All over the news is glory for the creation of life! Synthetic artificial life that is.
Scientists have finally created what they call synthetic life. Not real life, as in humans and your dog Rover. The kind of life that has been growing in the back of your refrigerator on that egg salad for the past month. Minus the egg salad.
They say it is “The first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.” Of course, the computer was directed by the intelligent hand of scientists and their accumulated research over the centuries, but what’s the difference.
Glory goes to the scientists, the funding sponsors, the collective intelligence of humanity, and the moms (without whom none of the scientists would have clean underwear).
The new, copied from the original, synthetic life can be manipulated to cure diseases, clean water, and make biofuels in the form of algae. Some scientists are even, unintentionally, being glorified as playing the role of gods by religious groups.
Getting on the Bandwagon
Every time some new finding in cell manipulation is released there are religious groups who become aggravated with scientists playing with egg sal… uhm, bacterial genomes, because they think the scientists are playing God. To which my response is, “what’s new?” Man has been trying to play god since our own beginnings (Gen 3:5).
I have not for one second confused the scientists with God, nor confused modified goat cells as the origin of real life.
Speaking of God, in the vein of glorying in the creation of life, I’d like to give some glory to the true God who first created the life we are now using to create synthetic life (Gen 1:1). However, it seems that our genetic code has been degraded by something that causes these mechanisms known as our bodies to suddenly stop. The Bible calls this sin, death is the result (Rom 5:12).
The explanation for the main practical use of synthetic life is to fix the errors in our own broken bodies. Hopefully, they discover a cure to the diseases of the world, but they will always fall short of the glory of God when it comes to resolving man’s final frontier: death (Rom 3:23).
The Glorious Good News of Life
The good news is that the Creator of real life has offered a new creation to give us eternal life. I know, your dad taught you, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t”. But let’s consider that no scientist has a single DNA molecule to explain resurrection or eternality. The same genetic code in your body before death exists also the moment after death. What is the difference?
Life is not mere molecules. It is something spiritual (Gen 2:7). So then, we will not find eternal life from a test tube, but from the originator of life. One man has defeated death and lived to tell about it.
“… our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel: Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.” – 2 Tim 1:10
You won’t find Paul published in scientific journals. The way to have eternal life is trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. God was manifest to humanity in Jesus who used the very blood of God to pay for sins and purchase eternal life for us in Him (Acts 20:28).
Synthetic life pales in comparison to the real thing originally created by God in Genesis 1. However, even beyond Genesis 1, the eternal life we can now have in Christ is even more glorious (Col 1:25-27).
Article Index Published: May 22, 2010
Last Modified: September 6, 2016