Is Human Organ Transplantation Permissible?⤒🔗

We will begin by considering the question, "Is the use of part of one person in the body of another person permissible?" If it is not permissible, then all organ donation is wrong. In Christian circles, including our own, using part of one person in another is generally accepted. Most of us accept blood transfusions and cornea transplants without concern. On the other hand, some of us may question a heart transplant. Is there a difference?

God created each of us as a unique being. Every cell in our body, except red blood cells, have a DNA blueprint containing all the information needed to fully describe the physical parameters of our body. This fact makes every organ absolutely unique. Every organ, even after a transplant, keeps its DNA blueprint that links it to the body it came from. The absolute uniqueness of every single organ in the world is one of the things that makes organ transplants difficult to do. Just as every heart is uniquely designed to best suit the body it was made in, so it is with every cornea. From the point of view of this created uniqueness there is no difference between a major organ such as the heart, lungs or liver, and seemingly less important organs like corneas.

This principle can also be applied to the body of Christ. Christians are individually regenerated and recreated to become uniquely suited to form the body of Christ.¹ Together, the members of Christ's body possess all the information needed to identify Christ according to the DNA blueprint of the Holy Spirit.² The importance of every individual and the necessity of each member of the body is described in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26.

What are the implications of putting an organ, uniquely designed for a certain person, into a body that it was not designed for? Does God create organs that are uniquely designed for one person that He intends to be used in another person?

Although Scripture does not speak directly on this issue, it contains principles that may promote the use of organ transplants. The greatest example can be seen in the work of Christ. He used the very essence of His being to give life to others. In another example, the good Samaritan, who helped the man that fell among thieves, took his own resources and gave them to a man who was half dead in order that the man might be restored to life (Luke 10:30-37). Also, the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, reminds them of how greatly they cared about Paul in his weakness, saying that "if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me" (Galatians 4:15). At that time donating eyes was not possible, but Paul seems to be commending the desire to donate them. Our bodies are given to us by God to be used according to His will, or in the terminology of Paul, "to magnify Christ … whether by life or by death" (Philippians 1:20). If it is God's will that we help someone by giving them an organ which God has given us, Christ will be magnified.

There is a Bible passage that appears to go against using living organs of either human or animal origin. In Acts 15:1-20, when the elders of the early church came together to consider the issue of circumcision in salvation, James says,

Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

This speaks against taking in blood and appears to teach that blood transfusions and transplantation of any organs that contain blood are not permissible. Historically, this is not how the Christian church has interpreted this passage, as is evidenced by our acceptance of blood transfusions. The notes of the New Geneva Study Bible suggest that this was not a command, but encourages both Jewish and Greek Christian to practice moderation. The Jewish Christians are to recognize that Gentiles are not to be bound by Jewish ceremonial law. The Gentile believers must consider the scruples of the Jewish Christians which were shaped by the laws of Moses and not offend them by eating food sacrificed to idols or eating meat of strangled animals, or blood.³ Matthew Henry concurs with the statement that things strangled and containing blood were not evil in themselves, nor were they designed to be always abstained from as were those things which had been forbidden by the precepts of Noah before the law of Moses (Genesis 9:4).

Next, some may be concerned about the impact of transplanting an organ from one person into another in regard to the resurrection of the body. Can we live in the expectation of the resurrection of the body and give away one of our organs? God tells us that we are dust and unto dust we will return (Genesis 3:19, Ecclesiastes 3:20, Job 34:15). As dust our bodies do not remain together in the grave. Many graves have had their dust washed away and spread out by the forces of nature. The fact that the dust of our ancestors does not remain in one lump over time will not stop God from resurrecting their bodies. Daniel 12:2 says, "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

If it is our bodies as we know them that shall rise, then all the molecules that make up "us" will have to come together. If this is true, there must be in the dust of the earth one set of molecules representing every person who has ever lived, since all shall rise in the last day. This would mean that even if part of our body was separated from us before death and put into someone else, the molecules that represent our body would still exist and could be brought back together in the last day. Loss of an organ or replacing an organ would not remove from the dust of the earth the molecules that represent us. Organ donation would not hinder the resurrection.

Yet, I believe this way of thinking is too simple. Heaven and earth as we know it shall pass away (Matthew 24:35). Paul responds to the question, "How are the dead to be raised?" by indicating that the bodies of Christians which are raised will not be exactly like the bodies which died (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). These bodies are sown in corruption (vs. 42) and will be changed and raised in incorruption (1 Corinthians vss. 51-52). The imperfections represented in the dust of the earth will not prevent the Lord from making all things new (Revelation 21:5).

So we find that, in principle, organ donation is not absolutely forbidden by Scripture and that there are some scriptural principles that may promote it. We learn that donating an organ will not hinder the resurrection of the body.