Recent scientific breakthroughs are a danger to the Christian faith. As we move closer and closer into the 20th century, we can see signs all around us that point to Christ’s second return. It is now, and in times to come, that Satan will work his hardest to get God’s Christian soldiers to join the army of the devil. Satan is very powerful and devious. He works in many different ways and forms. Satan works through many different people to try to lure us away from God. He works through government officials, scientists, and many of the professors at colleges today. We as Christians must be very careful living in this world today. For, “they that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever” (Psalm 125:1).

For many worldly people, scientists have been the ones to whom they look for answers to their questions. It was scientists that told us that the world in which we live was created from a massive explosion. Also according to scientists, our ancestors are the banana-eating, fury animals that swing from one vine to another making their way through the jungle. Recently, scientists have discovered a way to replace the nucleus of an unfertilized egg with the nucleus from another cell. We know this as cloning. The word ‘cloning’ has many meanings, but we know it as creating an organism genetically identical to another organism. Scientists attempt cloning by having a nucleus from a very early embryo replace an unfertilized egg’s nucleus. If this works, the offspring generated grows into a fertile adult.

When many of us think of cloning, we tend to think of Dolly (the cloned sheep). Ian Wilmut and his colleagues were allowed (by God) to create Dolly. In a story in Science News on how Wilmut created Dolly, he reported that his strategy was to starve the adult cells. This strategy involves depriving the intended donor cells of almost all nutrients for five days. This diet causes the cells to abandon their normal cycle of growth and division and to enter a stage which starts chromation remodeling, making it easier for the egg cell to finish it’s job. For scientists, this is a miracle. Dolly is the only survivor of 277 cloning attempts with adult sheep cells.

Scientists hope that by cloning animals, they will be able to transplant organs from animals into humans. Cloning would also enable farmers to clone their livestock, making a herd of good, productive animals.

All of this scientific breakthrough might cause us as Christians to wonder, “Is this what God intended?” Obviously it’s not. If God intended for all sheep to be as one sheep, He would have created all sheep the same. Although, God created all animals as well as man differently. Genesis 1:27 as well as Article 1 under the 3rd and 4th Heads Of Doctrine tells us that man was created in the image of God; this is one of the few ways that every man is similar. Everybody is different from one another. Even identical twins are different in one form or another. If God wanted us “to be someone else,” He would have created us that way. God is the only one who is three in one. Number three of the Confession of Faith reminds us that God is one is Essence, but distinguished in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God is the only source of all creativity. He made only one of you and me. He didn’t use a mold to form us- He used His hands, and He will never use His hands in exactly the same way ever again. This is why every child must be treated differently. In the classroom, every student is different and needs individual attention to meet their different needs.

As Christians, we must be ever so grateful to God for making us who we are, and for choosing us to be partakers of the body of Christ. Faith is to be considered as the gift of God because it is conferred, breathed, and infused into man by God who produces the will to believe as well as the act of believing (Canons of Dordt, 3rd and 4th Heads of Doctrine, Article 14). We must remember that we are a special remnant, a chosen few in this world. Christ only chose a few to be called His own. For “many are called, but few are chosen.” Lord’s Day VII, Q&A 20 tells us that only those engrafted into Christ and receive all His benefits by a true faith are saved. We must always remember this, lest we falter. We must always turn to God for help in times of trouble. Even though the world is becoming more perverse and wicked every day, let’s remember this as we are to be Christian examples to the world. ♦