Thought for the Month - January 2003

A Christmas baby who changed the world - By Barry Adair

"A Christmas baby who changed the world" - that was the quote I heard today from a jouralist on the reported news that the first CLONED human baby had just been born.

The Times newspaper noted that, "A cult that believes that life on Earth was created by extra-terrestrials 25,000 years ago today claimed to have created the world's first cloned human. Eve, a carbon copy of her mother, was born by Caesarean section on Boxing Day weighing 7lbs and is the first of five "successful" embryos implanted by the Raelian Sect earlier this year".

The following few thoughts went through my head on hearing this sinister story:

• The only true "Christmas baby who changed the world" was the Lord Jesus Christ. His virgin birth was the manifestation of a Creator God's immeasurable love for His fallen people. Just think, God Himself would enter into His own creation as a helpless babe with the express purpose of allowing Himself to be brutally tortured and give up His life for sinful men and women like you and me!
• To name this alleged first baby to be cloned "Eve" reminds me of Adam and Eve. We read in Genesis 3:20 that Adam "called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living". Eve means "living" or "life". This new Eve is a direct copy of her mother. When she looks into the face of her mother, she will in fact be looking at an older identical twin sister! This is not LIFE, it is a perverted form of human Xeroxing.
• The human genome was somehow perverted away back in Noah's time too. We read in Genesis 6:2 that "the sons of God (angels) saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose". And also in Genesis 6:4 that "the sons of God (angels) came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them". And the direct result of this? Because the Lord "saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth" (Gen 6:5), He sent a flood which would destroy the complete human race except for Noah and his family.
• The "times of Noah" may be upon us again. The Lord Jesus, recorded in Matthew 24:37, said that "the coming of the Son of Man will just be like the days of Noah". God intervened away back in the time of Noah because of man's wickedness and He will do so again.

Also quoted in the Times Newspaper was a spokesman for 'Life' who said, "This is deplorable, assuming it's true. It's runaway science. We have to keep on reminding ourselves that a cloned human being is an entirely new human being produced asexually without parents in the traditional sense and jerked into life with an electric current. How many died on the way to this? This is yet further commodification and trivialisation of life. Now the Pandora's Box is open".

Let us all endeavour to cling fast to that which is good and to flee from that which is evil.

The beginning of a new year is a time for reflection and evaluation - a time for renewal, perhaps a time for a new start, for beginning again.

Someone has said that to walk into a new year is to walk into the unknown. It is to traverse new paths, and to walk along new roads. But He who holds the future knows what the future holds. And the Lord Jesus Christ who is untarnished and unchanged with the passing of the years has promised to walk alongside His people wherever they may be.

May the Christ of God, the only Lord and Saviour, be your guide and portion in 2003.

Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. (Hebrews 13:5)

Are you SURE that you have your place booked in Heaven? Read this if you're not!