According to recent statistics, over 100,000 people in America are waiting to receive an organ, and on average, 16 people die daily while they wait for a transplant. These include young children. In each person’s case, without a new heart, kidney, liver, or lungs, their quality of life declines quickly. Doctors offer treatments to mitigate their symptoms while loved ones pray for a donor. The news of a donor is bittersweet if someone had to die in order to provide a healthy organ; perhaps a mixture of joyful, miraculous, and confusing when a living donor provides the organ. Is there any reason why Christians should not consider organ donation, either upon their death or while they are alive? Are there misconceptions about God’s Word on this topic?
Full Body Resurrection
One objection from within the Christian church is that we await full-body resurrection when we die. Christ had not been embalmed because he died on “the day of Preparation” (John 19:31), which one writer 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 could not believe what they were seeing. “Jesus himself stood among 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 put 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 also physically whole.
Isaiah 26:18-19 declares: “We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!” Jesus warned that “an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:28-29) Does Scripture imply that burial is essential rather than cremation, lending to the argument for an intact body?
What, then, happens to a believer who dies after an illness in which an organ is removed? Or to the dead saints who suffered hideous torture such as disemboweling? Or those who 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 “at the resurrection, it will not make any difference whether a person’s body has been buried or cremated. God knows how to raise the body”. Although we rise with our own body, it will be transformed into a state that will never again know pain. God is fully capable of making this happen.
Reasons for Joining the Organ Donation Registry
Organ failure is not necessarily a sign God wants to take someone home right now, and medicos should stop interfering. That argument would bring an end to much of what the medical professions do today: prolong 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 about the risks of organ donation? Medical interventions have improved to the extent that it is almost unheard of that someone should die from donating an organ, and most recipients’ bodies accept their new organs. Benefits outweigh the risks significantly, especially with living organ donation, where the recipient’s body is even less likely 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 5,000 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 lead to love and service for others. We can pair Jesus’ command to serve with the situation that is presented to us and decide, through prayer and with the guidance of wise and godly friends, what is required of us; even if that means donating an organ.
Legacy of Love
Don Buckley, a doctor 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 end of our lives. After death, our incorruptible resurrection bodies have no need for these mortal organs we leave behind.” This is a powerful incentive to give a suffering individual hope of enjoying a better quality of life, pointing to the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.
Billy Graham wrote that “it could be an important part of your heritage to the next generation” and could find no objection to organ donation. Donor-related websites across the country and around the world stress that almost every religion supports organ donation. For Christians, it is important to understand 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 such as doctors, nurses, and family members. Numerous testimonies indicate the power of this selfless act to bolster someone’s waning faith; to encourage depressed and doubting believers.
After all, the process for a living donor is daunting, so one must 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 are followed by CT contrast scans of the kidneys, heart, and other organs. After surgery, one will require several weeks of recovery time, which could be financially stressful; certainly, a long 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 huge commitment, a major statement of faith in Christ and love for one’s neighbor.
Potential Down Sides
But what if you are doing this in order to win someone over to Christ - and they are not moved to believe in Christ alone for salvation? What if they simply think this is a nice gesture, or that the universe must be on their side? What if they conclude that, since non-Christians donate organs too, this is not an especially “Christian” action?
Anonymous donation will certainly prevent one from sharing the love of Christ with a recipient and his or her family. On the other hand, a donor whose motivation is self-glorification or who is trying to earn God’s love through this act is conveying the wrong message anyway.
As a potential donor, living or dead, it is important to ask yourself WHY you want to do this. We are commanded to love God and love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-39). We are told that if someone in front of us is needy, we are to help. Christ needs nothing from us, but “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40). Our motivation should be to love Christ by loving others according to what they need.
But pride and selfishness have no place here. For example, donors must consider the feelings of their loved ones and at least prepare them for the reality that their organs could be harvested when they die. Becoming a posthumous organ donor could lead to an unwanted expectation upon children, parents, or a spouse, which comes as a surprise. Such selfless giving on the part of a registered donor becomes distorted if he or she thinks about the needs of strangers but forgets to at least include the next of kin in the conversation.
Also, donors must not think they will earn salvation or look to their actions as a way of self-glorification. The latter part is especially difficult because living donors have a chance with their decision to share the story and potentially glorify Jesus, yet the narrative can so easily become focused on the human participants. This is a fine line to walk.
The Importance of Surrender
What about the result 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 will have to live with chronic pain? These are more reasons to surrender the entire matter to God because he gets the glory he wants by means which are often hard to understand. He has often been glorified by the ways in which his people suffer. Physical, short-term healing might not be the result of organ donation. If you are 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 in order to receive the sort of reward we are looking for but because we trust him with the outcome. While the Bible seems to strongly support organ donation in life or death, the believer must still come to a decision 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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