According to recent statistics, over 100,000 people in America are waiting to receive an organ, and on average, 16 people die each day while they wait for a transplant. These include young children. In every person’s case, with out a recent heart, kidney, liver, or lungs, their quality of life declines quickly. Doctors offer treatments to mitigate their symptoms while family members pray for a donor. The news of a donor is bittersweet if someone needed to die with the intention to provide a healthy organ; perhaps a combination of joyful, miraculous, and confusing when a living donor provides the organ. Is there any reason why Christians shouldn’t consider organ donation, either upon their death or while they’re alive? Are there misconceptions about God’s Word on this topic?
Full Body Resurrection
One objection from inside the Christian church is that we await full-body resurrection after we die. Christ had not been embalmed because he died on “the day of Preparation” (John 19:31), which one author tells us “seems to mean that day on which preparations were made for the ‘Passover Week.’” So, when Jesus was resurrected, all of his organs were intact.
When the disciples saw him, they may not consider what they were seeing. “Jesus himself stood amongst them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’ But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.” (Luke 24:36-37) To prove he was fully bodily present, he invited Thomas to place his fingers in his wounds and asked for something to eat. This further proves the matter that, upon resurrection, Jesus was not only spiritually whole but additionally physically whole.
Isaiah 26:18-19 declares: “We have achieved no deliverance within the earth, and the inhabitants of the world haven’t fallen. Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell within the dust, awake and sing for joy!” Jesus warned that “an hour is coming when all who’re within the tombs will hear his voice and are available out, those that have done good to the resurrection of life, and people who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:28-29) Does Scripture imply that burial is important slightly than cremation, lending to the argument for an intact body?
What, then, happens to a believer who dies after an illness through which an organ is removed? Or to the dead saints who suffered hideous torture comparable to disemboweling? Or those that have been burned in a house fire, blown up by a land mine, or crushed in a horrible accident? One Bible expert reassures us that “on the resurrection, it can not make any difference whether an individual’s body has been buried or cremated. God knows easy methods to raise the body”. Although we rise with our own body, it can be transformed right into a state that may never again know pain. God is fully capable of constructing this occur.
Reasons for Joining the Organ Donation Registry
Organ failure will not be necessarily an indication God desires to take someone home without delay, and medicos should stop interfering. That argument would bring an end to much of what the medical professions do today: extend and improve life wherever possible. So many procedures and ongoing treatments would come to an end, including blood infusions, dialysis, emergency surgeries, insulin injections, and cancer therapies.
What in regards to the risks of organ donation? Medical interventions have improved to the extent that it is sort of unheard of that somebody should die from donating an organ, and most recipients’ bodies accept their recent organs. Benefits outweigh the risks significantly, especially with living organ donation, where the recipient’s body is even less prone to reject, say, a donated kidney.
An individual can see organ donation as an act of obedience to God. “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” (Luke 3:11). Jesus was not only referring to specific things like food and clothing. Consider the double meaning of feeding bread and fish to five,000 hungry people: Jesus is the “bread of life.” (John 6:35)
Jesus often spoke metaphorically, but he also gave instruction. He told us that our love for him should result in love and repair for others. We can pair Jesus’ command to serve with the situation that’s presented to us and judge, through prayer and with the guidance of clever and godly friends, what’s required of us; even when meaning donating an organ.
Legacy of Love
Don Buckley, a physician and Christian in Florida, told the Baptist Press that “such a donation provides an unselfish witness of Christ’s love that extends beyond our death” and “allows us to be good stewards of our bodily temple through the tip of our lives. After death, our incorruptible resurrection bodies don’t have any need for these mortal organs we leave behind.” This is a strong incentive to provide a suffering individual hope of having fun with a greater quality of life, pointing to the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.
Billy Graham wrote that “it could possibly be a crucial a part of your heritage to the subsequent generation” and will find no objection to organ donation. Donor-related web sites across the country and around the globe stress that nearly every religion supports organ donation. For Christians, it can be crucial to grasp that while Jesus never specifically refers to being an organ donor, his teachings support the argument in favor of donation.
Donors night lead others to Christ, perhaps their recipients, but potentially others comparable to doctors, nurses, and members of the family. Numerous testimonies indicate the facility of this selfless act to bolster someone’s waning faith; to encourage depressed and doubting believers.
After all, the method for a living donor is daunting, so one should be truly committed to undergo testing and surgery. Consider kidney donation: first, the person has to have a pre-blood test to match with a recipient, followed by further testing for certain conditions, including diabetes and pre-diabetes. If those test results are encouraging, they’re followed by CT contrast scans of the kidneys, heart, and other organs. After surgery, one would require several weeks of recovery time, which could possibly be financially stressful; actually, an extended break from strenuous activity and lifelong checkups. Doctors advise donors with one kidney to avoid contact sports like martial arts and football. Becoming a donor is a large commitment, a serious statement of religion in Christ and love for one’s neighbor.
Potential Down Sides
But what if you happen to are doing this with the intention to win someone over to Christ – they usually will not be moved to consider in Christ alone for salvation? What in the event that they simply think this can be a nice gesture, or that the universe should be on their side? What in the event that they conclude that, since non-Christians donate organs too, this will not be an especially “Christian” motion?
Anonymous donation will definitely prevent one from sharing the love of Christ with a recipient and his or her family. On the opposite hand, a donor whose motivation is self-glorification or who’s attempting to earn God’s love through this act is conveying the flawed message anyway.
As a possible donor, living or dead, it can be crucial to ask yourself WHY you need to do that. We are commanded to like God and love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-39). We are told that if someone in front of us is needy, we’re to assist. Christ needs nothing from us, but “Truly, I say to you, as you probably did it to considered one of the least of those my brothers, you probably did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40). Our motivation ought to be to like Christ by loving others in accordance with what they need.
But pride and selfishness don’t have any place here. For example, donors must consider the emotions of their family members and no less than prepare them for the truth that their organs could possibly be harvested once they die. Becoming a posthumous organ donor may lead to an unwanted expectation upon children, parents, or a spouse, which comes as a surprise. Such selfless giving on the a part of a registered donor becomes distorted if she or he thinks in regards to the needs of strangers but forgets to no less than include the subsequent of kin within the conversation.
Also, donors must not think they’ll earn salvation or look to their actions as a way of self-glorification. The latter part is very difficult because living donors have a likelihood with their decision to share the story and potentially glorify Jesus, yet the narrative can so easily develop into focused on the human participants. This is a effective line to walk.
The Importance of Surrender
What in regards to the results of this surgery – imagine the distress to a live donor or the family of a deceased donor if the surgery is unsuccessful. What if a living donor suffers complications from the surgery and can have to live with chronic pain? These are more reasons to give up your complete matter to God because he gets the glory he wants by means which are sometimes hard to grasp. He has often been glorified by the ways through which his people suffer. Physical, short-term healing won’t be the results of organ donation. If you might be praying that a recipient will come to Christ, and that person still rejects Jesus, will this be a crushing blow? We obey Christ and the leading of his Spirit, not with the intention to receive the form of reward we’re in search of but because we trust him with the consequence. While the Bible seems to strongly support organ donation in life or death, the believer must still decide prayerfully.
Sources:
https://www.donoralliance.org/donation-and-protestantism
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-we-receive-the-same-body-we-had-on-earth-at-the-resurrection
https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/organ-donation-called-unselfish-witness-of-christs-love/
https://www.bibleref.com/John/19/John-19-31.html
https://billygraham.org/answer/when-a-christian-dies-is-it-all-right-to-cremate-the-body/
https://billygraham.org/answer/donating-organs-can-be-a-compassionate-act/
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