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Is Cloning A Sign Of The End Times?
by Doug Laird First, allow me to make it clear that I am not offering this article as a definitive answer to the title question, but offer this hypothesis as food for thought as researchers persistently venture further into such unknown waters as these. Many of those who consider the ethical ramifications that are associated with what Man calls "progress" have always initially met "advances" in scientific and medical research with much consternation. At times this consternation has proven to be justified. It seems that someone no sooner discovers or invents something that initially had the potential to improve the global environment that someone else takes the same knowledge and invents new ways to bring large portions or all of mankind to the brink of self-destruction. At other times, progress has been unjustifiably impeded by fear of the unknown or an unwillingness to explore the origins or the validity of "religious" beliefs that would appear to oppose such research or exploration. In the religious realm, many believers are shocked to discover that the origins of many of their beliefs and practices cannot be Biblically substantiated, and even worse, are no more than assumptions Man has made based on his fear of the unknown. There is a severe shortage of Acts 17: 11 "Bereans" in the pews of our day. For everything that God has created or established in the spiritual realm, Satan counteracts it with a religious counterfeit. For ANY counterfeit to succeed, it MUST appear to be the real thing. The advantage that Satan has in this area of spiritual warfare is that our fallen natures are open and receptive to false doctrines and practices. According to human viewpoint, they make perfect sense. That is why without developing and applying the "mind of Christ (1Cor. 2: 16 NASB)" it is impossible to discern religion from spirituality. Many individuals are willfully ignorant and/or are just not willing to face the challenge of striving for the truth, knowing the inevitable changes that the truth will require of them. When asked about the overt signs that would be prevalent just prior to His return, our Lord replied that conditions would be similar to those that existed in the days of Noah. Because many similarities could be noted between the global environment that existed in the days of Noah and the global environment of many past generations, skeptics will argue that the same things could be said of every generation of Man and that history continues to repeat itself, as it has done since recorded history began (2Peter 3: 4). That is, unless there was something that had taken place in the days of Noah that has manifested itself once again in our times, thereby distinguishing our time from all other periods since the days of Noah. Was there anything about what had taken place in Noah's Day that could be perceived as the parallel or forerunner of cloning? Is there any Biblical documentation of an attempt to grossly tamper with the essence of humanity at our basic core? While promoters of cloning are quick to let us hear about many of the success stories and the potential of medical advances as a result of cloning research, we hear nothing of any horror shows taken place along the road of such research. Are we really expected to believe that such things are not taking place behind the secure walls of research centers? The hypothesis that I am presenting for my readership's consideration is that genetic engineering, cloning, or the final product that it produces has the potential of creating a world environment in our time that will be similar to the one that the Bible teaches existed just prior to flood of Noah's day. Could this be what out Lord spoke of when He said that conditions would be similar to the days of Noah? While this hypothesis will undoubtedly be written off as nonsense by many, those with the spiritual discernment to correctly interpret Genesis 6 and the supporting passages from both the Old and the Old Testaments will not be so quick to dismiss the possible relevance of such a concept in the times in which we now live, especially as we approach what many believe to be the end times. Did not Man laugh at Noah who preached for 120 years during the construction of the Ark? Noah was the laughing stock of his day, but then came the day of the flood! In Genesis Chapter 6, we read of a satanic attempt to corrupt the essence of all of humanity through demonic activity and human women. This was not a case of "bad" men "forcing themselves on "good" women as some have taught in an attempt to explain away this passage and the passages that refute their interpretations. Common sense tells us that sexual intercourse between men and women could not produce the new species of Genesis 6 that the Bible identifies as the Nephilim. This article will be noting some of the primary verses and passages of the Old and New Testaments that confirm the interpretation of Genesis 6 that the activity involved fallen angels and human women. But first, we must ask and answer the "why" question to understand what was behind this plan to destroy genuine humanity and produce a mutated being to take its place. The human race was primarily created to glorify God in an ongoing spiritual conflict between the forces of God and the forces of Satan that began long before Man inhabited the earth. The Bible teaches that Satan was an " anointed cherub (angel) (Ezek.28: 14 NASB)" who was not satisfied with his heavenly position. He wanted to be worshiped like God and rule over his kingdom (Isa.14: 13, 14). He led angels of God in an angelic revolt. Following the failed revolt, Satan and the fallen angels were sentenced to an eternity in the "eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25: 41 NASB)", but this will not take place until its appointed time (Rev.20: 10). Satan lost his position as a guardian cherub in Heaven, but he will not lose access to Heaven until the Tribulation Period (Job 1:7/Rev. 12: 12, 13). He will lose access to the earth during the Millennial Period (Rev.20: 3), but will be released for a short time following that to orchestrate the Gog and Magog Revolution (Rev.20: 7, 8). With this final failure, the Devil will then be sent to the lake of fire (Hell) for all of eternity (Rev. 20: 10). Satanic presence and activity in this world is something that the devil works hard and long to conceal. The Devil is not presently in Hell and neither is his forces or kingdom. The Bible, however, makes it crystal clear that the devil not only has presence and influence, but also identifies Satan as the "god (small "g") of this world (2Cor.4: 4 NASB)". Our Lord (Luke 4: 6) never disputed Satan's claims of influence and control over much that goes on here on earth or Satan's claim to hold the title of planet earth. It is by no coincidence that execution of the Satan's sentence (eternity in the lake of fire) is not to be implemented until the end of the human environment on this planet, as we presently know it to be. By now it should be evident that Satan has a personal interest in the end time events and would have every reason to try to stop or delay them from taking place. The devil will never succeed, but like most arrogant creatures, he will persist in trying to the very end. Man was created for the very purpose of glorifying God in the midst of this pre-existing and ongoing conflict between the forces of good and evil. Family and careers have their proper place, but can also be the source of great distraction to the primary reason that we were created. There were many social and political issues that our Lord could have chosen to address by "getting involved" with cleaning up the Devil's world, but He did not allow Himself to be distracted. His unwillingness to be distracted was perceived by to be "evidence" that He could not possibly have been the prophesied Messiah when He failed to live up to their expectations. Many of His followers deserted Him when He revealed the primary purpose of His mission here on earth and what lay ahead for Him after He entered Jerusalem. Peter received on of the sharpest rebukes recorded in Scripture when he told the Lord that such things must never be (Matt.16: 23). The true Mission of The Church was/is to spread the Gospel Message to unbelievers and to make disciples of its members. The Mission of the Church was never to make the devil's world a better place to live. The Bible teaches much about what went on in this conflict before Man was created, what part Man was/is to play in the various dispensations, and what the end result will be for both Man, Satan, and the fallen angels, when the conflict is brought to its final end in fulfillment of Biblical prophecies yet to take place. When Man came on the scene, Satan appeared and seduced Eve. He did seduce her sexually, but in her mind. He led Eve to believe that she had something to gain by disobeying God and taking Satan's advice. Adam chose a human relationship over maintaining his relationship with God. This ultimately led to the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. This Fall did not result in the immediate physical death of Man, but did result in a state of spiritual death (separation from God) that was to be passed down at conception (Psalms 51: 5) to all generations of Man from that point on. Physical death became the means for Man to leave his earthly bodies and enter into the eternal state. Adam and Eve ceased to be three-dimensional beings (body/soul/spirit), as they had been created. The generations to follow became two-dimensional (body/soul) beings at birth (Psalms 51: 5), in need of a spiritual re-birth (John 3:3) if they as individuals were to restore their spiritual dimension and fellowship with God. We do not become sinners as a result of our first personal sin; we are born that way! The sin nature was/is passed down to the human fetus at conception. The developing fetus contains the sin nature. At birth, an everlasting soul is imputed to the physical body when the first breath of life is taken (Gen. 2: 7). At physical death, the soul leaves the body. The body returns to dust (Gen.3: 19) until it is resurrected. The departed soul and spirit of a believer goes to Heaven and resides there in an interim body until the Rapture of the Church when the physical bodies are received back again in resurrected form. The departed soul of an unbeliever goes to Hades (Luke 16:23), a place of torment (Luke 16: 23), to await the Final Judgment that sends all unbelievers to the lake of fire for all of eternity (Rev. 20: 13,15). There was nothing that Man could do, then or now, apart from God, to save himself (John 15: 5). God could not simply overlook sin and remain true to His nature and character. The solution, the execution of that solution, and the preservation of the results (salvation) had to be the work of God in totality. The Bible (Habakkuk.1: 13) teaches that God cannot even look upon sin. This is why God the Father had to forsake the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ who took upon Himself and paid for the sin debt of the whole world while physically alive, during the period the period of darkness between 12 noon and 3 pm (Luke 23: 44) on the cross. This is what was taking place as our Lord quoted Scripture while on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Psalms 22: 1 NASB)?" It was during that period of darkness that the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ was physically alive, but spiritually dead, separated from God. Spiritual death is not a state of non-existence, but a state of consciousness while separated and out of fellowship with God. It was the spiritual death that our Lord suffered on the cross that saved all who would believe from experiencing spiritual death for all of eternity in what the Bible calls "the lake of fire (Rev. 20: 15 NASB)." The justice of God demanded that the world's sin debt had to be paid in full before God and Man could be reconciled. The omniscience of God in eternity past, prior to the foundation of the world, knew that The Fall would take place and already had His plan of salvation in mind. This plan would provide for the salvation of Man, glorify God, without God compromising His divine nature. The sin debt of all of humanity was to be paid in full by the spiritual death of the sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The terms sinless and humanity here are most significant. In order for our Lord to pay the sin debt of the whole world, He had to receive the genuine and uncorrupted humanity that Adam and Eve received prior to the Fall. If the humanity that our Lord would later receive could be corrupted (Plan "A" as recorded in Gen. 6) or if He sinned in His humanity after He received it (Plan "B" as recorded in Luke 4), He would have fallen short of the requirements to be the spotless Lamb of God. But how was God the Son to receive a sinless human body when the Bible itself teaches that all human bodies produced through human sexuality since the Fall of Man receives the sin nature at conception (Ps. 51: 5)? We now see the need for the Virgin conception. By Mary conceiving by the power of God the Holy Spirit, she was able to conceive and later give birth to the genuine and sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. According to (Mark 6: 3 NASB), Joseph and Mary engaged in sexual intercourse after the birth of our Lord, resulting in the birth of four sons (James, Joses, and Judas and Simon) and at least two (unnamed) daughters. All of these children, produced through normal sexual functions of Mary and Joseph were born sinners as were Mary and Joseph themselves. Mary acknowledged her status as a sinner in (Luke 1: 47 (NASB) when she referred to God as "my Savior". This also makes it clear that the sin nature is passed down from the male partner at the moment of conception, but both male and female humans receive the sin nature of their own from the their individual human fathers. Genesis Chapter Six records the infiltration of the human race by some of the fallen angels that were expelled from Heaven following the prehistoric angelic revolt. These fallen angels had relations with human women resulting in the creation of a new species that the Bible calls the "Nephilim (Gen. 6: 4 NASB)." The fallen angels that were involved were later confined in a compartment in Hades, as noted in the New Testament Books of Jude and 2Peter. "The angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper (angelic) abode (realm), He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day (Jude 6), just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they (the fallen angels) in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh. (Jude 7)." The "strange flesh" of Jude 7 is a reference to fallen angels having sexual relations with human women. This New Testament passage (Jude 6) refutes the alternate teaching that the "sons of God" in the Genesis passage were "bad" humans and not fallen angels. Several times in the Old Testament, angels are referred to as "sons of God". Peter, in his second epistle of the New Testament also confirmed that it was fallen angels that were involved in the Gen. 6 incident and that they were later confined to Hades as a result. "For God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly (2Peter 2: 4, 5 NASB)." Again we see a Biblical connection between angels sinning and the days of Noah. The offspring were half human and half (fallen) angels. Much of what is found in Greek and Roman Mythology came from ancient accounts of these beings that existed in the days of Noah. The Bible (Gen. 6:4 NASB) further defines the children of the Nephilim as "the mighty men who were of old, men of renown." A non-Biblical legend tells of an ancient giant named Og. According to at least one version of the legend, Og traveled along side of Noah's Ark. In exchange for food during the voyage, Og entered into an agreement with Noah that he and his descendants were to be servants of Noah's people. For later reneging on the agreement, Og and his family were later wiped out. Interestingly enough, the Bible (Deut. 3: 11) speaks of a giant named "Og", a descendant of the giants. His iron bed frame was nine cubits (13.5 feet) x 4 cubits (6 feet). The Bible (Numbers 21: 33, 35) records that "Og" was the name of King of Bashan who was defeated by the Hebrews in battle at Edrei. "So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was no remnant left him; and they possessed his land (Numb. 21: 35 NASB)." The Bible teaches that all of the air-breathing humans, animals, and creatures that were NOT on the ark died as a result of the flood. Was the legendary Og and the "Og" of Deut. 3: 11 one is the same? If so, was Og allowed onto the ark? Would Noah have been the first or the last human to fail to do exactly what God had told him? Was there a family member on the ark carrying the Nephilim gene? Many ancient fables and legends allege that the Greek and Romans "gods" were also said to be of both human and supernatural decent. Psalms 96: 5 teaches that the "gods" of the nations are manifestations of false human worship and demonic activity. This verse clearly refutes the popular theory that we all worship the same God, but by a different name, customs, or rituals. We can only speculate as to what extent the accounts provided to us through mythology are factual, but the existence of giant, half human and half (fallen) angelic creatures that the Bible identifies as the Nephilim did in fact exist in the days of Noah (Gen. 6: 4). The supernatural power, strength, and intelligence of these beings probably did contribute to many advanced construction and engineering abilities of their day, as alleged in mythology, but they were also responsible for much violence and wickedness. This seems to be the established pattern of many great human civilizations of the past and present, with and without the enabling power of demonic presence and influence. If these beings were allowed to continue, Satan's plan to infiltrate, contaminate, and perhaps even exterminate humanity prior to the coming of the First Advent may have had a considerable chance of succeeding. There comes a time when warnings cease and the wrath of God begins. This activity of the Nephilim was the last great evil that preceded the flood of Noah's day. Only eight humans survived the flood. They were Noah, his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their wives. Later, it was from the line of his son Shem came the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. This confirms that the Nephilim had not contaminated the bloodline of Shem, his wife, or any of their descendants. However, since some of the descendents of the Nephilim were found on the Earth " also afterward (Gen. 6: 4 NASB)", as well as before the flood, it suggests that there the bloodline and humanity of at least one of Noah's other two sons, Ham or Japheth, or at least one of their wives had been so contaminated, as these eight persons, their wives, and the animals on the ark, were the only air-breathing persons or creatures to survive (Gen. 7: 22, 23) the flood and then repopulate the Earth. Another plausible explanation for the post-flood presence of the descendants of the Nephilim would be another post-flood attempt of Satan to contaminate humanity that was not Biblically recorded. We can rest assured that if this was the case, the attempt failed and there is no need to know of it or to explore the issue any further. The Bible does not tell us everything there is to know (Deut. 29: 29), but does tell us everything that we need to know. By now, you may be asking what all this has to do with genetic engineering or cloning of our day being a sign of the end times. We do not know how far we will go in the research and development of cloning human beings, in part or in full. However, if technology allows the cloning of humans, would it be so hard to consider that like so many other great advances in our technology, that cloning could be added to the list of Man's discoveries that eventually became a real threat to his own existence? What if a clone could be mass produced and then demonically possessed? The Bible is clear that humans can be so possessed. Many things that were no more than science fiction a few decades ago are facts of life today. Could cloning and genetic engineering be the one event that exclusively parallels the world environment of Noah's day with the world environment of our day? If not, then why, of all the past generations, did our Lord describe the end times to be likened to the days of Noah? "Advancement" of self or the alleged betterment of the society or world in which we live has always been the "bait" that Satan offers whenever he wishes to exploit humanity for his own purposes. Satan knew what the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ would accomplish on the cross and why the devil went all out in his attempts to either destroy or disqualify His humanity as the spotless Lamb of God. Could cloning, genetic engineering or the end product that it produces re-create a global environment similar to that of the days of Noah? If so, could this not be a sign of the end times? You decide! ------------------------------------------ "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE , Copyright 1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Douglas Laird is a non-denomination Christian who has been involved with spiritual writing since the mid 1980's. He was ordained to do the work of a pastor-teacher in 2008. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |