With the recent news about the wave of violence with impunity across Nigeria, we all need to understand THE VALUE OF THE HUMAN LIFE. read now at fadelessvision..com/2016/06/the-value-of-human-life.html
what does all this tell us about civilisation, human heart, the value of human life, need for justice and the ultimate judgment

fadelessvision..com/2016/06/the-value-of-human-life.html

THE VALUE OF THE HUMAN LIFE
In recent weeks, news have spread around about
the gruesome murder of a woman named Bridget
Agbaheme by a mob in Kano on the ground of
blasphemy. In Abia State, it was also reported
how some members of a cult murdered three
students of the Abia State University who were also
members of a rival cult and their heads were used
as a goal post. What impunity! These kinds of
events and happenings are not strange in our
country. Commenting on these incidents, Chris
Ngwodo writes on the Premium Times, “ Infact,
lynchings happen and are condoned all over
Nigeria. The practice of “necklacing”- drenching
victims in fuel, placing tyres around their necks
before setting them ablaze- is very popular in
Lagos and immediate environs. The “Aluu 4” were
lynched in Rivers. Summary executions and
lynchings were the stock in trade of the Bakassi
boys, the ultra-violent vigilante cult that enjoyed
the endorsement of the then Anambra Governor
Chinwoke Mbadinuju, and which murdered over
3000 people in the early 2000s. People suspected
of witchcraft and homosexuality are at risk of being
lynched anywhere in Nigeria to considerable public
appeal. In the past two years, in Bauchi and Borno,
women have been lynched on suspicion of being
suicide bombers. In February last year, Ahmed
Falaki, an agriculture professor at ABU, Zaria was
lynched in Kibiya, Kano, on suspicion of being a
terrorist. Falaki was murdered right in front of a
police station with the officers present watching in
the belief that they were lynching a Boko Haram
kingpin. Not one of these cases has led to a
conviction of the guilt parties” (Chris Ngwodo,
Nigeria’s Culture of Violence, Premium times
Nigeria). Added to this is the serial murders
carried on by the Fulani herdsmen in some states
of the country all in the name of finding pasture for
their flocks. Even on the part of the government,
we read about the massacre of Shiites in Zaria by
the Nigerian Army leaving 347 people dead. In the
same month was the shooting of peaceful and
unarmed pro Biafran supporters in the South East
by the army; and worse, they seem to be
unapologetic about it.
On the individual level, just some months ago
( February 25, 2016) we read of a doctor in
OAUTHC( who was also a senior officer in
Nigeria’s Air Force) who fractured the skull of a
colleague on the spurious offence that the lady was
not quick to remove her car from where it was
standing as an obstruction to his car. Sometimes
before this, a friend of mine who is a law student
told me countless number of incidents that
happened in hospitals in his state (Ondo) of
patients that have died because of how they were
treated by the doctors and especially the nurses.
The lack of care and compassion, the harshness
and the sense of duty rather than a sense of
affection have led many to the grave. Another
friend of mine, a medical student gave an instance
of a young boy that died while he was on posting
in the hospital. After the death, the mother placed
all the blame on the lack of care and affection of
the leading doctor who treated the child as an
object rather than a person and she even insisted
that the child was already getting well until that
doctor “killed him”. You can hardly listen to the
news especially on the radio without hearing
gruesome accounts of violence even in the home.
Whether it is the wife killing her husband or the
husband killing the wife or the father killing the son
or the son the father, these cases abound. And in
many of these cases it is not just some stark
illiterates acting out of ignorance, many otherwise
educated and respected people have been caught
in the conundrum. Even when such violence does
not lead to death, the threat to another person’s
life is enough. Kidnappers are everywhere and
there is no safety wherever you turn and many
people live all their lives in fear because they don’t
know whether they will be victim of their own
family, of a cruel nurse, uncaring doctor, drunken
police, power-hungry soldier or even a mob.

SO MUCH FOR CIVILISATION

F. Gordon Taylor writing a note to the revised
edition of George Guest’s book, the March of
Civilisation, penned these words, “ The words
quoted in the preface-“…civilization… is rapidly
becoming the common possession of mankind”-
fall strangely on our ears in 1950. In the past
twenty years we have seen our civilization
challenged and narrowly escaping defeat by the
new barbarism. Nor did this barbarism end with the
defeat of the Axis. Blindness, cruelty, and greed are
the monopoly of no nation or group of nations, and
civilsation is, of itself, powerless to root out evil
from the heart of man”

“Why do we do what we ought not to do and why
don’t we do what we ought? Why, with all the
scientific advances and advantages of living in the
21st century, are we still confounded by not only
widespread hate and evil but also the malevolent
inclinations in our own heart- even towards those
we claim to love”( Greg Bahsen, Crucial Concept Of
Self Deception in Presuppositional Apologetics)
With all our advances away from what Thomas
Hobbes called the state of nature, it seems that the
description poor, nasty and brutish really does
speak to us today even at the height of scientific
and political advancement. It seems that there is a
problem in the human heart that not even
advancement in civilisation can take care of. The
cases that have been cited above are not just the
vestige that results from some people that are yet
to be civilized, these are in some cases doctors,
respected businessmen and successful
professionals and even University students. It
seems that all our education and cultural progress
has not dealt with the barbarism in the human
heart

Its easy however, to label these particular instances
and to see the problem as their problem. But as
Greg Bahsen noted above, at the end of the day, it
is also about the problem of hate in my own heart
and yours. Many of us might have clean records
and might never imagine ourselves joining a mob
or being involved in domestic violence or treating
other people’s lives with disregard but deep within
us we have our own envy, anger, strife,
intemperance and hatred. For many people who
have found themselves in this condition of
violence, it has always begun in their heart; the
seed was already sown and it only waited to
produce fruit. We are all caught in this vast web of
problems with our own heart and with our
relationships with people. Even if we don’t have
the audacity to do many of these things, their
seeds remain in our hearts and it’s just as deadly.
G K Chesterton once said that fall of man is the
most empirically verifiable fact but yet it is the
most denied. All these events that we see around
and the ones we see in our own hearts remind us
of the fall of humanity. The Christian worldview in
contrast to many other worldviews gave an
account not of the continuous progress of man but
the fall of humanity from its perfect and holy state
to sin. By disobedience to God, man lost
communion with God and its very nature was
affected by the fall. Sin took hold of humanity and
the history of man has been the acting out of the
fall of man and the sin that has plagued us.
Immediately after man was sent out of the garden
of Eden, we read of Cain killing his own brother,
Abel. Violence and wickedness filled the earth until
it was recorded, “The Lord saw how great man’s
wickedness on the earth had become, and that
every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil all the time”( Genesis 6:5, NIV). Our
problem is not ignorance, our problem is not
immaturity neither is it forgetfulness, at the heart of
the human problem is SIN.

Our present generation has grown so much in all
respects that we have thought that by our
progress we will solve all our problems and
conquer all of nature; but deep within is our own
heart left unconquered. If we have the diagnosis
wrong, our approach will only be futile. Education
and progress has done much for us but it has not
dealt with the deeper issues that confront us
within. Our intolerance, pride, anger, outburst,
hatred are problems that need more than
education. What we need is redemption. The
Christian worldview presents to us exactly that.
Christ is the only person who claim to have the
power to deal with human heart; the root of the
problem. This claim has been made evident in the
lives of many that have put their trust in him. “A
new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will
I put within you: and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart
of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and
cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall
keep my judgments, and do them.”(Ezekiel 36:26,
27). “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature: old things are passed away; behold
all things are become new.”(2 Corinthians 5:17).
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I
will put my laws into their mind, and write them in
their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they
shall be to me a people”( Hebrews 8:10). “In
whom we have redemption through his blood, the
forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14) “Know ye
not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the
kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but
ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God. “( 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

THE VALUE OF THE HUMAN LIFE

One of the underlying fact that seems to be absent
from our culture is the understanding of the fact
that life has value. Our culture of violence clearly
reveals that we have lost a consciousness of the
value of the person beside us. We take liberty to
do as we like to the human life because we have
not kept in heart the value of the human soul.
However, there are many people that have come
out to react to the violence we see around and how
it is ingrained into our society. In all of the cases
they have come down to this same fact; the value
of the human life. Chris came to the same
conclusion in his article as well as Chidi Anselm
in the article, “Taking the Nigerian Life Seriously”
for the premiumtimes. While they all agree that the
human life is supposed to have value, they don’t
tell us where that understanding of value is
grounded

Naturalism, the belief that man is just a product of
matter, time and chance has led in recent times to
the devaluation of the human life. Infact, naturalists
who are also atheists or agnostics have claimed
that the human life is the same with the animal
life. Since we evolved from them, as they claim, we
are only guilty of speciesism if we claim that our
own existence supersedes the others we have
evolved from. Recently, there was an outrage in
the US when a man in a Zoo decided to kill an
elephant to save the life of a young boy.
Infancticide, abortion, killing of adults (that to them
are having more bad effect than good) are being
advocated all around. The human life has become
something to be evaluated based on an equation.
The cultural shift that Atheism is advocating which
is a logical conclusion from its worldview is doing
damage to the value of the human life. Truly, if
man is just a “cosmic accident” (as claimed by
Richard Dawkins), a product of evolution and will
soon explode out in a cosmic heat, then we cannot
lay claim to any value for the human life. It makes
no difference what we do to it or how we treat it. It
is just a mere product of matter, time and chance.
If this view is correct, then we cannot be
concerned about all the events that we see all
around, at least our concern will not be about the
human lives that have been taken or threatened.
But contrary to what they teach, naturalists believe
deep in their heart as evidenced by their actions
and what they advocate that the human life really
has value. Richard Dawkins will claim that life has
no inherent value but will still claim that rape is
wrong. On what basis? We might ask. It occurs
every time in the animal kingdom, so if his theory
of naturalism is true, then rape cannot be wrong.
So much for inconsistency.

However, in the bible, right in the first chapter we
are told that human life has value and that value is
grounded in the fact that man was created in the
Image of God. “Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood,
by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image
of God made he man” ( Genesis 9:6). The reason
why you cannot shed the blood of another man is
because he was created in the very image of the
Supreme, Sovereign God, and the creator of human
life. This is not just an understanding that we
cannot create life but that we did not. The creator
of the human life himself placed a value upon it, by
virtue of which we cannot treat it as we like. This
value is inherent in every man. Every man bears
the image of God and irrespective of whatever
distinctions we use to categorise ourselves, at the
fundamental level is the fact that each of us bears
the image of God. Commenting on the reaction of
Adam and Eve after the fall, Ellen White writes, “As
they witnessed in drooping flower and falling leaf
the first signs of decay, Adam and his companion
mourned more deeply than men now mourn over
their dead.” Right from the very presence of God,
they recognized how precious everything that God
made was and were saddened by the
consequences of the fall of nature. How much
more should we come to grasp with the value of
the human life that is imprinted with the very
image of God

While God is the creator of life and has the right to
take it, the bible consistently reveals his
hesitation. “Have I any pleasure at all that the
wicked should die? Saith the Lord God: and not
that he should return from his ways, and live? Cast
away from you all your transgressions, and
whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a
new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O
house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the
death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God:
wherefore turn yourselves and live ye.”( Ezekiel
18:23,31,32). God in his Sovereignty pleads with
humanity to choose life rather than death because
of his great love for his image bearing creatures.
What then about us ordinary humans? How much
more then is the necessity laid on us to
understand that everyone we see is an object of
divine love and perseverance.

“He died for everyone so that those who receive
his new life will no longer live for themselves.
Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was
raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating
others from a human point of view. At one time we
thought of Christ merely from a human point of
view. How differently we know him now!”( 2
Corinthians 5:15,16). Paul states here that by his
understanding of the cross and the redemption that
Christ provides, he has stopped looking at others
from a human point of view. Christ accepted the
inferior nature of humanity became a man and took
the human nature, went through privations and
lack, scorn and hatred, culminating in his death on
the cross. He did all this just that humanity will be
redeemed and not be lost. In Luke 15, we see the
Shepherd searching earnestly for the one lost
sheep and the woman looking carefully for the one
lost coin and the father longing patiently for the
one lost child. All this illustrated to us the value
that Christ places upon each individual in terms of
redemption. No matter how man y names are in
the book of life, God’s desire is that all men will be
saved ( 1 Timothy 2:4). “The value of a soul, who
can estimate? Would you know its worth, go to
Gethsemane, and there watch with Christ through
those hours of anguish, when He sweat as it were
great drops of blood. Look upon the Saviour
uplifted on the cross. Hear that despairing cry, "My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Mark
15:34. Look upon the wounded head, the pierced
side, the marred feet. Remember that Christ risked
all. For our redemption, heaven itself was
imperiled. At the foot of the cross, remembering
that for one sinner Christ would have laid down His
life, you may estimate the value of a soul.”(Ellen
White, Christ Object Lessons, 197). All this Christ
would have passed through for just one single soul
to be redeemed. The human life has an
inestimable value by creation and by the price paid
for its redemption

BEYOND DISTINCTIONS

Chris Ngwodo noted in his article quoted above
that the reaction of Nigerians to these violence
have been fraught with insincerity, ethnicity and
religious divide. He gave the example of Bridget’s
case and that of the Abia State University Students.
The first one was popularized because it was a
Muslim mob killing a Christian woman, a northern
mob killing a southern woman. On the other hand,
the second case did not receive as much publicity
as the first because it was Christians killing
Christians and southerners killing southerners. He
stressed the fact that our responses to these
events are always fraught with our biases. The
violent acts of the mob is wrong not because it
was a southern woman but because she was a
woman at all; northern or southern. Their act was
wrong not because she was a Christian woman but
because she was a woman at all; Christian, Pagan,
Atheist or Muslim. The violent acts of the Fulani
herdsmen are wrong not because they kill
southerners but because they kill human beings
created in the Image of God. That is why the
killing of the pro Biafra supporters and the Shiites
is wrong. They are human beings and it is wrong
for their lives to be taken in such violent ways
without a justifiable cause.

Nigeria as a country is well known for its diversity
but such diversity and the cultural identity it leads
to should not make us forget that people are not
valuable because they are part of us. It is not Us
versus Them. The value of the human life is
intrinsic irrespective of their age, social status,
economic status, race, gender, education status,
religion, cultural identity, profession. Every single
human life is important and should not be
evaluated by sociological distinctions. A child is a
human being whether he has a damaged brain or
not; the old woman is a human being whether she
serves any purpose or not; the boy in the slum is
a human being whether he has a future or not and
the child in the womb is a human being whether
fully developed or not. And for this reason, their
lives have value and should be treated as such. No
distinction can undermine that. That is a fact that
we must not undermine. The value of human life is
not premised on their usefulness but on the very
fact of their existence as image bearers.
“You have heard that our ancestors were told, 'You
must not murder. If you commit murder, you are
subject to judgment. 'But I say, if you are even
angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!
If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of
being brought before the court. And if you curse
someone, you are in danger of the fires of
hell.”(Mathew 5:21-23) This is where it must
begin. It must begin from a dependence on Christ
to help us overcome the anger, the hatred, rage
that lies deep within our own hearts.

THE CRY FOR JUSTICE

In another article written by Chris Ngwodo on this
same issue titled, “The Nigerian Tragedy of Getting
Away with Mass Murder”, he noted that two things
might be responsible for the impunity with which
these acts are carried out; the understanding that
nothing will be done by the constituted authority
and the fact that even the constituted authority are
guilty themselves

Even though the days of theocracy are gone, God
being a God of order constituted authorities in
every human society. The understanding of the fall
of man and its propensities to evil must be met.
Though God has provided redemption in Christ, he
knows that not all men will accept the work of
Christ in their heart. He understands that society
will sometimes be a victim of the evil in the heart
of man. He understands that for society to be in a
state of tranquility and peace, there needs to be
punishment for evil acts.

However, God’s response is not just to deter
people but to meet every wrong act with justice
and he has placed that responsibility in every
constituted government. “Blessed be the name of
God forever and ever: for wisdom and might are
his: And he changeth the times and the seasons:
he removeth kings and setteth up kings: he giveth
wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that
know understanding”, “….that the living may know
that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up
over it the basest of men”, "Obey them that have
the rule over you and submit yourselves: for they
watch over your souls, as they that must give
account, that they may do it with joy, and not with
grief: for that is unprofitable for you", "Submit
yourselves to every ordinance of man for the
Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by
him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the
praise of them that do well. For so is the will of
God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men :”( Daniel 2:21; 4:17; Heb
13:17, 1Peter 2:13-15)

God has placed a responsibility on every
government to punish evil doers among other
things and for these responsibilities he gave them,
they will give account of their stewardship. The
silence of government is a sin against God. The
government themselves must understand the value
of every human life under their watch and they
must realize that they have a God given
responsibility to meet all these violent acts with
necessary justice. The peace, order, serenity of
society demands such act of justice and even
when the government falls short of recognizing
human value, they have` to be humble enough to
apologise to the citizenry. Though we have a lot of
economic and political issues to deal with, this
must take precedence because in a society that
has no regard for human life, the economy cannot
thrive and politics will merely be a game (as many
people see it already)

However, we have lived long enough to know that
justice is not always done. Even in societies with
advanced democracy and by implication, Judiciary,
there is still a cry for justice. There is something
in the human heart that calls for justice and we all
can relate to it. Inspite of that, Justice is not
gotten. As we look at all these issues that go on,
our hearts cry out for justice and we are saddened
by a lack of it. If we have a universal sense of
justice, it means there is a universal judgment in
such a way that hunger means an existence of
food (not necessarily availability). And as C S
Lewis said, “Creatures are not born with desires
unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby
feels hunger well, there is such a thing as food. A
duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing
as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is
such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire
which no experience in this world can satisfy, the
most probable explanation is that I was made for
another world”

There is a judgment. There is justice; there is
satisfaction to what our hearts cry for. “…for we
shall all stand before the judgment seat of
Christ” (Romans 14:10) “And behold I come
quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every
man according as his work shall be”( Rev 22:12).
There is a judgment. But it is not just for the mob
or the violent men or those who deny the value of
the human life. I am included in that judgment in
the same way as you. We will all stand before the
judgment. The only one thing that will make us to
stand in peace and joy is when Christ is our lawyer
and advocate and he also covers us with his
righteousness. This does not lessen the
responsibility of government but tells us quite
frankly that we will not always get justice here and
even if we do, there is a greater judgment which
has eternal consequences where he who reads our
hearts, keep records of our actions and our words
will give to every man according as his work. The
blood of Abel cried out for justice (Gen 4:10) and
that of the martyrs( Rev 6:19-20). With them and
everyone, we will all cry out, “ Great and
Marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just
and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints”( Rev
15:3)

SOLEMN THOUGHT
(R.F COTTRREL)
O solemn thought and can it be
The hour of judgment now is come;
Which soon must fix our destiny,
And seal the sinner’s fearful doom?
Yes, it is so; the judgment hour
Is swiftly hastening to its close;
Then will the Judge, in mighty power,
Descend in vengeance on His foes.
He who came down to earth to die
An offering for the sins of men,
And then ascended up on high,
And will e’er long return again,
Is standing now before the ark,
And mercy seat and cherubim,
To plead His blood for saints, and make
The last remembrance of their sin.
The solemn moment is at hand
When we who have His name confessed,
Each in his lot must singly stand,
And pass the final, searching test.
Jesus! We hope in Thee alone;
In mercy now upon us look,
Confess our names before the throne,
And blot our sins from out Thy book.
O blessed Savior! may we feel
The full importance of this hour.
Inspire our hearts with holy zeal,
And aid us by Thy Spirit’s power,
That we may in Thy strength be strong,
And brave the conflict valiantly;
Then, on Mount Zion, join the song,
And swell the notes of victory.