Support and Register Organ Transplantation

The Bible does not specifically address the issue of organ transplantation. Obviously, organ transplants would have been unknown in Bible times. However, there are verses that illustrate broad principles that may apply. One of the most compelling arguments for organ donation is the love and compassion such an act demonstrates toward others. The mandate to “love your neighbor” was stated by Jesus (Matthew 5:43), Paul (Romans 13:9), and James (James 2:8), but it can actually be traced all the way back to Leviticus 19:18. From the earliest days in the Old Testament, God’s people were commanded to demonstrate a love for God as well as for their neighbors. Being willing to donate an organ from our own bodies would seem to be an extreme example of selfless sacrifice for another. We have the utmost example of this in the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made as He gave up His body for all of humanity. John summed up the command well when he wrote: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). As Jesus was trying to convey this message of unconditional love for others, He spoke of caring for the hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick, and imprisoned (Matthew 25:35-46). He went on to clarify: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Jesus also used the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) to teach that we, as Christians, are to be kind and to show love toward everyone. If a practice or procedure is not contradictory to biblical principles, then it should be considered permissible and can be supported by faithful Christians. Some people view organ donation as the ultimate form of mutilating the human body. Frequently, passages such as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 are used to defend the idea that organs should not be harvested from a person’s body. As stewards of God’s creation, we should treat our bodies with respect, and abstain from whatever is deleterious to them. However, when Paul wrote those words to the Christians at Corinth, he stated: “Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (v. 20), indicating this was something that was to be carried out while the individual was still living. In the apostle’s second letter to the church at Corinth, he reminded them: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (5:1). One of the biggest concerns among Christians is the concept that the entire body needs to be present and preserved in some fashion for the resurrection. As such, many Christians are reluctant to donate organs because they believe that resurrection itself requires a “complete” body. However, when God was handing out punishments at the Garden of Eden, he told Adam: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19). Thus, God said that one day, our earthly bodies would return to the soil. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, provided some insight as to the difference between the physical body at death (which may be disposed of in a variety of ways), and the spiritual body of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). He used the analogy of the difference between a seed and the product of that seed to illustrate the difference between the earthly body and the resurrected body. He then went on to comment: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” (v. 44). If we believe that the bodies raised at the resurrection represented simply a “reoccupation” of our earthly bodies, then we possess a false concept of our resurrection as presented in the Bible. We are told that the earthly body—that of flesh and blood—will not enter into the heavenly inheritance (1 Corinthians 15:50). Based on these facts, Christians should not fear or reject organ donation merely in an attempt to keep the physical body intact for the resurrection. Additional thoughts on organ donation and organ harvesting The legitimate argument against organ donation arises from the process of organ harvesting. There is nothing ethically wrong in recovering organs from the dead, but most successful organ transplants require that any prospective organs be kept alive with blood and oxygen flowing through them until they are removed from the body. This dilemma is troublesome, because we cannot, and must not, support the termination of life in favor of organ donation. The medical profession has traditionally used cessation of heart and lung activity to mark the point of death. Medical technology had progressed to a point where it is possible to sustain (via a respirator) heart and lung activity for days or even weeks after a patient had irreversibly lost all brain function. There has been a push in some medical circles to harvest organs when the patient has lost higher brain functions but is still alive. In 1994, the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association (AMA) issued its updated opinion that it is “ethically permissible” to use babies born without higher brain functions as organ donors. As Christians, we can support organ donation only in those cases in which death has been determined by every criterion—including complete loss of brain function—rather than just by one or two criteria. God forbids intentional killing (James 2:10-11); thus we must carefully determine, in light of the teachings found within God’s Word, whether a respirator is simply oxygenating a corpse or sustaining a living human being. Then we must act accordingly. Since most transplants come from donors who have been declared neurologically dead, it is important that we fully understand the criteria the medical profession is using to define brain death. Only when a patient is determined to be irreversibly and completely brain dead should he or she be considered a candidate for organ donation.

"Is your Suffering in Vain?

Of all the challenges thrown at Christianity in modern times, perhaps the most sinister is explaining the problem of suffering. How can a loving God allow suffering to continue to occur in the world which He created? For those who have endured massive suffering themselves, this is much more than a philosophical issue, but often becomes a very deep-seated personal and emotional issue. How does the Bible attempt to address this issue? Does the Bible give us any examples of suffering and some indicators on how to deal with it? The Bible is startlingly realistic when it comes to the problem of endured suffering. For one thing, the Bible devotes an entire book to dealing with the problem. This book concerns a man named Job. It begins with a scene in heaven which provides the reader with the background to Job’s suffering. Job suffers because God contested with Satan. As far as we know, this was never known by Job, nor by any of his friends. It is therefore not surprising that they all struggle to explain Job’s suffering from the perspective of their ignorance, until Job finally rests in nothing but the faithfulness of God and the hope of His redemption. Neither Job nor his friends understood at the time the reasons for his suffering. In fact, when Job is finally confronted by the Lord, Job is silent. Job’s silent response does not in any way trivialise the intense pain and loss he had so patiently endured. Rather, it underscores the importance of trusting God’s purposes in the midst of suffering, even when we don’t know that those purposes are. Suffering, like all other human experiences, is directed by the sovereign wisdom of God. In the end, we learn the lesson that we may never know the specific reason for our suffering, but we must trust in our sovereign God. That is the real answer to suffering. Another example of suffering in the Bible is Joseph in the book of Genesis. Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers, where he was ultimately indicted on false charges and thereby thrown into prison. As a result of Joseph’s suffering and endurance, by God’s grace and power, he is later promoted to governor of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself, where he finds himself in a position to make provision to the nations of the world during a time of famine, including his own family and the brothers who sold him into slavery! The message of this story is summarized in Joseph’s address to his brothers in Genesis 50:19-21: “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” Romans 8:28 contains some comforting words for those enduring hardship and suffering: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” In His providence, God orchestrates every event in our lives—even suffering, temptation and sin—to accomplish both our temporal and eternal benefit. The psalmist David endured much suffering in his time, and this is reflected in many of his poems collected in the book of Psalms. In Psalm 22, we hear the sound of David’s anguish: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry out by day but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: 'He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.'” It remains an unfathomable mystery to David why God does not intervene in the midst of his suffering and pain. He sees God as the one who is enthroned as the Holy One, the praise of Israel. After all, doesn’t God lead a pretty sheltered life? Isn’t God lucky to live in heaven where all is sweetness and light, where there is no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred? What does God know of all that humans go through? David goes on to complain that “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” Did God ever answer David? Sure enough, many centuries later, David received his answer. Roughly one millennium later, a descendent of David named Christ Jesus was killed on a hill called Calvary. On the cross, God endured the suffering and shame of his forefather. Christ’s hands and feet were pierced. Christ’s garments were divided among his enemies. Christ was stared at and gloated over and derided. In fact, Christ uttered the words with which David opens this Psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” thus identifying himself with the suffering of his forefather. Because Christ, the eternal Son of God in whom the fullness of God dwells, has lived on earth as a human being and has endured hunger, thirst, temptation, shame, persecution, nakedness, bereavement, betrayal, mockery, injustice and death, He is in a position to fulfil the longing of Job, “If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot” (Job 9:33). Christian theism is, in fact, the only worldview which can consistently make sense of the problem of evil and suffering. Apart from the fact that Christians serve a God who has lived on this earth and been through trauma, temptation, bereavement, torture, hunger, thirst, persecution and even execution, the cross of Christ can be regarded as the ultimate manifestation of God’s justice. When asked how much God cares about the problem of evil and suffering, the Christian God is the only God who can point to the cross, and say “that much.” Christ experienced rejection from God, saying, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He experienced just the same suffering as many people do in many parts of the world today who are feeling isolated from God’s favor and love. The Christian worldview is thus the only worldview which even makes an attempt at addressing this paradox. How can God be just and still forgive wicked men such as ourselves? The answer lies in the cross of Christ and that alone.