Extraterrestrial Life: What Does the Bible Say? The Bible and ETs It is often asked, ‘Just because the Bible teaches about God creating intelligent life only on Earth, why couldn’t He have done so elsewhere?’ After all, Scripture does not discuss everything, e.g. motorcars. However, the biblical objection to ET is not merely an argument from silence. Motor cars, for example, are not a salvation issue, but we believe that sentient,intelligent, moral-decision-capable beings is, because it would undermine the authority of Scripture. In short, understanding the big picture of the Bible/gospel message allows us to conclude clearly that the reason the Bible doesn’t mention extraterrestrials (ETs) is that there aren’t any.1 Surely, if the earth were to be favoured with a visitation by real extraterrestrials from a galaxy far, far away, then one would reasonably expect that the Bible, and God in His sovereignty and foreknowledge, to mention such a momentous occasion, because it would clearly redefine mans place in the universe. The Bible indicates that the whole creation groans and travails under the weight of sin (Romans 8:18–22). The effect of the Curse following Adam’s Fall was universal.2 Otherwise what would be the point of God destroying this whole creation to make way for a new heavens and Earth—2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1 ff? Therefore, any ETs living elsewhere would have been (unjustly) affected by the Adamic Curse through no fault of their own—they would not have inherited Adam’s sin nature. When The Messiah (God) appeared in the flesh, He came to Earth not only to redeem mankind but eventually the whole creation back to Himself (Romans 8:21, Colossians 1:20). However, The Messiah’s atoning death at Calvary cannot save these hypothetical ETs, because one needs to be a physical descendant of Adam for The Messiah to be our ‘kinsman-redeemer’ (Isaiah 59:20). The Messiah was called ‘the last Adam’ because there was a real first man, Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22,45)—not a first Vulcan, Klingon etc. This is so a sinless human Substitute takes on the punishment all humans deserve for sin (Isaiah 53:6,10; Matthew 20:28; 1 John 2:2, 4:10), with no need to atone for any (non-existent) sin of his own (Hebrews 7:27). Since this would mean that any ETs would be lost for eternity when this present creation is destroyed in a fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10, 12), some have wondered whether The Messiah’s sacrifice might be repeated elsewhere for other beings. However, The Messiah died once for all (Romans 6:10, 1 Peter 3:18) on the earth. He is not going to be crucified and resurrected again on other planets (Hebrews 9:26). This is confirmed by the fact that the redeemed (earthly) church is known as The Messiah’s bride (Ephesians 5:22–33; Revelation 19:7–9) in a marriage that will last for eternity. The Messiah is not going to be a polygamist with many other brides from other planets. The Bible makes no provision for God to redeem any other species, any more than to redeem fallen angels (Hebrews 2:16). Fitting them in there … somehow! One attempt to fit ETs in the Bible is on the basis of a word in Hebrews 11:3: ‘Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.’ The word ‘worlds’ appears in the KJV translation and some others, and some claim that it refers to other inhabitable planets. However, the word is αἰῶν (aiōn), from which we derive the word ‘eons’. Thus modern translations render the word as ‘universe’ (entire space-time continuum) because it correctly describes ‘everything that exists in time and space, visible and invisible, present and eternal’. Even if it was referring to other planets, it is an unwarranted extrapolation to presume intelligent life on them. It should also be remembered that expressions like “the heavens and earth” (Beresheet/Genesis 1:1) are a figure of speech known as a merism.This occurs when two opposites or extremes are combined to represent the whole or the sum of its parts. For example, if I said “I painted the whole building from top to bottom.” One would understand this to mean everything in the whole building. Similarly, biblical Hebrew had has no word for ‘the universe’ and can at best say ‘the all’, so instead it used the merism “the heavens and the earth”. It is clear that New Testament passages like the aforementioned Romans 8:18–22 and Hebrews 11:3 are pointing back to the Beresheet/Genesis (“heavens and earth”) creation, and thus, everything that God made and when time as we know it began. See this further explanation. The Messiah’ teaching was causing division among the Jews, because they always believed that salvation from God was for them alone. The Messiah was reaffirming that He would be the Saviour of all mankind. Another is the passage in John 10:16 in which The Messiah says, ‘I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.’ However, even an ET-believing astronomer at the Vatican (thus a ‘hostile witness’ to the ‘no ETs cause’), a Jesuit priest by the name of Guy Consalmagno, concedes, ‘In context, these “other sheep” are presumably a reference to the Gentiles, not extraterrestrials.’ The Messiah’ teaching was causing division among the Jews (vs. 19), because they always believed that salvation from God was for them alone. The Messiah was reaffirming that He would be the Saviour of all mankind. A novel approach A more recent idea to allow for ETs arose out of a perceived need to protect Israelites in the event of a real alien visitation to Earth. Michael S. Heiser is an influential UFOlogist/speaker with a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages. He claims that the arguments put forward earlier might not apply to God-created aliens. Because they are not descendants of Adam they have not inherited his sin nature, and thus, are not morally guilty before God. Just like ‘bunny rabbits’ on the earth, they do not need salvation—even though they will die, they are going to neither heaven nor hell. On the surface this seems a compelling argument; after all, fallen angels are intelligent but are beyond salvation (“For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. Hebrews 2:16). Angels are immortal and not of our corporeal dimension. And Heiser’s ETs in spaceships require a level of intelligence not found in rabbits. This acutely highlights the injustice of their suffering the effects of the Curse, including death and ultimately extinction when the heavens are ‘rolled up like a scroll’ (Revelation 6:14). It also seems bizarre to assign no moral responsibility for the actions of highly intelligent beings. Heiser also claims that vastly intelligent ETs would not displace mankind’s position as being made in the image of God because ‘image’ just means humans have been placed as God’s representatives on the earth. However, the Bible says we are made in God’s image and likeness (Beresheet/Genesis 1:26). Man was immediately created a fully intelligent being about 6,000 years ago and was involved in craftsmanship shortly thereafter (Beresheet/Genesis 4:22). Since that time, even we have not been able to develop technologies advanced enough to travel to other star systems. If aliens were capable of developing incredible faster-than-light spaceships needed to get here, one would presume they must have been created with vastly superior intellect to ours—which would make them even more in God’s likeness in that sense than we are. Or, their creation is much older than the 6,000 years of the biblical six-day time frame; the aliens were created before man and had sufficient time to develop their technologies. However, God created Earth on Day 1 and later the heavenly bodies on Day 4. All Glory To The God of Israel...
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:03:22 +0000
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