Man has been able to produce many remarkable things through a knowledge of the elementary structure of matter—but never a living cell.

Creation of life in all forms seems to be locked into a process unknown to man. How fortunate for us that this is the case. Think of all the grotesque cartoon creations man’s fantasy has devised, and then try to imagine what our earth would be like if they were real.

So let us be content to leave with God the secrets of bringing forth life …

“Of the Dust of the Ground”

ONLY the infinite wisdom and mighty power of the Creator could combine the chemical elements of the earth in such proportions and in such a composition as to form the bodily organism of man. David said of himself that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and the more we learn about the human body, the more fully we realize the truth of the prophet’s statement.—Ps. 139:14

And beyond the complexities of the human organism itself, is the miraculous manner in which it is made to live. No more profound truth was ever recorded than that contained in the explanation that God breathed into the nostrils of the human body he had created, and it “became a living soul.”

Great truths are often simple. We are apt to overlook the realities of understandable facts by searching unnecessarily for some hidden meaning which does not exist except as we create it by our own imagination. That the human organism is formed of the dust of the ground is a scientific fact. That the breath is essential to life is also well-established by human experience. Science has no quarrel with the Bible up to this point. Actually, when the Bible is properly understood it is found to be in harmony with all proven facts of science relative to the nature of man.

In the concluding portion of this consideration, it is the viewpoint of professed orthodox religious philosophers, rather than that of the real scientists, with which we take issue. Science can never be in harmony with much of the religious philosophy which falsely claims to be based upon the teachings of the Bible.

Theology insists that man is more than the Bible claims for him; that in addition to the breath of life, God implanted in his human creature an indefinable something called an ‘immortal soul’, which, being independent of the body even though residing in it, continues to live after the body dies. Thus, claim the theologians, man is inherently immortal, hence cannot die—therefore there is no death.

This philosophy is both unscientific and unscriptural. God holds the secret of life in his own custody, so that it is not possible for us to understand why the union of the breath of life with the fleshly organism results in a living soul; but, plainly, it is the union of the two that results in forming the living soul. The soul is not a separate entity. There is no scientific or scriptural reason to suppose that the Creator implanted something additional in the human organism to make it live which he did not impart to the lower forms of earthly life.

A proper rendering of the original text in Genesis 1:30 indicates that the lower animals are living souls even as is man. They were all made of the dust of the ground, and all received the breath of life. To this scientists will give assent. Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 reaffirms this fundamental truth of the Scriptures, declaring that men and beasts all have the same breath and that in death there is no difference.

Scientists may not agree that man dies because of being a sinner, a transgressor of divine law, though they do accept the fact that death is a reality. But there are comparatively few theologians who are prepared to accept the teachings of the Scriptures on this point. They may agree that man is a sinner, but they do not agree that he dies because of this. Death, they say, is merely the gateway into another life; and when the Scriptures refer to death as a punishment for sin, they say it means merely a separation from God, not a literal dying, a ceasing to live. Hence in this particular phase of the subject, we find ourselves more in harmony with scientists than with theologians.

It is not surprising that the Bible goes beyond the findings of science in its presentations of facts; for, after all, as a revelation of God’s purpose in the creation of man, it tells us not only of his original creation but also of his final destiny. Scientists may say that man’s sure destiny is death, but the Bible says there is to be a resurrection of the dead—a regeneration.—Acts 24:15; Matt. 19:28

The Prophet Job stated the matter with scientific correctness when he asked, “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14) If Job had been a modern theologian he would have inquired, “When a man seems to die, is he really dead?” Job knew that when a man dies he is dead; and with this science agrees. Job also had faith to believe that dead men shall live again, and Jesus confirmed this belief in his statement to Martha when discussing the death of her brother, Lazarus: “Though he were dead, yet shall he live.”—John 11:25

It is only as we accept the teaching of the Scriptures concerning the reality of death that we are able to understand God’s plan for the recovery of the lost race from death. When God created man he placed him under law. It was a simple law. Its simplicity is the best proof we have of its divine authorship. When men make laws they find it necessary to have lawyers to interpret them. Very seldom is a layman competent to interpret the complexities of the laws by which he is supposed to be governed. God’s law to Adam was simple. There was no misunderstanding it; hence, when Adam broke that law it was a willful transgression and demanded the full penalty of death.

Now if man does not die, then there could be no resurrection of the dead, and the great hope of the resurrection as set forth in the Scriptures is made null and void. If the wages of sin is not death, then there was no need that Jesus should die to save mankind from death. If man does not die, then there is no need for the gift of eternal life “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”—Rom. 6:23

Ah, but some will say, there must be something about man that does not die, else how could there be life beyond the grave? The difficulty of those who take this view is the same as that of the scientists: they do not—perhaps cannot—believe in miracles.

The Great First Cause

The most scientific viewpoint that anyone can have is to accept as the starting point for everything the fact that there exists a great First Cause—an Intelligent Creator and Lifegiver, who made the universe and all things in it. With this basic fact of Scripture accepted as a foundation premise, the whole plan of creation opens up like a beautiful flower to our enraptured view.

We do not have to know how God made so many millions of suns. We just rejoice in the fact that he did. We do not have to know just how man became a living soul when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. We simply know that he did. We know he became a soul because the Scriptures say so. We know that God did not implant an immortal soul within man because the Scriptures do not declare anything of the kind.

Our own common sense tells us that death is a reality, and therefore that the Bible is true when it describes death as an enemy. (I Cor. 15:25,26) If we can believe that God was able to create as many planets, suns, and stars as there have been human beings on this earth, then it is not difficult to believe that the same intelligence is able to recreate the millions who have died and, by this means, restore the dead to life. And it is exactly this that God has promised to do! “As in Adam all die,” said the Apostle Paul, “so in Christ shall all be made alive.”—I Cor. 15:22

Is this more difficult to believe than the theory of the evolutionists, who claim that the whole universe came into being by mere chance, that even life itself just happened to be? Oh yes, the scientists have an explanation. It is very simple. They say that in the eons of the dim past, certain combinations of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen gathered together and produced protoplasmic life.

While scientists theorize as to how this must have occurred, they admit that they are unable to reproduce it now, notwithstanding the boasted “twentieth century of progress.” It seems very unscientific to suppose that such a thing could occur by chance millions of years ago, and yet at the same time confess that with all the available scientific knowledge of these modern times it cannot be duplicated today.

The scientists admit they have tried to produce life, but have failed. Nor have they discovered the origin of the necessary carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, which they claim, accidentally came together to form the first living cell.

The entire evolution theory rests on supposition only. Certainly the evolutionists must admit that it is most unscientific to claim that life was spontaneously generated, when they are utterly unable to prove it, or to demonstrate how it was done. Evolutionists cannot explain how a plant germ evolved into an animal cell, nor can they prove that it has ever occurred. The first animal cells, some assert, were sexless; they are unable to explain how some of these developed into males, and others into females.

All along the line, the evolutionist must exercise a blind faith. For, as we have seen in a previous article, there are great gaps in his suppositions as to evolution. While the earth is being searched with unremitting energy for missing links between apes and men, it never seems to occur to the evolutionists that it is unscientific for the apes to continue on as a species through alleged millions of years, while creatures higher in the scale of evolution have become extinct so long ago that not even fossil remains of their bones can now be found. If apes have had intelligence enough to perpetuate their species, certainly creatures with an apparently higher degree of intelligence than apes should have succeeded as well.

When it comes to true science, there is nothing more unscientific than the theory of human evolution. It starts with nothing, explains nothing, and leads nowhere. It leaves man in the grave; and despite the fact that he had an intelligent longing for life and its perpetuation, the only hope which evolutionists have for him is that his life chromosomes and genes will continue on representatively in his offspring.

Limitations of Knowledge

Why not put aside all this speculation and acknowledge that there are some things we humans cannot know? All creation tells us there must be a powerful, Intelligent Creator. We might as well expect a mule to understand higher mathematics, as to try ourselves to understand where the Creator came from, or to grasp the fact that he has always existed.

Nevertheless, it would be very unscientific to say that higher mathematics do not exist simply because a mule cannot understand them. It would be equally unscientific to say the whole universe has come into being by chance, simply because we cannot define the Creator. Indeed, as the prophet declares, it is only a fool who says in his heart, “There is no God.”—Ps. 14:1; 53:1

Accepting, then, the scientific fact that there is a God who created the heavens and earth, and having found that the Bible presents a wonderfully scientific and understandable account of creation as it relates to man and his domain here upon this planet, it should not be difficult to go a step further in this truly scientific process of thinking and accept the Scriptural preview of things yet to be. We know that whatever the Creator has promised to do he is abundantly able to perform.

The future for all of us depends upon the love and power of the Creator. Our hopes rest upon the promises of God to raise the dead. The hope of a resurrection is affirmed and reaffirmed throughout the Scriptures. In the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians is found one of the most comprehensive statements concerning it. The apostle there begins with the resurrection of Jesus. It was necessary that Jesus should die as the Redeemer of the world; but it was also essential that he be raised from the dead, in order, as Paul shows, that those for whom Christ died might have a hope of resurrection.

Life Everlasting—Terrestrial and Celestial

The apostle also explains that Jesus was made alive in the spirit—that is as a spirit being. In this wonderful chapter the apostle reminds us of the scientific fact that there is one kind of flesh of birds, another of beasts, and another of men, that there are bodies terrestrial (earthly), and bodies celestial (heavenly). Certainly it would be unscientific to conclude that in all the great universe, man is the only intelligent being whom the Creator has made.

David declares that man was made a little lower than the angels. (Ps. 8:5) The apostle tells us that when Jesus was raised from the dead, he was exalted above angels. Indeed, he was raised very much higher than the angels, even to the right hand of the Majesty on high.—Eph. 1:18-23; Heb. 1:3,4; 8:1

In Paul’s masterful treatise on the resurrection, he indicates that a few from among earth’s billions, because of their faithfulness in following in the footsteps of Jesus, are to be exalted with him when resurrected from the dead. These, too, will then be given celestial bodies, for they are to be made like him. However, the great hope for the millions of mankind who have died is that they shall be restored to life as human beings—homo sapiens, the scientists would say.

Here again, theologians have distorted a great Scriptural truth by inserting in their creeds the statement, “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” In view of their false theory regarding the nature and destiny of man, this is the only way they could acknowledge a semblance of the Bible teaching of the resurrection. The real man, the ‘immortal soul’, they say, does not die, hence needs no resurrection. But at the same time, they claim that at death the soul is liberated from the bondage of the human body and is free to wing its flight to realms of eternal bliss. If this were true, it is not exactly clear why Paul should say that if there be no resurrection of the dead, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.—I Cor. 15:18

However, this is the theory, and in order to harmonize it with the idea of a resurrection, it was necessary to state that it is the body which is to be raised from the dead, ostensibly that it might once again become the prison-house of the soul.

But Paul denies this philosophy, declaring that we sow “not that body that shall be” (I Cor. 15:37), but to every seed its own body. What does he mean by this? Throughout this chapter Paul delineates the resurrection of two classes: a spiritual class of which Jesus is the Head; and an earthly class—celestial and terrestrial.

The class in which one will be raised is determined by the sowing. In II Corinthians 5:17, the apostle declares that those in Christ—true Christians—have become “new creatures.” These new creatures have new aims, new hopes, new ambitions. They are admonished to set their affections on things above, not on things of the earth. (Col. 3:1,2) They “sow” to the Spirit rather than to the flesh. (Gal. 6:8) In the resurrection God gives them an appropriate spiritual body in keeping with the spiritual hopes his promises inspired in them.

But the sowing of the vast majority has been entirely earthly, and the body given to these will be in keeping therewith. The question naturally arises, from whence will such a body come? The correct answer is, from “the dust of the ground.” Will God need the same atoms that were in the body which died; in order to do this? No, of course not! After all, it is not the chemical constituents in a body that make a man—it is the sum total of his thoughts which, through the period of his existence, have been impressed upon the cells of his brain. Our body tissues are continually breaking down and being replaced by new ones, but our thoughts continue to develop and mature into character—either good or evil.

With implicit confidence in the infinite power of the Creator because of the marvelous demonstrations of that omnipotence with which we are surrounded, we can believe his limitless perception and memory have retained the character record of every human being who has ever lived. If mere man can transfer the human voice and image from one magnetic tape to another, surely the Creator is able to file away the impressions recorded upon the human brain and reproduce them in an identical brain when his due time arrives to give every ‘seed’ its own body.

So again, from the dust of the ground God will use his creative power to produce human bodies—billions of them—and in the brains of those bodies reproduce every thought impulse and every trait of character possessed by the billions of mankind who have died. These restorations will be accurate reproductions of the personalities that will then be regenerated.

This will mean that the memory will also be restored, enabling each individual to recall the past, and to benefit from the lessons learned. How many times we hear people say that if they had their lives to live over again, how differently they would do. This is precisely the opportunity the Creator has planned to give every descendant of Adam. Then the experiences of this life will be of inestimable value to them. If they profit from the lessons learned, accept the provision of life through Christ, and obey the righteous laws of the Creator then in force, they will live forever, in full enjoyment of all their perfected faculties—a credit to the great Creator for whose pleasure their life will then be a joy forever.—Rev. 4:11

They will ‘live forever, not because they will have implanted in them something which cannot die, but because the perfect food supply, and the gradually perfected environment of that time, used in harmony with divine law and under the sunshine of God’s favor, will sustain life continuously.

The symbolic prophecy of Revelation 22:1-3 and 17, will then be fulfilled. The “river,” together with the “trees” which grow on its banks, will be the source of life for all mankind. Then sickness and death will be no more, for God’s purpose in the creation of man will have been consummated. Then all will know that he created the earth not in vain, but formed it to be inhabited.—Isa. 33:24; 45:18; Mic. 4:1-4

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