What about clones? ............. Parables 740

December 25, 2001

Scientists now claim to have cloned a ‘human being.’ This is not as impressive as it first sounds. Their clone was not an exact duplicate of the cell donor as was “Dolly” the famous cloned sheep from Scotland. The best they could do was a human ‘embryo.’

An embryo is “an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, especially an unborn human in the first eight weeks from conception.” If this clone was “developing,” it did not get very far — only six cells. In other words, it did not survive to the point of being visible.

These scientific gurus also fell short of their stated purpose for cloning. They hoped to produce stem cells but this tiny, six-celled mass did not have stem cell capacity within it. It could not form itself into various other cells required in a human being, such as brain, hair, muscle, etc. Without that ability, who knows what it might have become?

One wonders how this six-celled creation could be called a ‘human’ embryo. Many people will not tag ‘human’ on a eight-week old fetus even though it has fingers, toes and a heartbeat. They say an unborn child is not human — only a “blob of tissue.”

Creating a human from another human might become possible but even if science accomplishes this so-called feat, God will always stand far above our efforts. In the first place, He created a man from the dust of the ground. After breathing life into that man, He later put him to sleep and from his rib created a woman. Now that is an accomplishment!

Those who consider this story a myth have to dismiss God entirely or at least say He hasn’t any power. They are left with the theory that people evolved over millions of years from apes, and apes came from a lesser life, and lesser life evolved from a single cell that accidently appeared as atoms clashed in some primordial soup.

Granted, maybe faith in God is more difficult because if we believe in Him, we must also believe and acknowledge that we are no longer the perfect creatures that He initially created. Since pride is part of the reason we are no longer perfect, we struggle with that part of faith.

No problem for God. He knew we could not do it alone so He did something even more amazing than the creation of Adam and Eve; He Himself became a human so He could save us.

Until recent computer and film technology, I could not offer anything that compares to the Incarnation. God in human flesh? How can that be? Yet I “saw” a leopard become a person through the magic of morphing. Through the eyes of technology, one became the other.

In the case of God, He did not lose His own identity by morphing into a human being; He remained fully God. And the person that God became was nothing less than fully human, yet He was also fully God. Through the eyes of faith, we see Jesus “who being the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of God’s person. . . and by Himself purged our sins.”

The man, Jesus Christ, was totally human. He breathed, became hungry, thirsty, and tired, and ate, drank, and rested. He had emotions; He cried and laughed. He was intelligent and understood human needs. He had a will for He decided to obey His Father rather than yield to Satan’s temptations.

The man, Jesus Christ, was totally God also. He could see into the human heart and declare a person’s motivations. He was powerful — “even the wind and the sea obeyed Him.” He was also sinless, something true of deity only.

By taking on flesh, God did something unique. No one can duplicate His feat. We might be able to ‘create’ flesh but it would not be anything like Jesus Christ. Instead, the result will be more sinful people, just like ourselves. Why add more rebels to a world already filled with them?

Even stem cell research makes no sense. No matter what science comes up with to cure disease and prolong life, without a changed heart, living longer only adds more time for sin. Our real need is not duplication in triplicate but the salvation God offers us through the death and life of Jesus Christ, His remarkable clone.