Believer's Magazine declares Christian organ transplantees to be unwise

This question is asked in the Believer’s Magazine Question Box (January 2014)

Is it in order for a Christian to carry an organ donor card to “give others the gift of life” (National Health Service quote.

I unashamedly carry a Donor card. It would be hypocritical for me not to. My daughter had a kidney transplant when she was a teenager and she is still with us alive and well.

Dr D West ventures to offer his opinion that “it would be unwise to promise to give bodily organs to another in the event of an untimely death. We assume therefore that it would not be unwise in the event of a timely death. 

My daughter’s transplant was available because of the death of a young man in a road accident. Dr West’s verdict is that she should have been left to die when she became ill in 1985. He thinks she has no right to life. Such a view is monstrous, disgusting, and deeply hurtful.

My donor card says nothing about “gift to life” and there is nothing on it suggesting I have made a promise by signing it. I have merely signed to say I want to offer my organs for transplant. This too depends entirely on their suitability at the time.

Dr West quotes from Ps. 139: 14 that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. This seems to have no bearing on the subject of transplants. And does this not also apply to the unconverted? Dr West points out that the believer’s body is precious to God. He gives no Scripture to substantiate this. Why does he not include the unbeliever’s body in his statement. The unbeliever too must be resurrected bodily in a coming day.

Dr West appears to have concocted a whimsical god. The body is precious but nature has arranged for the worms to eat it up. Perhaps West holds to some religious superstition that a transplant will impact upon the believer at the rapture. But believers have been dying for millennia. Their bodies have returned to dust to be eaten by worms and cows. Worms and cows then die and the cycle is repeated. Over and over again.  I firmly believe in and eagerly anticipate the Rapture. God will work the miracle that will raise the body that died and reconstitute it in risen form.

Until then, God in His wisdom has made it possible for lives which are precious to Him to be preserved through transplants. 

Dr West has severely exceeded his remit, in the BM magazine and if the editor is in agreement with him, shame on him also. Some simple believers regard Dr West as speaking as the oracles of God. They are mistaken. He has given his opinion, which the discerning believer will reject.

A more balanced and useful article, written by Richard Collings, appeared in Precious Seed

A useful article on transplants from a Christian point of view may be read at:  http://www.christianliferesources.com?5035

Can God Suffer?

Can God Suffer?

The Scriptures reveal to us all that God wants us to know concerning Himself. We learn first through the Scriptures that God is a Creator God. 

Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.  Isaiah 40: 28.

Suffering involves pain or distress. These lead to fainting and weariness. God tells us in this one verse that such things are foreign to His Being. We cannot search beyond this. All that we know concerning the nature of God will be found in chapter and verse. 

Those who deny the impassibility[i] of God have no Scripture to turn to.

Despite this men try to attribute suffering to God. They do so by changing the meaning of suffering to a psychological or emotional issue. This in the end destroys the work of Christ on the cross.

Recently David Gilliland, a prominent Brethren bible teacher, conducted a series of evangelistic meetings . ( He made no reference to repentance and conversion).

I  heard one of his lectures dealing with the question, “Why so much suffering?” In it statements were made which caused me think Mr Gilliland had been influenced by the German Reformed theologian Jurgen Moltmann. Moltmann is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology, University of Tϋbingen. He wrote a book, The Suffering God.

D Gilliland said, I quote:

“God suffered more than any man”

“God suffered in Christ”.

“Christ suffered as God”

No Scripture was quoted for these statements.

However, we do have these verses to consider:-

Who in the days of his flesh….though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Hebrews 5: 7,8

Such things could not be learned (experienced) prior to His incarnation. He needed to be in flesh.

Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh.  1 Peter 4: 1.

Christ did not suffer for us in his spirit. He did not suffer for us “as God”. He was a mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

It is regrettable that men such as D Gilliland should be allowed to circulate among us. All we can say is “Withdraw from such” (I Tim. 6:5)

R S

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[i] Impassibility is the incapability of feeling pain or harm (dictionary.com). The word is from the Greek pascho (I suffer; cf. 1 Peter 4: 1)

North American Apostate to visit Hebron Gospel Hall, Banbury Road, Bicester.

We note that D Vallance is to speak at the Hebron Gospel Hall, Easter Conference., Banbury. Vallance is a noted enemy of the truth, see below. Speaking with him is I Jackson who believes that Gospel Hall paedophiles should not be prosecuted.

1.I read the following statement on the Truth and Tidings, June 2006 Website:

As the King James Version approaches its 400^th birthday and its Elizabethan English becomes more and more obscure and misleading, we ought to consider what version  might replace it. I believe that the English Standard Version should be the heir-apparent, due to the quality of its original-language texts, its essentially literal translation method, its excellent English style, and its conscious attempt to stay connected with many of the familiar KJV words. – David Vallance.

Jack Moorman had this to say about the English of the Authorized version:

Coming back now to the English in which our Authorized Bible was written, it is an evidence of God's providence that after nearly four centuries, so little can be found to be archaic. Certainly there are "profound differences" between current and Elizabethan English. But, the AV is not Elizabethan English! As a comparison will show, there is a great difference between AV English and the wordy, affectations Elizabethan style.

Far from our Bible being a product of that day's literary style, the English language after 1611 owes its development to the Authorized Version! "The King James Version was a landmark in the development of English prose. Its elegant yet natural style had enormous influence on English-speaking writers" (World Book Encyclopedia). This partially explains why the AV is ever fresh and lucid while most else from that period is quite difficult to read.

Edward F. Hills speaks on the misconception that the English of the AV is Elizabethan:

The English of the King James Version is not the English of the early 17th century. To be exact, it is not a type of English that was ever spoken anywhere. It is biblical English, which was not used on ordinary occasions even by the translators who produced the King James Version. As H. Wheeler Robinson (1 940) pointed out, one need only compare the preface written by the translators with the text of their translation to feel the difference in style. And the observations of W.A. Irwin (1952) are to the same purport. The King James Version, he reminds us, owes its merit, not to 17th-century English - which was very difficult - but to its faithful translation of the original. Its style is that of the Hebrew and of the New Testament Greek. Even in their use of thee and thou the translators were not following 17th-century English usage but biblical usage, for at the time these translators were doing their work these singular forms had already been replaced by the plural you in polite conversation (The King James Version Defended, Des Moines: Christian Research Press, 1984, pp. 218).

In 1604 when James I authorized preparations for a new English version of the Bible, a watershed was reached not only in the history of Bible translation, but of the history of the English language itself.

─ (taken from the Way of Life website. Also the following article concerning the ESV is taken from the same source.)

ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. This Bible [is] published by Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers of Wheaton, Illinois. It is alleged to be an "inerrancy-based edition of the Revised Standard Version, and several prominent Southern Baptists have lent their names to the project. These include Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Carl F.H. Henry, founding  University, Birmingham. All of these men are on the advisory council for the English Standard Version.

Why would these men have anything whatsoever to do with the perverted Revised Standard Version? It was completely modernistic in its production. Practically all of the translators were Modernists who denied the miracles of the Bible. I have documented this extensively in the 321-page book Myths about Modern Bible Versions, available from Way of Life Literature. Walter Bowie claimed that the Old Testament is a mixture of folklore, legend, imagination, and tradition. He questioned the resurrection of Christ. Millar Burrows said "we cannot take the Bible as a whole and in every part as stating with divine authority what we must believe and do." Henry Cadbury claimed that Jesus Christ "was given to overstatements." Fleming James said we do not know what happened at the Rea Sea. Clarence Craig denied the resurrection from the dead and the second coming of Christ. Edgar Goodspeed said that Genesis contained "Babylonian myths and legends and Canaanite popular tales." Frederick Grant claimed that the New Testament account of Jesus’ life and ministry is "not entirely historical." William Irwin even taught that the phrase "Thus saith the Lord" is an "almost unfailing mark of spuriousness"! This apostate Bible translator also said that Zoraster and other heathen philosophers were equal in validity with the prophets of Israel. James Moffatt believed we must be "freed from the influence of the theory of verbal inspiration." Willard Sperry thought the book of John is not accurate in recording the sayings of Jesus.

The ESV is based on the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible as found in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (2nd ed., 1983), and on the Greek text in the 1993 editions of the Greek New Testament (4th corrected ed.), published by the United Bible Societies (UBS), and Novum Testamentum Graece (27th ed.), edited by Nestle and Aland.

Therefore its word for word translation while commendable in itself is nevertheless a word for word translation of a perverted text.