The world was startled recently when it was revealed Scottish scientists had “cloned an adult sheep.” Exited, frenetic news reports flashed around the world. Major networks quickly called together panels representing Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious leaders to discuss the moral and spiritual aspects of “cloning.” Would they soon be cloning humans? Could they clone the dead? Would they produce a clone of Adolf Hitler? “Would a cloned human have a soul?” asked Joie Chen, of CNN. Then shockingly, she asked, “Do you suppose Jesus could have been a clone?” Such incredible assertions and unbelievable questions show that most people seem to place no limits on “science.” It is as if science is now endowed with the very powers of God! What did the scientists really accomplish? Did they really “clone” an “adult sheep”? What are the implications to the Bible if man is able to endlessly replicate himself by the process called “cloning”? Do scientists now have the power to create?

        The news reports were almost frantic. In fantastic leaps of imagination, some commentators raised the specter of Saddam Hussein being able to “clone an entire army!” Suddenly, “science” had allegedly made all the impossible predictions of the twenty-first century come true! From small town pastors to the pope in Rome, religious leaders condemned the concept of “cloning” humans.

        Science fiction is here, now, some said! By now, you have heard time and time again about the “cloning of an adult sheep” by Scottish scientists. Most people, when hearing the excited announcements over television, or reading about it in their daily newspapers, seemed to believe the scientists had somehow duplicated an adult sheep! Time, in its March 10, 1997 issue, produced a “digital photomontage” of “Dolly,” which was one photograph superimposed upon the same photograph—not two sheep. However, the cover photo left the impression one was viewing two absolutely identical sheep.

        It was as if science had “created” a second sheep out of the first sheep. Somehow, as if by magic, poof! There was the “clone,” named Dolly, standing beside its identical twin, the mature ewe used in the cloning experiment. Is this what happened? Did scientists somehow “create” a mature, adult sheep?

        According to the New York Times News Service, February 23, 1997, written by Gina Kolata, the following event took place: “In a feat that may be the one bit of genetic engineering that has been anticipated and dreaded more than any other, researchers in Britain are reporting that they have cloned an adult mammal for the first time” (emphasis mine). This expression, “they have cloned an adult mammal,” was heard time and time again over the news media.

        The impression it leaves in the minds of millions of people is that the scientists somehow replicated an adult sheep! How? Did they put the first sheep into some kind of a machine, turn it on, and suddenly produce two sheep, the second one the identical copy of the first?

        Absolutely not! Many news reports, particularly those on television, were misleading. A few days later, television newscasters were announcing that American scientists had successfully “cloned a monkey,” although, they added “it was not an adult.” The clear implication was that the sheep “cloned” in Scotland was an adult, but that the scientists who “cloned” the monkey were not quite so successful as those who cloned the sheep, since the monkey cloners had used cells from an embryo, not from a mature animal. This impression is false. In the very next paragraph, the Times News Service said, “The group, headed by Dr. Ian Wilmut, a 52-year-old embryologist at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, has created a lamb using DNA from an adult sheep.” The problem is, the general public did not understand that the word “cloned” did not refer to a lamb that developed in the womb of a ewe over a normal gestation period, and was then born just as all lambs are born, but assumed it meant the scientists had produced a mature sheep.

        The article continued, “Their achievement shocked leading researchers who had said it could not be done. The researchers had assumed that the DNA of adult cells would not act like the DNA formed when a sperm’s genes first mingle with those of an egg.”

        First, what is DNA? It comes from deoxyribonucleic acid. The ribbon-like structure occurs usually only in the nucleus of a cell. Appearing like a microscopic twisted rope ladder, it is made up of phosphate, and a type of sugar called deoxyribose. DNA is the most important material found in chromosomes, which are the bodies controlling heredity in plants or animals. Scientists have learned that when a cell divides, the chromosomes in its nucleus are duplicated exactly in the new cells. In this way, the “daughter” cell is furnished with a complete set of “instructions” for its own development, and for the development of all future generations of its descendant cells.

        Thus, DNA is like a genetic code book. This is not surprising, for, just as bacteria divide and amoeba divide, producing “offspring” that are identical copies of the “parent,” so the great Creator God, who is the Designer of all forms of life, set in motion a method of procreation in which “copies” of the adults are produced. That is why zebras are born with stripes, why whites reproduce whites, and blacks reproduce blacks. It is why like reproduces like, kind after kind.

        Look again at the quotation above. Is there anything a bit confusion or misleading in it? The reporter said that Dr. Wilmut had “created a lamb,” using DNA from an adult sheep. Did the learned doctor truly create a lamb? Well—no! The article says he did, but he did nothing of the sort.

        Here is what he did, as the same article goes on to explain: “He took a mammary cell from an adult sheep and prepared its DNA so it would be accepted by an egg from another sheep [the article does not reveal how the doctor “prepared” the DNA]. He then removed the egg’s own DNA, replacing it with the DNA from the adult sheep by fusing the egg with the adult cell. The fused cells, carrying the adult DNA, began to grow and divide, just like a perfectly normal fertilized egg, to form an embryo” (ibid.).

        Apparently, if the reports are correct, the doctor managed to cause an egg from a ewe to become fertilized by the genetic code contained in another “adult sheep.” Then the doctor didn’t really create anything, did he? But the article says he did. No, he inserted an egg which had been fertilized, not by the sperm cells from a ram, which would have carried the genetic code of the ram, but by the DNA from the cells of another “adult sheep,” which, allegedly, was a female!

        The article continued, “Wilmut implanted the embryo [the fertilized egg began to grow and produce new cells, so had become an embryo] into another ewe; in July, the ewe gave birth to a lamb, named Dolly. Though Dolly seems perfectly normal [sic], DNA tests show that she is the clone of the adult ewe who supplied her DNA.”

        Then they did not “clone an adult sheep” after all! No, they managed to find a shortcut from the normal method of fertilizing the egg of a female sheep, then implanted it into the womb, where the embryo gradually developed into a lamb!

        Of what did the female sheep consist? Why, of the elements of this earth! She had developed from eating grains, grasses, and drinking water! And how did the little embryo in her womb develop? Why, from the foods the mother sheep ingested; from the elements of this earth found in grains, grasses, and water! As illustrated above, many of the early news reports of “cloning” were confusing, even untrue. The sheep which was born from a female sheep in Scotland has its own liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, and vital organs. It is a completely separate individual, and it developed from the “dust of the earth,” from the elements of the ground! It is not a “carbon copy,” nor it is a photostatically reproduced replica, or a magic duplication!

        By now, as the result of the most publicized trial of the century, much of the world has heard a bit about DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid. Though for some obscure technical reasons DNA was not a conclusive piece of evidence in said trial, scientists know that DNA is somewhat like fingerprints. There are no two that are exactly the same.

        The genetic code contained in the DNA found in the nucleus of cells is not confined to the sperm of the male, or the egg of the female. Instead, it is found throughout the body, and can be identified from only a tiny drop of blood. When you and I were conceived, we were smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

        Now, a little reminder from our high school biology classes: Where did the spermatozoon of our fathers come from? It was produced in his body, in the testes. However, prior to puberty, it did not exist. It had to be produced after puberty. The genetic code that produced it contained “instructions” to replicate your father. It contained the “code” that determined whether he had large ears or small, brown eyes or blue, blond hair or black, swarthy or fair complexion. And where did the egg our mother produced come from? From the ovaries in her body, produced after her monthly cycle began. And what was the origin of these reproductive cells? Why, the bloodstreams of our mothers and fathers. Pick up any high school–level encyclopedia, and refresh your memory about life; about heredity, conception, development of the fetus, and human birth. If you do, you will be taken on a journey of amazing, fantastic proportions—an exploratory trip into the miraculous structure of the human body, and the mind-boggling capability of all life to reproduce after its own kind.

        You will learn about genes and chromosomes; how the thread-like chromosomes in the nucleus of a cell carry dominant and passive genes; how the dominant genes determine whether you will be like your father or mother. DNA is the basic chemical in genes.

        You and I began life as a microscopic male sperm cell which attached itself to a female egg, which became an embryo. In that tiny microscopic beginning, smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, was the genetic code that predetermined all you would become. General height, weight, texture and color of skin, texture and color of hair, color of eyes, and even talents and abilities that had been passed on from paternal and maternal grandparents were present.

        The cells which came together in the process of conception had been produced from the elements of this earth. They had been ingested into the body through the mouth, metabolized and utilized by the body. Every cell of your parents’ bodies had been “fed” by the bloodstream of your parents, which carried the nutrients they ingested from food and drink! Whether or not you would have a certain kind of ear lobes; whether your eyes would be close set or wide set; whether you would have long toes and fingers; whether you would have brown eyes or blue eyes was determined by the genetic codes contained in microscopic DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, found in the nucleus of the cells forming your parents’ egg and sperm.

        Simply put, the sperm cell which fertilized your mother’s egg was like a miniature copy of the entire body of your father! It was not a copy only of his ear, or his left little finger. It had been formed in his body by the ingestion of material elements. The same thing was true of your mother. The egg which was ready to be fertilized carried her entire genetic code, not just a part of it.

        What scientists have been able to do, allegedly, is to cause the fertilization of an egg of a sheep by a short cut. Instead of using sperm from the male, they used the DNA from a cell taken from the udder of another mature sheep, allegedly a female. The two genetic codes merged, and the egg’s reproductive mechanism was begun. It was “fertilized.” It was then implanted into the womb of the female sheep which had produced the egg in the first place, and a tiny embryo began to grow.

        Did the scientist “create” anything? Not at all! No, he interfered with the normal reproductive cycle found in sheep by causing an egg to accept the genetic code contained in the DNA of another sheep!

Wild, Impossible Assertions

        The news media broadcast a flurry of reports, and scientists from universities and laboratories around the world began making shocking, impossible statements! Whole armies could possibly be “cloned”! Maybe the dead could be cloned. Perhaps someone could “steal” a cell from your body, and you could be “cloned”! Now, another you would be walking around! How wonderful it would be, they said, if a pair of loving parents who were about to lose a child through leukemia could have their child cloned, then the clone could become a bone marrow donor for the sick child! Now, science was suddenly viewed as if they had the unlimited powers of God Himself. Theologians weighed in, anxiously wondering aloud whether or not “cloned” humans would have a “soul.”

        Public polls were taken and duly reported. The vast majority of people believe humans should not be “cloned.” Fantastic visions of zombie-like armies of “cloned” beings, marching across the landscape, pillaging and burning, were conjured up. Virtual hysteria reigned.

        A biology professor at Princeton University quickly revised a book he had been working on, because he had asserted in the first chapter that cloning was impossible. He said, “It basically means that there are no limits. It means all of science fiction is true. They said it could never be done and now here it is, done before the year 2000.”

        All of science fiction is true? Soon, will “clones” be zipping about in the universe in huge space ships, zapping one another with “death rays,” blowing up planets, moving faster than the speed of light? Will Star Wars (“Star Peace” would never have sold!) soon be reality?

        Some were imagining new crimes, wherein people would be “cloned” without their knowledge or permission! Said a professor in Chicago, “After all, all that would be needed would be some cells. If there is a market for a sperm bank selling semen from Nobel laureates, how much better would it be to bear a child that would actually be a clone of a great thinker, or, perhaps, a great beauty or great athlete?”

        Other fantastic leaps of imagination occurred. Now, said a “medical ethicist” at the University of Missouri, this procedure would be “not...policeable.” Future possibilities, he said, would be incredible. Could researchers devise ways to add just the DNA of an adult cell, without fusing two living cells? If so, might it be possible to clone the dead? Think of that! Ghoulish grave-robbers, digging away at night in graveyards all over the country! Digging at the graves of past presidents, scholars, actors! Maybe even digging up the remains of Jesse James and Marilyn Monroe! Just think! George Washington’s grave robbed! Martin Luther King exhumed, to be cloned! Perhaps the founding fathers could be “cloned” so they could be engaged in debate with great civil rights leaders; could be asked what they really had in mind when they framed the constitution!

        The speculations were wildly fantastic. Has science now found a method to produce virtual eternal life? Can they “create” identical humans from other humans who would then share the same “soul”?

        World leaders, Nobel laureates, and the news media all chimed in with expressions of shock and alarm. President Clinton ordered an urgent inquiry into the ethics of cloning; later, in a special news conference, assured the public that no federal funds would be used to finance scientific research into cloning humans. The Farm Minister of France, Philippe Vasseur, spoke of producing “six-legged chickens” while others warned darkly of “foreign groups” or “extralegal” groups inevitably utilizing the new procedure, with unimaginable results. The group who allegedly performed the “cloning” reported not only to a government-appointed Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), but to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a committee of scientists, doctors, and various other “experts.”

        The Nuffield group indicated that they believed using animal organs for human transplants would be ethically acceptable, as long as care was taken to make sure animal viruses did not infect humans and that “the animals were not mistreated.” Mistreated? Why would anyone believe an animal was being “mistreated” simply because you removed its kidneys, stomach, or liver? Presumably, he meant they must not be “mistreated” in the “humane” manner in which you kill them prior to removing their organs.

        The obvious overtone in all this is the debunking of belief in God, and breathtaking kudos for science and evolution. Such news reports tend to enforce atheism and agnosticism, and seem to deal a blow to those who believe in the Bible and creation. If you have not yet read it, write for a special booklet dealing with creation entitled Life On Mars? Or Did God Create the Universe—And If So, Why? Also, write for a new booklet entitled Did God Use Evolution To Create Life?

        In these booklets, you will see proofs of God presented.

Would a “Cloned” Human Being Have a “Soul”?

        Quickly on the heels of the sensational announcements about the cloning of a sheep, heads of state, leaders of major religious organizations, biologists, medical scientists, and psychologists all began debating the meaning of this “achievement.”

        Ostensibly, the “cloning” of animals could lead, they said, to wonderful developments in the study for cures to human disease and congenital deformities. In a flurry of articles it was revealed that scientists had long since experimented in “cloning” frogs, mice, rats, rabbits, sheep, pigs, monkeys, and cows. All this was done using cells from embryos, they stressed, not from mature animals.

        However, the implication was clear. Geneticists claim they are now on the threshold, of “cloning” human beings. The New York Times News Service reported, “Dr. Stanley Hauerwas, a divinity professor at Duke University, said that those who wanted to clone ‘are going to sell it with wonderful benefits’ for medicine and animal husbandry. But he said he saw ‘a kind of drive behind this for us to be our own creators’ [emphasis mine].

        “Dr. Kevin FitzGerald, a Jesuit priest and a geneticist at Loyola University in Maywood, Ill., cautioned that people might not understand clones. While a clone would be an identical, but much younger, twin of the adult, people are more than just the sum of their genes. A clone of a human being, he said, would have a different environment than the person whose DNA it carried and so would have to be a different person. It would even have to have a different soul, he added” (emphasis mine).

        Think through each of these statements. What were your parents when they conceived you? They were your human “creators.” God Almighty created the first two human beings—the first Genesis kind of all life forms. Each Genesis kind is capable of almost limitless variety within that kind, as evidenced by the human race. From tall, blond Nordics to tiny pygmies in Africa’s Ituri Forest, this capacity for incredible variety is clear. From tiny Chihuahuas to huge Irish Wolfhounds, the same is clear. All are interfertile. They are a part of the human kind, or the dog (or canine) kind, but they are very different.

        You are unique. You are constructed of the elements of this earth, according to the genetic code, or pattern, you received from your parents. Through human reproduction, God has given to mankind limited “creative” abilities. But humans can never “recreate” themselves!

        The cloning announcement caused the major networks to quickly assemble panels of “experts” to deal with the issue. In the interests of fairness, one program featured a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a Protestant clergyman. They did not have a Buddhist, a Shintoist, or an Islamic imam present. They debated the moral and spiritual issues of “cloning,” speaking of the “soul.” But do you have a “soul”? From the pope to the leaders of major religious organizations, theologians have been expressing alarm at the alleged “cloning” of a sheep because of their belief in the “immortality of the soul.”

        The belief in the soul is one of the pivotal doctrines of all nominal Christianity. Since most believe the soul is a conscious, spirit entity which is eternally alive, arguments rage over when the “soul” comes into the body, and where it comes from. Most of the major doctrines of mainstream nominal Christianity are viewed from the matrix of the “immortality of the soul.” Going to heaven when one dies or burning forever and ever in hellfire depends entirely on such a belief.

        In order to intelligently discuss the moral, philosophical, and spiritual aspects of “cloning,” one needs to understand the real truth about what man is. Are we a “soul,” temporarily inhabiting a body of flesh? Will we live forever by virtue of being born? Let’s see what your Bible says about the “immortality of the soul.”

Do You Have an Immortal Soul? Can Scientists “Clone” a Soul?

        Do you have a soul? Are you a soul? Is there something about you that is immortal—that will never die? If so, how and when did that “soul” get into your body? Was it imparted to you at the moment of conception? Did it come into your body at some time during your fetal development? Were you given an “immortal soul” at the moment you took your first breath, shortly after birth?

        If you have a soul, can you touch it, taste it, feel it, hear it, or smell it? Can you take it out and look at it? Can you see the souls of others? Are you, with all your innermost, private thoughts, inclinations, perceptions, concepts, and dreams, going to survive this human flesh, and live forever?

        According to nominal Christian religions the real person is dwelling within the temporal body. The body is seen as a temporary suit of clothes. The real person dwells within that temporary suit of clothes; and at the time of death, the now useless suit of clothes (the body) is discarded, buried in the ground or cremated, while the real person wafts away either to heaven or to everburning hellfire! (In the Catholic tradition, there are allegedly various intermediary stages called purgatory.)

        In thousands of funeral services each week, bereaved family members hear ministers proclaim their deceased relative is “in heaven.” He or she has “gone to be with the Lord,” they say. A preacher will usually not wonder aloud whether the deceased person is in “the other place”—hell. But, in the vast majority of cases, whether heaven or hell, it is assumed the real person is still very much alive.

        How can you know one way or the other?

        What is your ultimate authority for determining the truth on any subject which has to do with life and death, judgment, and the hereafter?

        Few nominal Christians have ever truly studied the Bible to prove whether or not we human being possess an “immortal soul.” For the purposes of this discussion, we will appeal, not to tradition, superstition, or fables, but to the Word of God as it appears in its original languages as the only and final authority on the subject of the immortality of the soul.

        Obviously, the question concerning whether you have an immortal soul is really the question, what are you?

        To atheists and evolutionists, man is merely a “hairless ape.” Some of the hysterical articles recently published about “cloning” referred to some Oregon scientists who had used the cells of embryos to “clone” two Rhesus monkeys. Over and over again, the media repeated the evolutionary concept that monkeys are “the closest to humans.” Thus, to the average layman, it was as if the next step, cloning humans, is inevitable. Hence, all the hysteria about “souls.” But such hysteria is based upon a myth—the myth of the immortality of the soul.

        For the purposes of investigating what your Bible says about the soul, let us suspend, for the moment, the moral and spiritual questions about cloning humans, which will be covered later.

        Anyone who has truly proved God exists; that God is not only Creator, but Lifegiver, Designer, Sustainer, and Ruler over all His creation, knows that the human family began with one man, and that a wife, miraculously created from his own body and as unique and original a creation as Adam himself, formed the first family. Though God’s miraculous creation of Eve was far from the genetic engineering feat of “cloning,” it is interesting to note in passing that God’s own Word says He used Adam’s rib—physical bone and tissue—to create Eve!

        This is not a greater miracle than creating Adam, however, for Adam was created from the red clay of this earth, not from preexisting human cells. It should not be difficult to believe that the One who had the power to create all the billions of galaxies, with hundreds of billions of stars and planets, also had the power to create Adam and the Genesis kinds of creatures listed in the Bible.

        When God created our first parent He told him exactly what he was. He said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, til thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19).

        God was talking to Adam. He was talking to the conscious man! He did not tell Adam that only his body was composed of the elements of the earth, and that Adam was really a “soul” locked within a temporal, physical body. He said Adam was red clay or red mud—for that is the real meaning of the Hebrew word translated “dust.”

        “And the Eternal God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). This is what man IS. It is what Adam became, not something inside of him which he possessed.

        Remember, the Bible was not written in the English language. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.

        There was no such word in existence at the time the Bible was written as the English word soul. It is an English word, with an almost exclusively ecclesiastical connotation!

        The word soul should be virtually expunged from the English language, and replaced with many of the possible synonyms which connote the real meaning of the Hebrew word nephesh, which is translated “soul” dozens of times in the Bible. However, the same word is used in many, many different ways. Let’s see how many.

        Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance says: “(5315) nephesh; a breathing creature, i.e. animal or (abstr.) vitality: used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental); appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, dead, desire, contented, fish, ghost, greedy, he, heart...lust, man, me, mind, mortally, one, own, person, pleasure, (her, him, my, thy) self, them (your) selves, slay, soul, tablet, they, thing, will, would have it.”

        What a list! You see, the Hebrew word nephesh has to do with “being”! As such, it has a wide usage, concerning the physical life of flesh and blood creatures! Notice that it can be translated as “dead,” “beast,” or “creature,” as well as “lust,” “mortally,” or “person.”

        The Hebrew word nephesh is used several times for lower life forms before it is ever used for man in the Bible.

        Notice Genesis 1, where nephesh is rendered “moving creature” in verse 21, “living creature” in verse 24, “living creature” and “beast” in verse 25. In this graphic description of the creation of all the animals and sea-dwelling creatures, the word nephesh is used again and again. It certainly has nothing to do whatsoever with anything spiritual, or immortal, dwelling inside of crabs, clams, tuna, or whales.

        Even superstitious translators who were adherents to the Anglican doctrines in the 1600s did not dare render the word nephesh as “soul” in these passages. Such would have been ridiculous. Instead, they used many of the words we find in Strong’s Concordance, including “body.” Surprisingly, the identical Hebrew word nephesh, which is rendered “soul” so many times, is translated as “body,” even connected to the word dead! Turn to and read Numbers 19:11: “He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.” In this scripture, the laws of purification under the Levites are discussed. A person would be considered “unclean” if he touched the decaying corpse or body of an animal or man!

        We read verse 22, “And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul [nephesh, obviously meaning person] that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.”

        The very same word rendered “soul” in verse 22 (which should be translated “individual” or “person”) is rendered “dead body” in verse 11! Fix that into your mind once and for all! The same word which is translated “soul” in literally dozens of places in the Old Testament is here translated “dead body.”

        Now, turn to and read Ezekiel 18:4,20: “Behold, all souls [nephesh] are mine; as the soul [nephesh] of the father, so also the soul [nephesh] of the son is mine: the soul [nephesh] that sinneth it [that “soul,” or nephesh] shall die” Here, it would be far clearer if the English were rendered, “Behold all persons are mine; as the person of the father, so the person of the son; the individual that sins HE shall die.”

        The thrust of the scripture is individual, personal responsibility before God! What God is saying through Ezekiel is that no one can render excuses for sin; that we cannot “pass the buck” by pointing to others as the cause of our sins!

        This scripture is not given as a lesson in whether or not souls are immortal or mortal; yet, because the scripture very plainly says that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” it represents a further, powerfully conclusive proof that the Hebrew word for soul (nephesh) means physical, mortal, temporal life, and has nothing whatsoever to do with immortality!

        The word nephesh is found in two hundred and forty-three passages, and is translated in eleven different ways. Notice that the expression “the dead” is translated directly from the Hebrew word nephesh in the following passages: Leviticus 19:28; 21:1; 22:4; Numbers 5:2; 6:11.

        The same word, which is translated “soul” in most cases is rendered “dead body” in Numbers 9:6,7,10.

        It is translated “body” in Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 6:6; 19:11,13; and Haggai 2:13. It is only because the translators who lived in 1611 had false doctrine thoroughly ingrained into their minds that they close the English word soul time and time again, when it should have been rendered “person,” or “being,” or “he,” or “creature,” or “life.”

“Soul” in the New Testament

        The Greek word psuche is the only word translated “soul” in the New Testament. You will find the word one hundred and five times in the New Testament, of which it is translated “soul” only fifty-eight times, but can also be rendered “life.” It is so rendered forty times. It is translated as “mind” three times; “heart,” “heartily,” “us,” and “you” one time each.

        The Greek word psuche is the exact Greek rendering of the Hebrew word nephesh and is used in the same way throughout the New Testament.

        For example, psuche is used of the lower animals, just as you have seen nephesh used of lower life forms in the first chapter of the book of Genesis! In Revelation 8:9, the Greek word psuche (remember this is the only word in the English language used for the word soul), is rendered “life.” Notice also Revelation 16:3, where lower life forms are being described, yet the word soul is used. Read that last scripture carefully! It describes one of the horrible plagues yet to fall upon the land and the sea, and says “every living soul died”! Here is one more New Testament proof that the word soul in the English language means a being, or a living thing, which can die! In this case, it is used of various forms of life (of which there are thousands) in the sea!

        The Greek word psuche is also used for an individual. On many occasions, in making out a flight plan when I was piloting a jet airplane, we would have to include the information of how many persons were aboard the flight. All airlines dispatchers do the same things. Oftentimes, many pilots calling in their flight plans would say they had so many “souls” on board, using the word interchangeably for individuals, or persons. When a newspaper headline speaks of so many “souls” being lost in the sinking of a ship, it is using the word in much the same way as it occurs fourteen different times in the Bible! For proof, read Acts 2:41-43; 3:23; 7:14; 27:37; Romans 2:9; 13:1; I Corinthians 15:45; James 5:20; I Peter 3:20; II Peter 2:14; Revelation 6:9; 18:13; 20:4.

        In those passages, the Greek word psuche is used for the life of a man, which can be destroyed, or lost.

        A classic example of where the translators have tampered with the English, in translating from the Greek, is found in Matthew 16:25,26.

        Notice the way it is rendered in the King James Version: “For whosoever will save his life [psuche] shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life [psuche] for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul [psuche]? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul [psuche]?”

        Obviously, since the identical Greek word is used in both passages, and since it is rendered differently in verse 26 (soul) from the way it is used in verse 25 (life), it was a translator’s decision as to changing the way he rendered this Greek word (psuche) in the two verses.

        To be honest, and to be fair with the word, it should have been rendered the same in both passages! Here, it is obvious the word would better be rendered “life,” just as it was rendered in verse 25! For, after all, it is your life you can lose—and what can you give in exchange for your life?

        The point is, the Greek word psuche is capable of nearly as many applications as is the Hebrew word nephesh, and can even be used of man’s moods, passions, and feelings! For example, psuche is translated as follows: “mind,” “us,” “you,” “heart,” and “heartily.”

        By no stretch of the imagination can this Greek word ever connote anything which is immortal, or spiritual.

What Occurs at Death?

        It is clear from both the Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible, that man dies in exactly the same fashion as does a beast: “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Ecclesiastes 3:19,20). For a thorough study into what the Bible says about the state of the dead, write or call for our free booklet, Afraid to Die?

        Notice how the inspired Bible writers described the condition of death: Job wrote, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not” (Job 14:1,2).

        In the same chapter, Job said, “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, [obvious reference to the resurrection and the new heavens and new earth], they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be passed, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come [an obvious reference to the change at resurrection, I Corinthians 15:50-52]. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands” (Job 14:12-15).

        God inspired David to write a great deal about the subject of life and death. David said, “Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish...Like sheep they are laid in the grave [sheol]; death shall feed upon them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave [sheol] from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul [Hebrew, nephesh—meaning life] from the power of the grave [notice the grave has power over the kind of “life” connoted by the Hebrew word nephesh]: For He shall receive me. Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish” (Psalm 49:12-20).

        Because Almighty God reveals we human beings—the creation of His hands—are His children, and that we will be resurrected from the dead (Luke 20:36), He inspired David to write, “Precious in the sight of the Eternal is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15).

        There are many examples in the Bible about what happens at death. Continually, the Bible refers to the state of the dead as a deep, profound sleep, from which the dead will awaken at the time of the resurrection. Notice: “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ [converted Christians who have died] are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” (I Corinthians 15:16-23). Study this entire chapter, the “resurrection chapter” of the Bible. Then, think about the pagan concept of the immortality of the soul in the light of the inspired pages of your Bible. This passage is describing converted Christians; “saints” who died, but who died in Christ. And where are they? They are not “in heaven” at all, but in their graves, completely oblivious to the passage of time. They are in a deep “sleep,” according to your Bible. When will they once again become conscious, thinking, living beings? Your Bible says only “afterward...at His coming”!

        They are not alive today. They have a human spirit which came from God, but they do not have an “immortal soul” which is conscious.

        There is no case in the Bible where the words immortal soul appear! There is a “spirit in man” mentioned in the Bible. Each of us has a human spirit which is what makes man’s mind superior to animal brain. This is an important, and very profound subject. Please write or call for your copy of our booklet, Why You Were Born, which explains the “spirit in man” thoroughly. In brief, the spirit in man is that spiritual essence which lifts the mind of man to a level far above the mere brain of animals. This is mentioned by Job (32:8) and the apostle Paul who talked of how God’s Holy Spirit “witnesseth with our spirit” that we are the children of God (Romans 8:16).

        The Bible clearly reveals that Almighty God is begetting children. A simple, yet profound truth which is almost entirely unknown is that God is reproducing after His own kind!

        God reveals that His Holy Spirit does not unite with mere flesh; but that there is a spirit in man, very likely in the frontal lobes of the brain (which is why the forehead is mentioned so often: see Ezekiel 3:9) where our will power, our volition, our conscience, our decision-making capacity, and our personality exist.

        God does not place His Holy Spirit in our knees or our elbows. He places His Spirit in our minds—Spirit with spirit, begetting a new spiritual “creature in Christ” within us (II Corinthians 5:17).

The Human Brain and the “Spirit in Man”

        When the Bible speaks metaphorically of the “heart” it is speaking of that portion of our human mind wherein our will power and our character resides. The human brain is divided into many different parts. Some portions of the brain control such things as our coordination, equilibrium, and physical and athletic ability. Other portions deal with our sensory perceptions such as the central nervous system, the eye, the power of speech, our sense of feel, taste and smell, and so on. The frontal lobes, directly behind the forehead, control our personality, our volition, and our conscience. The frontal lobes are where our emotions reside. They control our ability to love or hate; our perceptions about everything we can see or know; everything which occurs about us.

        Nothing is more complex than the human brain. It is more powerful than thousands of the most powerful computers ever produced.

        In a lengthy article in the New York Times (March 2, 1997), George Johnson conclusively proved that brain tissue can never be “cloned.” He said, “The precise layout of the cells, which neuron is connected to which, makes all the difference. Linked one with another, through the junctions called synapses, neurons form the whorls of circuitry [in the brain] whose twists and turns make us who we are.”

        Pick up any encyclopedia, and read the lengthy article about the human brain. It is another awesome proof of the existence of God, and a disproof of evolution. Here is what Scientific American says about our brains: “The human brain is composed of some 10 billion nerve cells, more or less alike, which interact in various ways. Each cell contributes to behavior, and presumably to mental activity, by firing impulses or failing to fire. All the phenomena of memory must be explained in terms of the temporal and spatial pattern of these discharges.”

        The brain emits electrical energy. Have you ever had a completely random thought; some past remembrance which suddenly leapt into your mind, yet had no idea what triggered it? Something did. Some set of circumstances; some sequence of things you saw or heard, or thought about, somehow “triggered” electrical impulses which searched through your memory bank, and caused the thought to spring into your consciousness.

        Your brain is capable of storing an infinitude of information. It is your “command and control” center. It contains your emotions, your feelings, your attitudes, and your character. It determines whether you are loving and compassionate or cold and cruel. It contains your conscience; it determines who you are. It is because God has imparted to each of us our human spirit that we are capable of determining the difference between right and wrong.

        But this spirit in man is not immortal! God’s Word says clearly that only God has immortality (I Timothy 6:16). Man is described as being temporal, fleshly, carnal, physical—of the dust. The Hebrew word for “dust” merely means the soil of this earth, containing all the elements that make up matter.

        There are about 103 known elements of the earth. All matter is made up of those elements. Only a few of them are: actinium, aluminum, antimony, barium, calcium, carbon, cobalt, copper, flourine, helium, hydrogen, iron, lithium, magnesium, oxygen, radium, silicon, sulphur, titanium, and zinc. The full list, with their properties, can be studied in any encyclopedia.

        You and I came from the earth. We are only a metabolic, living organism, composed of matter. As we developed in our mothers’ wombs, our mothers subsisted, as all other humans and life forms, by ingesting the foods and drinking the water that comes from this earth. Through the umbilical, our mothers passed on to us the nutrients which fed the myriad cells that were forming into all the parts of our bodies—skeletal framework, brain tissue, eyes, ears, nose, circulatory system, nervous system, digestive system—all our vital organs. It was by this same process Dolly, the cloned sheep, was formed.

        We are composed of the elements of this earth, fed to us through our mothers’ miraculous bloodstream during our fetal development, and ingested through our mouths ever since. In like fashion, the “cloned” sheep and monkeys gradually formed in the wombs of their mothers. Dolly did not suddenly appear from a machine. It did not suddenly “materialize” alongside its mother. Instead, a living egg from the mother sheep was made to accept the DNA from another living cell, taken not from the sperm cells of a male, but from the udder of another sheep.

        Once the egg became fertilized by this bizarre and unnatural method, it began to grow. It was then inserted into the womb of the mother sheep, which was a blackface ewe. The ewe ate grains and grass, and drank water. Her system metabolized the elements of this earth, contained in the foods she ate and liquids she drank. The tiny embryo attached to her womb began to grow. After the normal gestation period of sheep, the little lamb was born.

        From what source did its bone structure, its eyes, ears, stomach, circulatory system, and vital organs come? From this earth. From the grains, grass, and water ingested by the mother sheep.

        When it was born, it was a new, never before, never to be again, utterly unique creature. Another sheep. It had never been here before. It has its own organs. It is covered by its own wool. It does not “share” even a single molecule of living tissue with the “donor” sheep.

        No, instead, the little embryo which became a lamb ingested the elements of this earth and sorted them out into the pattern which was supplied, not by a ram, but by the genetic code contained in the DNA of another female sheep.

        Time will tell whether Dolly will live a normal, healthy life, or whether she will be susceptible to disease or genetic disorders.

A “Clone” is Composed of Matter

        Many of the first news reports on the “cloning” of a sheep were not only nearly hysterical, many were filled with very misleading statements and illustrations. For example, Time magazine decided to place a duplicate photograph of the same sheep, “Dolly,” on its cover. A close inspection shows a sheep superimposed in front of “another” sheep. However, it is in reality the same sheep! A tiny white spot in the corner of the nose, tiny hairs about the face, individual fibers of wool—all are identical. Instead of presenting a picture of the donor sheep and the offspring of the blackfaced ewe, they chose to duplicate the same photograph. Inside the front cover is a small statement about the “photomontage.” One wonders, however, how many readers turn to the tiny, italicized words at the bottom of the table of contents to read about the cover. On page 62 of that issue, the article “The Age of Cloning” is illustrated by a two-page artist’s conception of zombie-like men coming out of a gigantic gumball machine!

        The glass bowl of the machine features rigid, expressionless “men,” standing tightly packed, shoulder to shoulder. A metallic-looking spiral form rises from their midst to the top of the bowl, obviously intended to represent DNA. Below is a slot for a coin, a knob and a chute, like one finds in bubble-gum machines in a store. Legs of a man are visible in the chute. To the left, a column of the same, zombie-like men—all identical, all expressionless, is pictured marching off the page.

        The powerful impression is that science is capable of producing some kind of a machine which creates “clones” out of thin air! Like the word “created” used in the article discussed previously, such pictures leave a very false impression. The lamb which was born to a blackfaced ewe did not come from a machine. It was not produced from a photograph. It was not “created” at all, but came from the earth—from the elements which were ingested by its mother.

        Science may find a way to short-circuit the fertilization of an egg, but it has “created” absolutely nothing. Instead of creating anything, the geneticists used living animal cells to fertilize living animal cells. What has been created is not a sheep, but a myth. In the same issue of Time, Jeffrey Kluger, in his article “Will We Follow the Sheep?” asked, “What does the sudden ability to make genetic stencils [emphasis added] of ourselves say about the concept of individuality?” But mankind has always possessed the ability to “make copies of himself,” through the God-designed method of human reproduction. A little later, he wrote, “Is there something about the individual that is lost when the mystical act of conceiving a person becomes standardized into a mere act of photocopying one?”

        Photocopying? But a photocopy is produced on paper, not in the womb of a human or a sheep. Many of the first news reports flashed around the world contained similar language.

        You and I were not “created.” We were gradually formed by cell division in our mothers’ womb. Dolly the sheep was not “created,” but was gradually formed by cell division in her mother’s womb.

The Breath of Life

        When God had finished shaping the first man from the mud and clay of this earth, He imparted life to Adam. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Remember, the Hebrew word is nephesh, as you have seen. It can just as easily be rendered “living being,” “living creature,” or “living person.” Man became a living “soul.” The verse says nothing about man “possessing” a “soul” inside of a body.

        How did God impart the breath of life to Adam? The Bible says God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, God inflated Adam’s lungs. It was at this instant that Adam’s heart began beating, his lungs working, and his bloodstream flowing, carrying oxygen to his brain.

        This stupendous miracle is not the mind-boggling impossibility it may seem to those who doubt the existence of God. Once one studies the incredible complexity of the universe; once one looks into atomic structure, and comes to realize that all the awesome forces and energies in our entire universe were created by God, one can understand that the Creator who brought all matter into existence from energy can do anything.

        Adam’s heart did not begin pumping blood prior to his lungs being inflated. It was not the creation of the body with all its marvelous systems that made Adam a “living soul,” but the inflating of his lungs with the breath of life.

        The human spirit, or the “spirit in man,” has no consciousness apart from the brain. It is logical that the spirit comes into the brain at the moment of the first breath, not earlier, in the womb, or days or months later, after birth. The Bible uses the word wind and spirit interchangeably. Study John 3, and see what Jesus told Nicodemus about how it is that those who are ultimately “born of the Spirit” will become spirit, and will be invisible, just as is the wind (John 3:8).

        The human spirit comes from God. Paul wrote, “The Spirit itself [the Holy Spirit of God] beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16). A few verses later, he said, “And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth [God, through the power of the Holy Spirit] what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).

        This is precisely why the Bible uses the term “fallen asleep” for the dead in Christ. Their bodies are completely dead. The flesh corrupts and decays. All the vital organs—the heart, the lungs, the brain itself—utterly decay over a period of time. Man “returns to the earth” from which he came. But the spirit does not decay. It is spirit, and not flesh. Though utterly oblivious, completely unconscious in the deepest kind of “sleep,” it is not dead.

        Paul wrote, “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Corinthians 15:16-22).

        There are some who scoff about “soul sleeping,” angrily denouncing the fact of the resurrection, clinging to the false, pagan concept of the immortality of the soul. But the term soul sleeping is misleading. As you have seen proved, man does not possess a “soul.” Man IS a soul, meaning an air-breathing, food-eating, water-ingesting, physical, metabolic organism. God has placed within that physical being a spirit, called the “spirit in man,” which only has consciousness in connection with the brain. It is not a separate spirit being at all, but the spiritual essence connected to the brain of a human which gives to man his humanity. It is that combination which lifts man far above the animals, and endows him with limited creative ability and the capacity for either love or hate.

        When the body dies, the spirit is said to be asleep. This term is not the invention of a theologian, but the term used in the Bible itself to describe the state of the dead. Notice in the passages you just read that it is not only just the dead which are said to be asleep, but the dead in Christ! So much for the false idea that souls go immediately to heaven or to hell when the body dies. If they are in Christ, yet are dead and are said to be asleep, they are certainly not in heaven! If you have not yet read it, please call or write immediately for your copy of our booklet, Believe It Or Not, The Bible Does Not Promise Heaven.

        Obviously, geneticists have learned much about the miraculous structure of life, about the cell and its components. If God has designed these physical patterns to procreate life, has He also created a spiritual counterpart, so that, in the resurrection, He will utilize an existing spirit, which has been in a deep sleep, to produce a new spiritual creation?

        The apostle Paul says, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (I Corinthians 15:50-53).

        Later in this famous “resurrection chapter,” Paul deals with questions concerning how God resurrects the dead, and “with what body do they come?” He wrote, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [Christ] was made a quickening [life-giving] Spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiriual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy [flesh and blood; composed of the elements of this earth], such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly [Spirit], such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (I Corinthians 15:42-49). These are plain words. Very simple to understand, and yet rejected by the vast majority of nominal Christianity. God is reproducing after His kind!

        God will not resurrect the old, decayed physical body—the heart, liver, lungs, and brain that have long since turned to dust. Instead, He will construct a new spirit body, using, not a “genetic code” that was contained in the cells that are now long decayed and gone, but the “spiritual code” contained in the spirit. For a complete understanding of how God begets children, and a view into the awesome potential of every human being, call or write for your copy of our booklet, Why You Were Born.

“This They Begin To Do”

        My father was born in 1892. He died in 1986 at the age of 93 and a half. He was born before the Wright brothers flew at Kittyhawk; before thousands of inventions we take for granted, such as television and jet travel. He lived from the days of horse-drawn vehicles until the time that he circled the globe many times aboard a sophisticated corporate jet airplane. He lived through the age of flight into the jet age, into the atomic age, and into the space age. He lived to see the first Model-T become available to the American public through mass production, and then, only about forty-five years later, to watch Neil Armstrong take the first step on the moon.

        All this in just one lifetime! If he were here, he would tell you how brief his life seemed to him, how quickly it passed. Today, we live in the frightening age of nuclear fission and fusion, of atomic and hydrogen bombs, of nuclear-powered ships and triple-supersonic aircraft, of spy satellites 22,000 miles out in space. We live in the day when knowledge is virtually exploding, developing at a breath-taking pace.

        When the prophet Daniel wanted to know when the amazing things he saw and heard would come to pass, he was told, “Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:9). He was told about the impending time of the Great Tribulation (Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:21,22), and the coming resurrection of the dead at the time of the Second Coming of Christ. God said, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4).

        Today, scientific knowledge is increasing at a fantastic pace. Instantaneous communication via powerful computers means massive amounts of information can be available to millions of people in only seconds. Information which would have required whole blocks of large warehouses to store can now be stored in computers the size of a small suitcase. But knowledge, of and by itself is not necessarily good.

        The prophet Hosea received a message from God about how man lacks the right kind of knowledge and misuses the knowledge he has: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame. They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings” (Hosea 4:6-8).

        The Chinese invented gunpowder. Nobel invented dynamite. Oppenheimer and a team of scientists invented the atom bomb. Man had, by 1945, learned how to cause the stored energy found in matter to explode. In nuclear physics, man peers into the structure of matter, the design and special codes God used in creation. In genetic engineering, man now looks into the microscopic patterns found in deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, and discovers that he can engineer a “shortcut” to reproduction.

        Thousands of years ago, as man was attempting to create a pluralistic society, attempting to marshal all his energies in a cooperative burst of invention, God divided the human family by confusing his languages (Genesis 11). Why? Because God knew human destruction would be the ultimate outcome. He knew that man would reach the nuclear age in a very short period of time.

        He said, when seeing the tower of Babel and man’s attempt at amalgamation of all society, “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language: and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Genesis 11:6). Because men might have progressed in only two or three hundred years to the point they have reached today, instead of requiring nearly six thousand years to do so, God confused their languages, divided them!

        The Bible asks, “But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:6-10).

        God shows that man is capable of unimaginable feats. Yet, throughout history, man has used his virtually limitless skills of inventiveness and ingenuity to produce horrifying weapons, engines of mass destruction. The bow was superceded by the crossbow, which could pierce armor. The crossbow was superceded by the gun. The high explosive bomb was superceded by the atomic bomb, which was superceded by the hydrogen bomb. Today, while Russians and Americans orbit the earth every ninety minutes aboard the Russian space station Mir, and while the shuttle routinely travels into space and returns, man has stockpiled enough explosive power in thousands of nuclear warheads that he has the capacity to erase all life from planet earth. Russia alone possesses 25,000 nuclear warheads!

        Today, mad despots in third world countries such as Iran feverishly work to obtain nuclear weapons; set their scientists at work to produce chemical and biological weapons which can kill millions of people in a single attack! And today, man “imagines” he can begin “cloning” whole armies, like so many automatons or zombies, marching across the landscape, pillaging, destroying, carrying out the will of the mad scientist who has “created” them.

        You and I had better give thanks to God that He will stop man from self destruction!

        Jesus Christ prophesied, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:21,22).

        Thankfully, many theologians have spoken out against the process of “cloning.” Polls have shown that the vast majority are completely against it. It is morally and spiritually WRONG! You live in a time when a government has accepted the mass murder of hundreds of thousands; millions of unborn babies! On the one hand, science allows young mothers to legally kill their babies, while on the other hand, science wants to “clone” adults! None of this makes any sense! It is in direct defiance of the laws of Almighty God, and it carries horrifying consequences!

        The engenderment of children should occur only in marriage, between two people who love one another, who have made a life-long commitment to each other. The family is the basic unit of any society. It is not a passing, evolutionary phenomenon, but a God-ordained institution, which is the closest relationship possible in the human experience.

        The family is a picture of the Family of God; of the Kingdom of God! Just as God has endowed man with the ability to produce children after our own kind, God is begetting spiritual children, recreating after His own kind!

        Human babies should never be the result of “cloning” by artificially fertilizing a female egg in a test tube! Children should be the result of the deepest moral and spiritual commitment on the part of prospective parents. Human babies should be conceived in love, in joy, in fulfilment of the deepest hopes, desires, and dreams of every young married couple to see their children and grandchildren. God has endowed us with the desire to produce children made in our “own image,” and with the desire to see our sons and daughters and grandchildren, carrying our genes, displaying our proclivities, talents, abilities, and physical characteristics.

        Yet, chillingly, there are no laws to prevent “cloning research” on human beings in the United States! President Clinton has made a gesture toward prevention by cutting off any federal financing of such experimentation, but private funding could easily be provided.

        In a shocking article on the front page of The Washington Times for March 9, 1997, it was revealed that hundreds of fertility clinics in the U.S. have “the means to create human clones using the same technology that produced Dolly the ewe, the world’s first clone of an adult mammal.”

        An executive director of the New York-based Fertility Research Foundation said, “The technology is so simple and inexpensive. With an investment of $5,000 to $10,000, in addition to the $100,000 [start up costs] for an IVF lab, it’s doable.”

        While he said he knows of no lab doing such research now, he said, “But it’s coming. It will happen.” How ghastly! How repugnant! It is sickening enough to realize there are millions of young Americans who don’t know their fathers; who have been born to single mothers, but it is utterly horrifying to think of children produced in a laboratory, “cloned” from adult cells in a test tube.

        Presumably, it will be a simple matter for geneticists to find woman who are perfectly willing to become surrogate mothers for such experiments. In our morally decadent society, there are no doubt women who would count it an “honor” to produce children in such a fashion, just as there are mothers who have produced “test tube babies,” who have no idea who the donor of the sperm was. No wonder Jesus Christ tells us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!” Yes, “this they begin to do....”

-End-