You "Breathed" Before You Were Born!

One of the two most common words used for an infant in the Greek New Testament is brephos. Scholars define brephos as "a breathing, nursing infant" (Thayer, Wuest, Vincent, Vine and others).

Now to my point: the one gospel writer who had a detailed medical background, "Luke the beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14), not only used brephos of breathing, nursing infants as we have just seen, but also used the same word to denote an UNBORN child!

"And It came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost...For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy" (Luke 1:41,44). In both verses the only physician ever used by God in the recording of sacred Scripture used brephos to describe the condition of John the Baptizer while he was still in his mother's womb!

One may ask how an unborn child could be a brephos, that is "a breathing, nursing infant." The answer is seen by the simple fact that the fetus both "breathes" and receives nourishment through the umbilical cord proceeding from the placenta. In open heart surgery, what is known as a "cardiopulmonary bypass" is performed to enable the patient to receive oxygen in the bloodstream. Although the lungs are artificially ventilated during this procedure (to prevent collapse), they do not oxygenate life blood during the surgery.

This is the same method which God long ago designed for a living, though unborn, child to receive the vital oxygen necessary for life. Truly, the inspired Gospel of Luke is correct in referring to John as a brephos when he was a six-month-old fetus.

This fact clearly disproves the twisted attempt of some liberal clergymen who seek to dismiss abortion as non-homicidal. "A fetus becomes a person at the moment the first breath of air is inhaled," says the usual argument with a backup quote from Genesis 2:7, "And 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." True, the first time Adam breathed was through his lungs, but, as we have seen, those who enter this world by birth "breathe" long before their lungs inhale.

The word "abort(ion)" itself refutes the argument that life begins only at birth. The New American Edition of Webster's Encyclopedia of Dictionaries defines the word figuratively, "to fail to come to fruition." The life principle, therefore, must be already in effect prior to fruition. This is evident in nature all about us. The life principle placed within a plant by the Creator causes the fruit of the plant to bud forth and mature. The life is in the fruit before it bursts forth out of the ground.

Dr. William J. John, a personal friend, informs me of common knowledge: at the end of the first trimester the fetus breathes fluid steadily although the baby receives its oxygen from the umbilical cord. At birth the lungs continue the breathing movements, inhaling air.