Days of Noah

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. 

[Genesis 6:9]

What does genetic engineering, cloning, designer babies, and mRNA technology have to do with the days of Noah?

Much more than you can possibly imagine.

When geneticists first began to map the human genome in the early 1990s through the Human Genome Project, scientists were able for the first time “to read nature’s complete genetic blueprint for building a human being.” Initial sequencing of the human genome was accomplished in 2003 but was not considered complete until May of last year (2021).

This unprecedented discovery has opened the Pandora’s box of genetic applications that were considered science fiction merely 20 years ago. Now that geneticists have identified specific genes and the digital code that distinctly programs each one in function, the field of genetics has exploded past information theory and accelerated into clinical fields of gene therapy, engineering, and alteration.

The result has been astonishing if not terrifying altogether.

With little regulation and international competition driving the industry, we are now seeing everything from genetically modified food (GMO) to animal/human chimeras to pet cloning to enhanced super soldiers among others.

Perhaps the most revolutionary technology to date, however, is the advent of CRISPR Cas9, which has effectively changed the future of genetics. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and is basically a cut and paste gene-editing technology that allows scientists to alter and upgrade defective genes within human DNA and recode it with new information for correction.

CRISPR is efficient both in cost and application, which makes the technology most appealing to the pioneers of genetics, yet for those seeking to manipulate DNA beyond the present boundaries of human existence, CRISPR is the potential pathway to transhumanism — or the belief that biotechnology can recreate mankind into a new species altogether. Although such radical technologies initially are always justified under the guise of medical breakthrough to better humanity, the ethical implications literally are blurring the lines of what it means to be human as created in the image of God.

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

So back to my original question? What does this revolutionary technology have to do with Noah’s day?

First, Genesis 6 provides the initial framework for the original genetic corruption of God’s creation, which in turn led to the global destruction of all life — save Noah — by way of the flood. The Bible introduces us to the great supernatural rebellion in Genesis 6, which led to the forbidden transgression of God’s law and perversion of the created order itself.

The “sons of God” in Genesis 6 are the same “angels that sinned,” according to 2 Peter 2:4-5 and Jude 1:6-7, namely by leaving their proper domain in the heavenly realm and crossing over into the physical world to commit profane acts of sexual immorality that resulted in the creation of a hybrid race of giants called the Nephilim.

So gross and pervasive was this corruption of the human race in Noah’s day that God determined to destroy all genetically compromised life on earth and preserve the only human family left that had not yet been genetically tainted. It is against the backdrop of this genetic corruption that we fully understand how God saved the human race through Noah, who was “perfect and blameless in his generations” [Genesis 6:9].

The Hebrew word “blameless” in Genesis 6:9 is tamim: תָּמִים — which means to be physically pure without defect or blemish. It is the same word used of the passover lamb in the Torah, which had to pure and spotless physically — without flaw or defect.

Aside from Noah’s righteousness and spiritual integrity, he and his family by all accounts were the last true genetically intact humans on the planet, still bearing the image of God. As we see, it was not only humanity that had been corrupted prior to the flood, but also all plant and animal life seems to have been compromised, as the LORD preserved two of every “kind” of animal on the ark to ensure that the animal kingdom was not lost to genetically altered chimeras and hybrid monstrosities that did not reflect God’s original creation.

Strangely enough, the ancient mythical stories of centaurs, manticores, and griffins are more likely fact than fiction, and with the advancements in genetic engineering taking place today, we now have the potential for the same type of corruption that threatened the existence of mankind in Noah’s day.

When Jesus warned us that the last days leading to His coming judgment would be as it was in the days of Noah, He was giving us prophetic insight into a day and age when the spiritual forces of darkness would once again attempt to corrupt God’s image and pervert God’s creation by means of genetic manipulation.

We are living in that day, and like Noah … we have the responsibility to call the world to repentance before it is too late.

May God have mercy on this world.