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This page is written mainly for husbands and wives who want to honor God in the matter of children. It sets out what Scripture says plainly and where faithful Reformed believers differ. If you long for children and they have not come, read the part for you first. If you are not married, there is a short word for you. If an old choice weighs on your conscience, read If your conscience is troubled. If your husband or wife is forcing you in this or any other matter, get safe first, and if the weight of it has you thinking of ending your life, call 988 or text 988 today.
Children Are a Blessing
The first words God spoke to man and woman were a blessing, and children were at the heart of it.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:28 (KJV)
This was before the fall. Children were never a burden laid on man because of sin. After the flood God spoke the same blessing again to Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:1). Sin had spoiled much, but God had not taken back his blessing on the fruit of the womb.
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:3-5 (KJV)
Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.
Psalm 128:3-4 (KJV)
These psalms speak in pictures. The arrows and the quiver, the vine and the young olive trees are figures. What they picture is real. A wife who bears children is a blessing in her home, and children growing up around a table are a gift from God, not a cost to be counted. The world often counts children as a drain. God calls them a reward.
The Confession names children among the reasons God made marriage.
Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife; for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness.
Westminster Confession of Faith 24.2
An holy seed means children raised in the covenant and taught to fear God. The prophet asks why God made husband and wife one, and answers, That he might seek a godly seed (Malachi 2:15). So a Christian couple does not begin by asking how to avoid children. They begin by receiving children as God does, gladly. For more on marriage itself, read Why God Gave It, and on raising children, What the Bible Says About Raising Children.
Where Faithful Believers Differ
The Bible does not speak directly of modern contraception. So it must be answered from principles Scripture does teach, and where good men weigh them differently, we should say so honestly.
Some faithful Reformed believers hold that a married couple should not prevent children at all. They point out that God is the one who opens and closes the womb. When Rachel cried to Jacob for children, he answered, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? (Genesis 30:2). If children are God’s reward, they say, we should not refuse the reward, and the number of children belongs to him alone. Many godly families live this way, and their trust in God is not foolishness. No one should mock a large family.
Many other faithful Reformed believers hold that married couples may, with right motives and by mutual consent, space their children or limit their number, using only methods that do not end a life. They note that Genesis 1:28 is a blessing and charge given to mankind, and that it does not tell each couple how many children to have or how close together. The Confession also gives marriage other purposes besides children, so the marriage bed is not only for begetting. And they point to Paul.
Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
1 Corinthians 7:5 (KJV)
Paul is not writing about birth control here. But he does show that husband and wife decide matters of the marriage bed together, by consent, and that a season of holding back is not sin in itself. Incontinency means lack of self-control, so he warns that the holding back must not go on so long that it becomes a temptation. Couples who space children by waiting at certain times of the month should take that to heart.
Both groups agree on far more than they differ. Both receive children as a blessing, forbid any method that can end a life, and say the heart matters most. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind (Romans 14:5).
The Case of Onan
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also.
Genesis 38:8-10 (KJV)
Onan’s brother had died with no child. By the custom later written into the law of Moses, the brother was to take the widow and raise up a son to carry the dead man’s name (Deuteronomy 25:5-6). Onan took Tamar but made sure she would never conceive.
Many faithful teachers read God’s judgment as falling on Onan’s refusal of that duty. The text names his reason, lest that he should give seed to his brother. He took the privileges of a husband without the duty, and cheated a widow of the child she was owed. On this reading the passage condemns a selfish heart, not every way a couple might avoid conceiving.
Other faithful teachers, John Calvin among them, read it as condemning the act itself as well. They note that the law’s penalty for a man who openly refused the duty was public shame, not death (Deuteronomy 25:7-10). So, they say, God’s anger must have been at the deed too. Those who hold the first reading answer that Onan’s sin was worse than an open refusal, because it was hidden, lying, and greedy.
Whichever reading you take, this much is plain. God saw what Onan did in secret and what was in his heart, and he judged it.
The Heart Behind the Choice
A couple can make the same choice for godly reasons or for sinful ones. God looks on the heart, so begin with your own.
Some reasons for avoiding children are plainly sinful. Selfishness is one, wanting your time, your body, and your comfort kept for yourself. Love of ease is another. So is putting a career, a house, or a certain way of living above the children God might give. And so is fear of the world, the dread that this age is too dark to bring a child into. Jesus told his disciples, Take therefore no thought for the morrow (Matthew 6:34). He does not forbid planning, only the worry that rules the heart, for your Father knows what you need. Believers have always raised children in a dark world, and God has kept his people.
Other reasons may be lawful. A mother’s health is one. If a doctor who honors life says another pregnancy soon could put her in real danger, a husband who loves her as his own flesh will take that seriously (Ephesians 5:28-29). Real hardship is another, such as grave illness, a husband unable to work, or a wife still recovering from a hard birth. If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith (1 Timothy 5:8). Wisdom about the children you already have may weigh too. These are matters to bring before God honestly, not excuses to reach for.
Test yourselves with hard questions. Are we glad to receive children, or do we resent them? Would we welcome a child God gave us anyway? And what is the real reason, the one we would say aloud to him? Whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23). And those who hold that all prevention is wrong must guard their hearts too, against pride and against judging their brothers.
No Method That Can End a Life
Here Scripture is not silent. Thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13). The Larger Catechism says the sixth commandment forbids not only taking a life but whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any (WLC 136). A child is a person from conception, for reasons set out in What God Says About the Unborn. So any method that can end a child’s life after conception is forbidden, however it is sold or named.
Not every method works the same way. Some, like barrier methods or the careful watching of a wife’s natural cycle, only keep a child from being conceived. Some, such as the morning-after pill and some IUDs, can work after conception, by keeping a newly conceived child from settling in the womb. Christians, and Christian doctors, differ on how much this applies to the ordinary daily pill, which works mainly by keeping conception from happening. Good people disagree about whether it ever acts after conception and how much weight that should carry.
So before you use any method, ask a doctor who honors life to tell you exactly how it works. If you cannot be sure a method will not end a life, the safer path is to leave it alone.
Permanent Sterilization
Some couples consider a vasectomy for the husband or having the tubes tied for the wife. These do not end a life, but faithful pastors give cautions worth hearing.
It is meant to be permanent, and often it cannot truly be undone. A husband or wife may die, and the other may marry again. A couple who were sure may later long for another child. Your body also is not your own, for ye are bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20), and to close a door God opened is no small thing. It should never be done in haste, under pressure, or to escape a hard season.
Here too faithful believers differ. Some hold that it is always wrong to make a healthy body unable to bear children. Others hold that it may be lawful for weighty reasons, such as when another pregnancy would gravely endanger a wife’s life, after much prayer and with the counsel of the elders. Surgery to treat a disease, which leaves a person unable to have children, is a different matter and is not what is meant here.
If Your Conscience Is Troubled
Perhaps you used a method that may have ended a life, and you did not know. Or perhaps you did know. Do not torment yourself over what you cannot know. Bring it to Christ. If you sinned knowingly, name it to God as sin, for if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive (1 John 1:9). If you acted in ignorance, God knows that too, and the blood of Christ covers sins we never saw as well as those we did. If you have lost a child before birth in any way, read If your baby died before birth.
Deciding Together Before God
This is a decision for a husband and wife to make together, in prayer, before God. The husband is to lead in love, and he is to dwell with his wife according to knowledge (1 Peter 3:7). Neither one may force the other. A husband may not press his wife to use a method her conscience forbids, and a wife may not deceive her husband about it. If either of you is being forced, that is not a difference of opinion. It is abuse, and you may get safe.
Ask your elders for counsel. In the multitude of counsellors there is safety (Proverbs 11:14). Godly elders cannot decide for you, but they can help you see your own heart.
And where Scripture has not spoken, do not bind other believers’ consciences. The Confession says that God alone is Lord of the conscience (WCF 20.2). A family with many children should not look down on a family with few, and a family with few should not mock one with many. Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth (Romans 14:4). Be firm where God is firm, about life and about the heart. Be gentle where he has left you free.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
James 1:17 (KJV)
Every child is one of those gifts. And the Father gave his best gift first. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32). Christ died for sinners and rose again, and every good thing God gives his people comes to them through him. If you have never come to him, read The Gospel. A couple who trust Christ with their souls can trust him with their family.
If You Are Not Married
For the unmarried, the question is not birth control. It is purity. God gave the marriage bed for marriage alone, and a single believer is called to keep himself chaste, in body and in mind. Birth control does not make fornication safe or clean. If you have sinned here, there is full pardon in Christ for you. Read What the Bible Says About Sex.
When Children Do Not Come
For some couples the question on this page is not how to space children but whether any will come at all. That is a different grief, and a deep one. Rachel cried, Give me children, or else I die (Genesis 30:1). Hannah was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore (1 Samuel 1:10). The Bible does not hide that sorrow, and you do not need to hide it either.
Childlessness is not a sign that God is angry with you, and it does not make your marriage less of a marriage. Mutual help is a purpose of marriage too, and so is the picture of Christ and his church. Your home can still be full of love and service. Bring your longing to God honestly, as Hannah did. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children (Psalm 113:9). He has done it many times, and he may yet do it for you. If he does not, he is still your Father, and he has not forgotten you.
For more on this grief, and on medical help to conceive, read the page on infertility and IVF. If you feel alone in your sorrow, read God Setteth the Solitary in Families.
What to Do This Week
- Thank God for the children you have, or pray for the ones you long for.
- Talk together without hurry. Each of you say what you believe Scripture teaches and why, and listen more than you speak.
- Name your real reasons before God. If you find selfishness, love of ease, or fear there, confess it. If you find a weighty reason, bring it to him in faith.
- Learn exactly how any method works. Ask a doctor who honors life. Put away anything that can end a life after conception.
- Ask your elders for counsel, especially before any permanent step.
- Guard your tongue about other families. Rejoice with every child born in your church.
- Pray together. In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God (Philippians 4:6). He who gave his Son will not withhold any good thing you truly need.