ODJ: Playing God?

January 25, 2018 

READ: Acts 17:22-29 

[God] himself giveslife and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth (vv.25-26).

In March 2015, the magazine Australian Popular Science reported that a company is hoping to ‘resurrect’ people by the year 2045 through artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. Their goal is “to store data of conversational styles, behavioural patterns, thought processes and information about how your body functions from the insideout.” Then they’ll code this information, have it built into an artificial body and use the brain of a “deceased human”. In many ways, what was previously science fiction is becoming reality.

But is this a resurrection? The Bible tells us that the one true God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, is the only One who has power to give life and breath to everything (Acts 17:25). At best we can attempt to make a human replica.

These attempts are simply not the same as God-breathed life. But the motivation for resurrection through artificial means—perhaps a desire to live forever—might point to a God-given desire. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us, “[God] has planted eternity in the human heart.” Although people might make feeble attempts to extend life, God reveals that we truly can live forever. He’s placed within us the desire to share life with Him and those we love. And He’s made it possible for those good desires to be fulfilled through His Son Jesus Christ. For “this is how God loved the world: he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

God alone sustains our lives. As Paul declared, “In him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). And one day, God will resurrect believers in Jesus Christ to a glorious eternal life with Him!

—Marlena Graves

365-day plan: Genesis 41:37-57