Christmas Really is a Time of Hope
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

One of the most important messages ever given by Jesus before he ascended into heaven has brightened Christmas every year for centuries. It has given hope for two millennia. That message, sometimes lost today, is that Jesus is alive and He is coming again soon!

As the disciples stood gazing into the clouds after the resurrected Lord had ascended from the surface of the earth, rising higher and higher into the sky, two angels, like lightening, suddenly appeared with a vitally important message:

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

There is a hope embedded into this message that one day Jesus will return for his own. Just a short time earlier, while Jesus was celebrating Passover with His disciples, he revealed to them,

“Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward” (John 13:36).

The disciples must have felt crushed. This was the Man most of them believed would usher in a new Messianic age, and here He is telling them that He is departing and leaving them in their greatest hour of need. The disciples must have been distraught, feeling as though the very ground they stood upon had been pulled out from underneath them.

But then Jesus reassured them:

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

Jesus was departing from them with a specific purpose in mind, and he had a definite plan to return. He wasn’t intending to just leave them, but described a very real scenario through which they would once again be united to him and with him.

Jesus referred to a Jewish wedding to help His disciples understand. Using this imagery, Jesus attempted to convey not only the absolute certainty of his return, but the inexpressible joy that would accompany it.

In Jewish weddings after paying tribute to the bride’s father and establishing the marriage covenant with his father-in-law, the Jewish bridegroom would return home to his own father for a time to prepare a dwelling place in his own father’s house that was fit for his bride. This is where the Jewish bride and bridegroom would eventually live, in the father’s house.

After completing the dwelling place to his father’s satisfaction, and allowing for his fiancé to adjust to and prepare for married life, the father of the groom would indicate that it was time for the bridegroom to return for his beautiful bride. With a shout, the bridegroom would announce his arrival; and along with his trusted companions and friends, would take her away to her new home. The bride would leave her old home on hearing the voice of her new husband and immediately leave for her new home with her new husband.

This is the imagery that Jesus used to convey the meaning of His absence. This imagery perfectly fits the concept of the Rapture of the church when Jesus Christ, after leaving to prepare a place for his Bride would once again return so “…that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).

Later, Paul also describes how Christ “loved the church and gave Himself for her… that He might present her to Himself a glorious church” (Ephesians 5:25, 27).

The apostle John, in his Apocalypse, glimpsed this glorious future when he saw the Marriage Supper of the Lamb: “The Lamb [Christ] has come, and His wife has made herself ready… arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright” (Rev. 19:7-8). If you are a believer in Jesus Christ—this is your destiny.

From the first members of the bride of Christ, huddled together in the upper room during the final Passover celebration, to each member of the Church today, each one of us has now become members of a royal priesthood through Jesus Christ:

“You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:10).

We have become unique, a peculiar people:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

This picture is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. As John Walvoord states:

“Some expositors have found, for instance, in the marriages of Isaac and Rebekah, Joseph and Asenath, Moses and Zipporah, and Boaz and Ruth a typical representation of the plan of God to present Christ with a bride, the church, composed largely of Gentiles. In each of these illustrations, the bride is non-Jewish, that is, not a descendant of Jacob.”

God is forming his Church from all the nations of the world. This has always been his plan.

“I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd” (John 10:16).

When Jesus departed, he emphasized that his purpose was to prepare a place for his Bride and that he would shortly return for them. The phrase…and if I go and prepare a place for you…conditionally links His departure with His return: “I will come again” (John 14:3).

In the Greek, the word translated “will come” is actually in the present tense. Jesus is literally saying, “I am coming,” which carries a future force…to emphasize the certainty of Jesus’ return for his disciples.

The analogy of the ancient Jewish wedding ceremony that Jesus uses guarantees Jesus’ return for his Church. Therefore, “Be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:8).

We are entering a time in history that the Bible speaks much about. Indeed, the Bible talks more about the events of this generation and Jesus’ Second Coming than it does His first appearance on this earth. We stand on the cusp of world-changing and momentous events.

In view of the change occurring daily, and the sheer pace of that change, no doubt the world will be a dramatically different place just twelve months from now. For some of us this may mean persecution is ahead – each and every passing day does seem to make this reality more of a certainty in my own mind, especially if the Lord tarries.

But we have a living, dynamic and real hope. We have Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. Never will he leave us; never will he forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

Whatever the future may bring, we are servants of the King; and that fact alongside the very real promise Jesus made that He will come back at some point soon and take us to be with Him, that we may be where He is, should fill us with hope and give us peace.

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

So keep looking up! Merry Christmas!

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt 28:20).

wardmatt1977@gmail.com

 

Crispr Technologies & Pandora’s Box
Opening Pandora’s Box: a process that once begun generates many complicated problems…

I have written very recently on Crispr technologies and the dangers they pose (1). Those dangers have now been realized.

Just two weeks ago, He Jianku was a virtual unknown. Now, he is world famous in his own right. Perhaps a better description would be that he is now infamous rather than famous.

The reason for this is that, from late last month, news started to emerge about the activities of a certain young, formally unknown Chinese researcher who, it was revealed, had been “pushing the envelope” regarding Crispr technology. He was conducting “live” experiments, all of which have now propelled He Jianku to the very center of a global firestorm involving ethics, science, oversight and regulation and a host of other concerns.

Jianku announced on November 28^th at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing that he had produced the world’s first Crispr-edited babies. They are twin girls named Lulu and Nana.

The response from the scientific community, normally a group known for celebrating the radical pushing of boundaries, has been swift and wholly vitriolic. The condemnation has been brutal. Jennifer Doudna, who originally discovered a way of using Crispr to edit genes in 2012, a women regarded as one of the founders of this whole revolution, said,

“I am shocked and disgusted by this news. This work sets a dangerous precedent unless there is a broad global rejection of the clinical processes used. The global scientific community has reacted strongly (with) calls for verification and redoubled efforts to put in place criteria for the clinical use of Crispr.”

David Liu, another Harvard University professor who was also responsible for the initial development of Crispr technologies in 2012, responded unequivocally,

“It is appalling that the human babies were generated without the full engagement of independent scientific and ethics experts, relevant regulatory institutions and governing bodies. His naivety about multiple scientific, medical and ethical issues was very alarming to hear in person.”

These were not sentiments shared in any way by Jianku. The young Chinese researcher disclosed, to the consternation of almost all in attendance at the summit, that he wasn’t finished with Lulu and Nana, as if this wasn’t bad enough. Jianku went on to reveal that he had also Crispr-edited another live embryo and that this pregnancy was already well under way.

Despite the fact that there have been up to sixty meetings and reports on gene editing held or published in just the last three years, and that each of these reports concluded, as did each meeting, that it would be too soon to attempt any kind of live trial, Jianku has proceeded anyway, almost irrelevant to and oblivious of the risks.

Despite the fact that the experiments he had been conducting flew directly in the face of all previous agreement among geneticists, on ethical as well as scientific grounds, Jianku moved forward with the experiments nonetheless.

This means that He Jianku will now be recorded in history, like Neil Armstrong before him, as a man of “firsts.” He Jianku will be remembered as the first scientist to implant a live Crispr-edited embryo into a uterus to cause pregnancy. Up until this point, every single embryo ever edited using Crispr technology had been destroyed.

This has huge implications for the two little girls involved. It means that Lulu and Nana are the first human beings who will one day pass on the intentionally manmade mutations in their DNA through the Crispr process to their children, and their children’s children, and their children’s children’s children, and so on as long as their individual lines last.

The ramifications of this little jump into the wild will be felt potentially long after He Jianku and little Lulu and Nana have passed away. Every newly born child of their direct line born after them will now inherit these DNA “modifications,” potentially for as long as their progeny lasts. His response to the groundswell of opposition to his actions, to the moral implications of his actions, and to riding roughshod over all ethical concerns was that he “…feels proud actually.”

All other scientists seem unanimous in agreeing that He Jianku may well now have opened a Pandora’s Box; and it is completely unknown, from both an experiential and a scientific point of view, what may now come out of it.

The issue with Jianku’s journey into the unknown, aside from the obvious and huge ethical ramifications, is that the techniques used by Jianku are largely untested. One of the so-far-observed great flaws with Crispr gene-editing techniques is that they often seem to cause “off-target” mutations elsewhere that harm the host’s DNA (2).

This outcome is even more pronounced when editing whole embryos, as has been done in this case. Unlike editing specific and targeted cells to impact a certain genetic problem like cancer, gene editing whole embryos, not individual isolated cells, has the potential to change the DNA in every single cell in an embryo’s body. The potential implications of this are beyond huge, on an individual level for Nana and Lulu, and also for the human race corporately.

Yet He Jianku blithely pressed on with his experiments regardless of the risks or the fears and the censure of his colleagues.

This reveals the real issue with this technology: how widespread and readily available it is becoming and how it is utterly lacking in any kind of significant regulatory oversight. That we know of Jianku’s experiment does not mean that he is the only individual to this date who has “pushed the envelope” the furthest with Crispr gene-editing techniques. He Jianku is just the one we are all currently aware of.

It is highly likely that similar types of experimentation have already happened and are indeed ongoing at any number of disreputable laboratories or government sites around the world. The US and its Western military partners are on record as saying they are very interested in generating the world’s first genetically improved super soldiers. Ominously, they are also on record as saying that they simply cannot allow themselves to fall behind in this new “arms race” to other less ethically bound, rogue regimes.

The implications of this are all too clear; this kind of unscrupulous experimentation, pushing on ahead despite ethical, moral or scientific concerns, has likely already been occurring for quite some time.

Even scientists at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing (where He Jianku made his now infamous announcement about his live experimentations) who went on seemingly to unequivocally condemn his actions, only did so with a proviso: “…the Committee (of the International Summit) added that, should the risks be addressed, it may in future become acceptable when there is a compelling medical need.”

And the danger of this technological tinkering with genes and DNA is not limited to Crispr technologies. We are already well into the era where scientists are trying to grow organs inside pigs to be transplanted into human beings. Genetically modified pig hearts have already been transplanted successfully into baboons, with the monkeys living for over 90 days afterwards on each occasion. How long until we reach the point where pig-grown human organs plug the gap between the need for transplants and the pressing lack of donors? Surely not long.

Yet God’s attitude towards this is very specific and clear,

“God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:25).

The fact that God made wild animals according to their kinds, and that it was good, clearly implies that crossing species is bad. It also implies that messing with and altering a species at a DNA or germline level is a bad thing.

Humanity is once again delving deeply into areas that once brought great judgment upon this earth. We have entered a new age for humanity. Not all new technology is good technology, not all new developments are good developments, and just because we have reached a point where we can do something new does not mean that we should.

With Crispr and other such technologies, a Pandora’s Box has been opened, and who knows where this is heading or what may come out. One thing I think is a certainty though; it will not be shut again this side of the return of Jesus.

“They gave Pandora a box. Prometheus begged her not to open it. She opened it. Every evil to which human flesh is heir came out of it.” – Kurt Vonnegut.

1. https://www.raptureready.com/2018/12/09/crispr-technologies-matt-ward/
2. New Scientist, No. 3207, page 8

wardmatt1977@gmail.com