The Works of God

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength
Because of Your adversaries,
To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?

Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!

Psalm 8:2-5 NASB

Some argue that rationality and self-awareness are necessary for a human being to be considered a person.  That leaves out all kinds of people with certain kinds of disabilities.

Pastor John points out something a little different – human dignity is not granted based on rationality, but granted by the one who created them!  And though this is not specifically about little ones with disabilities, the connection is clearly evident:

Why is it that what comes out of the mouth of these little humans has such strength that it can overcome the enemies of God? I think the answer is, at least in part, given by verse 5—these little ones are made by God. Job said in Job 31:15, “Did not he who made me in the womb make him [my servant], and the same one fashion us in the womb?” Little infants and sucking babes are each made by God in the womb.

Moreover they are made in the womb, like no other being, a little less than the angels, and they are made in the womb by God and crowned with glory and majesty. In other words, their supreme place in creation under God (or the angels) is so profound even at the stage of being sucklings that when they open their mouth to cry or to coo or to babble as a human being, they are bearing witness to their unspeakable dignity in creation and therefore to the majesty of God’s name in all the earth. God does not wait until a sucking babe is rational and independent to ascribe to him the glory and majesty of verse 5—he doesn’t have to be a NASA scientist. When the suckling opens his mouth, God is praised, strength is established by the sheer truth that a human creation in the image of the majestic God is here.

Let all the adversaries of God take note and tremble. If they treat God’s supreme creation with contempt, they will lose. They will be silenced.

And so I appeal to you, do not join with the adversaries of God in killing unborn children or scorning any race of human beings. Because the truth of this text stands sure: You cannot worship and glorify the majesty of God while treating his supreme creation with contempt.

John Piper, What Is Man?, delivered January 16, 1994.