and solid foundation for determining what Peter meant when he said, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy” (1 Peter 3:15).

Now, Isaiah 8:13 makes it very clear what Isaiah means by reverence for God. It means to fear him instead of fearing men, or to dread him instead of dreading men. Isaiah says, “But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isaiah 8:13). So that’s Isaiah’s, or God’s, explanation of what it means to reverence the Lord in your heart.

Displeasing Man or God?

But now, probably, if you’re really with me, you’re saying, “But surely God doesn’t want his chosen people to walk around filled with the emotion of fear toward God.” That wouldn’t be a very exciting invitation, but only one of misery. But that’s not what God meant here.

We can see that it’s not what God meant if we just look at the next phrase in verse 14, where he promises that for those who do fear him, “he will become a sanctuary.” And then he goes on and talks about what he will become for those who don’t believe him. But he will become for those who fear him a sanctuary. Now a sanctuary is a place where you feel peace and security and hope. So, I don’t think it would be fair to say this text is teaching that we’re always cringing when God is our God.

“Let God be your dread, and he will become your sanctuary.”

That sounds kind of paradoxical. “Let God be your dread, and he will become your sanctuary.” That’s what it says, but it’s not really as paradoxical as it seems if we take verse 13 to mean not, “Be filled with the emotion of fear toward God all the time,” but rather take it to mean something like this: “If you reverence God, you will consider the prospect of displeasing him as a more fearful prospect than displeasing man.”

“That’s what it means to let the Lord be your fear. The prospect of offending or displeasing God will be a more dreadful or a more fearful prospect to you than worrying about what men can do to you.” The degree of Isaiah’s reverence for God was the same as the degree of his desire not to displease God.

Trust His Promises

Now, what in this particular context in Isaiah 8 displeased God? What here in these several verses did God want Isaiah to avoid because it would have displeased him? And the answer is given in verse 12: “Do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread” (Isaiah 8:12). God would have been displeased with Isaiah if Isaiah had feared men or feared what men could do to him. Why?

“If Isaiah fears the threats of men, he is casting his vote against the trustworthiness of God.”

Why is God so displeased when we, his people, fear men? Why does that offend God? Isn’t the answer this? He has made promise upon promise upon promise that he would take care of us, and if we believe those promises, it should take away fear of men. It should fill us with confidence and hope if we believe those promises. But if we fear men, then it’s a sign, isn’t it, that we are not believing those promises to take care of us. And when you don’t believe an honest man, he ought to be offended and displeased because you don’t trust him. And so it is with God. God had said to Isaiah, for example, in Isaiah 41, “Fear not . . .” And he gives some reasons:

. . . for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you up with my righteous right hand. . . . For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” (Isaiah 41:10, 13)

You can see God pleading with Isaiah and the people of Israel, “For goodness’ sake, believe me!” Or Isaiah 35:4: “Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.’” Now, there are many, many such promises in Isaiah and in the whole Old Testament. And therefore, if Isaiah fears the threats of men, he is casting his vote against the trustworthiness of God and he does not reverence God in his heart. But if he does not fear men, but instead fears to displease God and thus trusts in God’s promises, then he is reverencing God in his heart.

Today marks forty-nine years since the society-altering, life-plundering, God-mocking decision by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade. Since 1973, abortion has essentially been available on demand in America, leaving the lives of the unborn at the precarious whims of people who value their own lives above the lives of their children.

From the beginning, the delivery room has been a sacred and cursed place. Sin invaded the world, and the womb, before the first child was born. When God warned Eve, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,” Eve had not born a child without pain. Childbirth was never painless. And it was never less than miraculous.

We’re so acquainted (and enamored) with babies now, it’s nearly impossible to imagine what it would have been like to meet the first. To see those first tiny feet. To stroke that first tiny head. To hear those first weak cries. To hold that first tiny frame. Can you imagine bearing your baby, delivering your baby, holding your baby, without having seen a baby before?

“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord’” (Genesis 4:1). That first birth may have been the most breathtaking in history — the wild inbreaking of a new, unique, and eternal life, woven together by God from the love between that first husband and his wife. The two became one, and then, just as dramatically, three. Birth, for them, was not a choice to make, but a wonder to behold and receive with worship to their Maker.

We, however, live in a society at war over where exactly in those five short words the first baby came to life: “Eve conceived and bore Cain.” At what point was that little boy’s life a life worth preserving and defending?

Bitter Fruit of Abortion

How might that first mother — that first woman to bear the weight and pain and wonder of new life — how might Eve respond if she heard that, just this year, nearly a million mothers in the United States alone refused the life within them? What if someone told her that we kill, on average, thousands of our children every day before they even take a breath? Could she have possibly imagined that the consequences of those first sins would one day bear the bitter and brutal fruit of abortion?

Maybe she could have. That first baby, after all, went on to murder his little brother. Eve felt the sinfulness of sin as pain multiplied within her through pregnancy and delivery, and then she felt the sinfulness of sin even more as she buried her second born. And were the temptations that provoked Cain, and wiped out Abel, all that different from those fueling the abortion industry in our day? Pride, envy, selfishness, resentment, anger, greed.

Because of sin, no child has ever been born into a safe world. Far fewer children, however, have been born into a country as unsafe as ours. The United States, even in 2022, is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person. Clark Forsythe, in his excellent book Abuse of Discretion, writes,

The United States is an outlier when it comes to the scope of the abortion “right.” The United States is one of approximately ten nations (of 195) that allow abortion after fourteen weeks of gestation. . . . When it comes to allowing abortion for any reason after viability, however, the United States is joined only by Canada, North Korea, and China. (126)

“The United States of America in 2022 is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person.”

The twin verdicts read on January 22, 1973 did not, as is often assumed, merely permit abortion for the first three months. No, they legalized abortion at every stage of pregnancy, and for almost any reason. The U.S. is one of only four countries in the world — only four — that refuses to protect the unborn even after viability. And what defines viability? “Having reached such a stage of development as to be capable of living, under normal conditions, outside the uterus.” The U.S. and Canada are half of the nations worldwide that will not defend a baby even when that baby could already survive outside the womb. The other two are North Korea and China.

For nearly fifty years now, the United States has made the womb a minefield, and millions of our sons and daughters have become the innocent casualties of our lust for sex, for freedom, for power, for self.

Abuse of Discretion

Roe is the national monument to this decades-long death march.

The surprising, perplexing, overreaching ruling of the seven justices — Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell (White and Rehnquist voted against) — superseded abortion laws at the state level and functionally established a woman’s right to have an abortion at any point of her pregnancy.

In 1970, “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, her local district attorney, to challenge a Texas law that prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Forsythe summarizes the Supreme Court’s controversial verdict:

Roe had two essential rulings based on interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declares, in part, that no state shall deprive any “person” of “liberty.” First, the Justices interpreted “liberty” to include a “right to privacy” and held that abortion is part of the right to privacy. . . . Second, the Court held that the “unborn” are not included with other “persons” protected by the Constitution. (7)

So, a woman’s right to privacy was interpreted to include her right to abortion — despite the fact that the procedure is not done in true privacy (doctors and nurses are involved). And the unborn were not considered living people with rights, despite the wealth of medical information that suggested otherwise (not to mention, the amazing advances in technology since, which only give us better and better windows into all the evidence for real life in the womb).

Kevin DeYoung helpfully distills the myths about Roe that Forsythe exposes in his book. For instance,

Abortion was a common and widely accepted practice throughout history. No, it was rare for most of history because it was exceedingly dangerous.
Roe was based on a careful investigation of the facts. No, the deliberation spent very little time discussing facts, and focused almost exclusively on procedure.
Women were dying by the thousands because of back-alley abortions. No, at that time less than a hundred women died from illegal abortions each year, a fraction of the number reported.
Abortion is safer than childbirth. No, the seven studies that said as much at the time have all been exposed for their lack of medical data, and the short-term and long-term dangers of abortion have only become clearer and clearer, especially to the mental health of the mother.
The American public is polarized over abortion. No, the majority of Americans at the time and still today do not support abortion on demand — abortion at any time for any reason (the precedent Roe instituted).

The more one reads about the decision, the more indefensible it becomes. It really is difficult to overstate how weak the case was for perhaps the most pivotal, controversial, and corrupt verdict in our nation’s history.

The Other Roe: Redefining Health

Alongside Roe, though, was a second, similarly monumental (and yet often overlooked) case: Doe v Bolton. The ruling was handed down the same day, and was every bit as consequential.

“Mary Doe” (Sandra Cano) filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General of Georgia, Arthur K. Bolton, challenging a law that permitted abortion only in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or the possibility of severe or fatal injury to the mother. In the Doe decision, the justices redefined the “health” of the mother from those stricter parameters to “all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health” (Abuse of Discretion, 150). As a result of the decision, “‘Health,’ in abortion law, means emotional well-being without limits” (8).

Functionally, this meant abortion could be justified at any time of the pregnancy for almost any reason. “Where Roe prevented any prohibition on abortion before viability, the Doe health exception eliminated prohibitions after viability as well” (8). Any consequence the mother felt — and bearing a human life is always consequential — became an excuse to end the life. We went from protecting the physical survival of the mother to preserving her sexual freedom and personal autonomy.

Forsythe quotes a Harvard Law Professor,

Doe’s broad definition of “health” spelled the doom of statutes designed to prevent the abortion late in the pregnancy of children capable of surviving outside the mother’s body unless the mother’s health was in danger. By defining health as “well-being,” Doe established a regime of abortion-on-demand for the entire nine months of pregnancy, something that American public opinion has never approved in any state, let alone nationally. (151)

Sandra Cano, it’s worth mentioning, ultimately decided not to have an abortion after she felt her baby kick (94).

The New Roe: Life at Fifteen Weeks

Even if a case were to overturn Roe, that decision in and of itself would not end abortion. Overturning Roe wouldn’t dam the river of child-killing, but it would stem the terrible tide — and unleash possibilities for new pro-life legislation. Ending Roe would return the debate to the states, which would once again give the American people the power to decide — a change faithful Christians and churches welcome and pray for.

As I write, for instance, the Supreme Court has already heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization about a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion after fifteen weeks (an opportunity made possible by new appointees to the Court). The justices are specifically arguing over the question, Are all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions unconstitutional?

“If Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.”

Whatever happens in this case, this is the future of the abortion debate: state by state, election by election, neighborhood by neighborhood advocacy for life. Forsythe reminds us, “If Roe were overturned today, abortion would be legal in at least forty-one states tomorrow, perhaps all fifty. . . . The long-term legality of abortion depends on public opinion” (348, 351). That means that if Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.

The Power of Wanted Pregnancy

Wherever the Dobbs case leads, and however long Roe stands, our country desperately needs to recover the sanity and wonder of wanted pregnancy. What might change in our debates, our laws, our clinics, our families if the collective American imagination awakened to the God-soaked miracle of new life?

You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13–16)

Today, we pause to mourn fifty million lives abandoned — their forming assaulted, their weaving unraveled, their making arrested, their needs discarded, their stories suddenly and violently ended. God will repay what was stolen from them.

But we also pause to pray for him to intervene and interrupt the killing. As personally and specifically and sovereignly as he made each one of us, would he now so personally and specifically and sovereignly tear down the calamity of abortion in our land?