For the first time in history, surgeons replaced a man’s failing heart with that of a pig. We have been able to use heart valves from pigs for over 30 years, but only within the last few months have scientists been able to successfully transplant an entire organ. In October, they demonstrated the ability to transplant a pig kidney. Now we’ve moved on to hearts. This is an incredible time, indeed!
The main hurdle for transplanted organs from pigs is the human immune system – a tougher force than airport security. Cells that are being encouraged to work with the new tissue can detect the presence of foreign body chemistry – specifically the carbohydrate alpha-gal. Since humans do not produce this chemical, the immune system rejects the tissue as a foreign invader almost immediately. Researchers tried various ways of suppressing the reaction but the system would not relent. The only way to present the body with a pig heart was to build a new pig. Genetic engineering allowed scientists to create pigs without the genes that produce alpha-gal. The organs can now pass through security like they own the place.
How many times did God’s people reject the new heart He longed to place inside them? Israel’s history shows God working in every generation to win them back to Him. Consider the time of the judges. The people were a free confederation of tribes without a central monarchy. They lived in the homeland that was promised to their ancestors. They dwelt in towns and villages they did not have to build. They were surrounded by farms they did not have to dig out with their own picks and shovels. God worked out all of this so that their hearts might seek after Him. What was their response?
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them.
Judges 2:11-12, ESV
They turned their backs on the God who showed them love and compassion. The other gods had pretty statues. The other temples glittered like gold. Yahweh is the god of the wilderness – we need the god of the harvest. On and on the explanations would have come but in the end, the people simply rejected God in their hearts.
Ezekiel caught a vision of a new covenant that held new promises. God would put an end to the cycle of rejection. He would place a new heart in His people:
And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 11:19-20, ESV
Through Christ, the old heart prone to reject God is made new again. The Holy Spirit resides now within the hearts of a people who want to live for God’s Word, not the glittering idols of the world. Don’t spend one more moment rejecting the new life He has to offer!