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We are a Christian Fellowship meeting in North London with a strong interest in teaching the Bible and understanding our time in
the light of Bible prophecy
Making babies without having sex
Dr Severino Antinori has promised to clone human babies for infertile
couples and claims to have 200 volunteers ready for his experiment. Cloning
works by a nucleus being removed from a host egg and being replaced by
genetic material taken from a cell of the creature being cloned. It produces
an identical replica of the adult which it has been cloned from.
This is not the only development taking place in the realm of genetic
engineering. Microsoft has now raised the possibility of being able to
choose the sex of your baby. The treatment involves a complex machine using
lasers to sort sperm into those likely to produce girls and boys. Mothers
can then choose to be inseminated with the selected type.
An experiment is taking place in Brazil in which a calf foetus is being
created in a test tube using a manufactured 'designer' egg. The egg will be
taken from one cow and then reprogrammed so that it carries DNA from another
animal. The researchers behind the experiment hope it could lead to a
treatment for women unable to produce healthy eggs because of illness or old
age. It could also be adapted to create synthetic sperm for infertile men.
Another technique being developed in Australia has found a way in which an
egg can be fertilised with cells from any part of the body, rather than
sperm. It involves taking chromosomes (the part of the body which carries
the genes) from body cells of the father and putting them inside a female
egg. But the chromosomes do not necessarily have to come from the father,
they could come from another woman. By this means lesbian couples could one
day have baby girls that are genetically their own, with one woman
contributing an egg and the second a cell to fertilise it (Daily Telegraph 10/7/01).
The arguments in favour of these developments usually speak about the trauma
of those who are unable to have children or the need for choice in life
styles. Medical opponents speak of the dangers of producing babies with
abnormalities and defects in their genes.
Public discussion of the issue rarely focuses on the most important
question, how does this tie up with God's order of creation? Of course we
should not be surprised at this since the concept of God as Creator has been
firmly deleted from the scientific world view presented in the media and the
educational system. Our generation has seen amazing developments in
scientific knowledge fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel 12.4 that 'knowledge
shall increase.' We have also seen a loss of all sense of God's order in
creation in our public life, leading to interference in the natural means of
reproduction which has unknown consequences for humanity.
In our sex obsessed era we often forget that sexuality is God's creation in
the first place. The opening pages of the Bible tell us that all creatures
are made by God with their 'seed' within them and able to reproduce 'after
their own kind.' Humans are made in the image of God, male and female with a
command to 'be fruitful and multiply' through a man being joined to his wife
and becoming 'one flesh' with her (Genesis 1.26-28, 2.24, 5.1-2). In
addition to being physical beings God breathed his 'breath of life' (spirit)
into mankind at creation (Genesis 2.7). As a result 'man became a living soul'.
The Bible distinguishes between human beings and animals in that humans have
a spiritual dimension. In describing the death of animals, we read, 'You
take away their breath, they die and return to the dust' (Psalm 104.29). But
in describing the death of humans we read, 'Then the dust will return to the
earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it' (Ecclesiastes
12.7). So animals simply return to the dust and cease to exist, but humans
have a spirit and the spirit part of us returns to God after death.
This is another reason why the clear teaching of the Bible is that humans
did not evolve from animals but are a different order of creation with a
spiritual dimension capable of relating to God. It is also why Jesus said we
must be born of the spirit, as well as 'born of the flesh' in order that we
can return to God as redeemed people and able to enter the kingdom of God
rather than unredeemed people on the way to hell (John 3.3-8).
All this is extremely relevant to the subject of cloning and artificial
creation of humans and even the cloning of animals. The natural order is for
creatures to reproduce 'after their own kind' using their seed. Any process
which removes the 'seed' in the reproductive process (as cloning does) is
contrary to God's order of creation.
God also makes it clear that as far as humans are concerned there is also a
spiritual dimension in reproduction. His desire is for one man and one woman
to be committed to each other in marriage and that this relationship should
be the basis for the pro-creation of children. In the book of Malachi God
rebukes men who forsake their wives or 'deal treacherously' with them. He
says, 'But did he not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why
one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let
none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. For the Lord God of
Israel says that he hates divorce' (Malachi 2.14-16). So bringing children
into the world is not only a physical act, but also a spiritual one, because
the couple are bringing forth another being who is capable of relating to
God. This is why marriage is held in such high esteem in the Bible and why
the rejection of biblical standards on marriage is creating such chaos in
our society.
The ideal of the Bible is that a man and woman committed to each other in
marriage should bring up their children. However even when this standard is
broken, the child is still a spiritual being capable of coming to know the
Lord. Children born in the worst circumstances imaginable can be saved
through repentance and faith in the Messiah Jesus. Equally children born
into a loving family where God is honoured may rebel against their parents
and turn against the Lord. Whatever the circumstance of conception, a child
who comes into being through sexual reproduction is a being with a body and
a spirit capable of knowing the Lord.
But what about a child brought into being through the techniques being
developed artificially in a laboratory? Does such a child become a 'living
soul' in the eyes of God? I expect that before long even to ask such a
question will be considered discriminatory but the issue has to be raised.
Denying God and his created order, scientists are tampering with things it
is not permitted for us to interfere with. To quote from Ecclesiastes again:
'As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in the
mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all
things' (Ecclesiastes 11.4-6). By playing God scientists may be in fact
introducing something catastrophic into human society.
It is interesting that many people who have signed up as volunteers for Dr
Antinori's experiment are from the Raelian cult. The cult believes that life
was created scientifically in laboratories by extraterrestrials (ETs) and
that there is therefore no moral or ethical reason why humans should not be
cloned. The Raelian Movement was founded by a French journalist who claims
that ETs took him to their planet and gave him the name Rael (Rael is an
amalgam of the ancient Egyptian name for God - Ra - and the Hebrew name -
El). They asked him to return to spread the message that these beings will
soon come back to earth, and that an embassy must be built for the occasion.
Would cloned human beings be ambassadors for such a visitation?
On 9th December 1997 the Daily Mail carried an article by Colin Wilson, 'Why
I am convinced Aliens are in our midst.' Wilson, an occultist, believes
mankind is at the point of some great evolutionary change, and that the
aliens have given themselves the task of 'acting as a midwife to us as we go
through the next stage of our evolution.' He also believes that 'the aliens
are using many methods to 'seed' the human race with different types of
being: alterations in individual consciousness, genetic engineering, even
the creation of people who do not realise that they have two personalities,
as a human being and an alien.'
In his article Wilson states his belief that the 'aliens' are not beings
from space but from 'a parallel dimension'. 'There is a sense in which the
UFO entities behave like the traditional ghosts except that they are very
obviously not ghosts but highly evolved beings.'
In our view UFOs are in fact demons manifesting themselves in a form
acceptable to modern culture (see article 'An ID for UFOs' - October 1996,
available on request). Therefore connecting the development of cloning with
aliens means that it could become a means of demonic infiltration into the
world which will be used by Satan in the coming Antichrist society.
In this case cloning could be an open door for demons to walk into a child
and possess it from birth. Is this then the satanic strategy behind the UFO
groups promoting the quest to clone a human? Is it the reason why occultists
like Colin Wilson are looking for aliens to 'seed' the human race in its
next phase of 'evolutionary growth'?
If so this is a very good reason why Jesus has to come back soon to stop
this madness before the human race creates something really monstrous. It
gives an added dimension to the Lord's words 'As in the days of Noah, so
will it be in the days of the Son of Man.' In Genesis 6.2-4 we read of the
Nephilim, the giants who came into existence at the time of Noah, as a
result of the intercourse between the 'sons of God' and the daughters of
man. While some would say that this simply means the mingling of the godly
line of Seth with the ungodly line of Cain, this interpretation raises some
difficulties.
It means the men are all godly and the women all ungodly.
Why should the union of the godly and the ungodly produce offspring who are
physically different?
The term 'sons of God' is never used in the Old Testament of the 'godly' but
it is used in the Book of Job 1.6 of the angels appearing before God, among
whom was Satan.
However hard it is for us to conceive, the older interpretation of this
passage does make sense; that it refers to the intercourse of fallen angels
and humans and the depraved offspring that resulted. This was one reason why
God sent the Flood to cleanse the earth of them. It would also be a direct
parallel to the current fascination with UFOs, ETs, alien abductions and the
extraordinary claims being made by the likes of Colin Wilson and the
Raelians. Given that these people are not contacting aliens but demons to
get their orders, it is likely that what is being prepared is a demonic
invasion of humanity to make way, not for our next phase of evolutionary
growth, but for the coming of the Antichrist and the events of the Great Tribulation.
