Heart and Soul

It has not happened yet, by it someday might. It may now sound like science fiction, but may someday not.

Researchers at the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota, while seeking new treatments for heart disease, have miraculously managed to grow a rat heart in a lab and actually start it beating! Dr. Doris Taylor, director of the center said after the work using cells from the rat, "By two days we saw tiny, microscopic contractions, and by seven to eight days there were contractions large enough to see with the naked eye. The tiny hearts could pump liquid at about one-fourth the rate of a normal fetal rat's heart.

”Taylor further commented, "Obviously we have a long way to go, but the long-term hope is that a similar process could work with either human hearts from cadavers or pig hearts, with their cells stripped off and replaced by cells from the person needing a heart transplant to avoid rejection.” Today some 5 million people live with some form of heart failure. Approximately 50,000 die annually while waiting for a heart donor and these will be replaced by another 550,000 new cases.

The heart is a primary subject in the Scriptures and, it could be argued, is ‘the’ focal point of everything Biblical. It is referred to hundreds of times throughout. With very few, if any, exceptions, it speaks of man’s inner spiritual condition and not about a physical organ that pumps blood through his veins and allows life to proceed.

In the Old Testament, there is perhaps no clearer verse than Jeremiah 17:9 when considering the condition of man’s soul and his impaired relationship with God. Verse 9 reads, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?" Psalm 14:2-3 is equally blunt. “The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside,they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.”

In the New Testament Gospel of Matthew we find this wickedness expanded upon in some detail. Chapter 15 and verse 18 begins, “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man.”

The fully darkened heart of man is the final downfall of man. But a loving Creator has devised and implemented a solitary solution for this all-encompassing spiritual malfunction. His staggering redemptive plan is revealed through passages like Romans 6:17-18. “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” The expanded details this time are found in Romans 10:9-10, “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Medical science and modern life-saving procedures are among the great blessings of living in the 21st century. But the primary advantage of medical advance is not just to extend a physical existence. For those outside of God’s family, any precious extra time that keeps the physical heart alive is to give opportunity to resuscitate a spiritual heart that is dead!

And for those already alive in Christ, each breath they enjoy should carry with it both a thankful heart and one desirous and committed to fulfill life’s primary purpose. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10

And for those who do just that, John 14:1-3 guarantees peace of heart in this life and rewards beyond comprehension in the next. "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

Bill Breckenridge