Christians and organ donation?

Question

Okay this is a question I have had for awhile. I am a christian and I don't just say it-I try to be a great example for others and try to do things that please God. Here is the question. I think donating organs is a great thing to do but if you die and donate your organs and the rapture comes,("and the dead in Christ shall rise") Will the person who got your organs just die? Will that organ stop working? I know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord but that is your soul not your body so Is it OK to donate your organs? I would like your thoughts on this. Also why or why not? Also serious answers only please. I am not rude to anyone else about their faith so please respect mine as well and no ugly comments! Thank you and God Bless!

Answer 1

You said it.........absent from the body, present with the Lord. The part of us that will be raptured is our soul.......the body will be changed to a spiritual body. In the case of organs already donated you have to know none of your soul is in that organ....it is only flesh. I think the worst that could happen is that the organ shrivels and dies, leaving the person right back where he started......needing an organ donation. So, yeah, I think it's o.k. to donate organs. It's a good thing.

Answer 2

A proper understanding of 1 Corinthians 15:35-49 teaches a tremendous difference between the physical body at death, which may be buried or disposed of in various ways, and the spiritual body of the resurrection. IF the end-time resurrection of our bodies means simply the REoccupation of the previous body, then the entire doctrine of resurrection presented in the Bible is erroneous.

Paul uses the analogy of the difference between a seed and the product of that seed to illustrate the difference between the earthly body and the resurrected body. What is planted is not the same as the end product of the seed. Neither is the physical body the same as the future spiritual body. The fact that Jesus' recognizable resurrected body was similar to his crucified and buried body supports an argument against organ donation. Jesus' resurrected body bore scars from crucifixion (Luke 24:39) and was evidently nourished by physical food (Luke 24:42-43), but it also was supernatural and had qualities his physical body did not possess (John 20:19). Jesus was in a transitional state though, between an earthly body and a heavenly body" , where the form in which Jesus rose from the dead was one in which he could be seen, but his present existence was in the spiritual realm" (1 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 3:18). The earthly body will not enter into the heavenly inheritance (1 Corinthians 15:50). Based on these facts, there would be no justification for prohibiting organ donation and transplantation because of the need for a physically intact body prior to entering the resurrected state.

Answer 3

Nothing in the bible about this except..........Love your Neighbor as yourself. If YOU were dying and needed an organ transplant, would you want to receive one? Yes. Therefore, you should be an organ donor and potentially help someone else. The bible is clear we get a new body. Your current one will turn to dust. Donate. Peace. Edit: The clearest verses on this topic: 1 Cor 15 35 But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven

Answer 4

You will not need your physical body. You will be given a new body that isn't physical in the same sense. There is no greater gift than the gift of life to another.

I must add, so others are not discouraged, that when the organ doner is having surgery and the organs are removed, anesthesia is most certainly being given. Just because a person is in a coma or brain-dead, it doesn't mean they can't feel pain. No respectful surgeon would perform these procedures without the patient being in an anesthetized state.

Answer 5

Organ donation is a blessed event that can save lives. The body does not need to contain everything present in its original form in order to rise again. If this were the case, what would happen to those who have lost limbs, or suffered burns. All will be restored upon the resurrection of life.

Answer 6

It seems to me that when the Rapture is spoken of, that it cannot refer to a literal recreation of the bodily organs. Otherwise, there would be serious problems with people whose bodies are near completely destroyed--I'm thinking here of people dead for over a thousand years (in unstable soil), or those killed in nuclear explosions, or things of that nature. To think that the actual state of the body matters in regards to how the Rapture works is, to me, to place unecessary limitations on God's power. Additionally, one could easily argue that once you are dead, your body no longer belongs to you--it belongs to the collective, to God, to the Earth, however you want to say it. Which is to say, once you're dead, the "you" that's left is not inherently linked to those organs which used to carry your soul. Instead, those organs now belong to the others. Otherwise, even donating blood would be a problem.

I think of the story Jesus told when the Pharisees (sp?) asked him if it was okay to search for a lost child on the Sabbath. Jesus replied, in effect, of course you fools, you'd go rescue a pig from a well, so why wouldn't you search for a child? I see this as a message that dogmatic adherance to a set of rules is not how God works, that compasion and love can override "commandments." Thus, regardless of how the Rapture "works" according to the "rules," God can choose to keep your ex-organs working in the un-raptured should God want to.

Answer 7

I think it's fine to donate your organs. Even if we are raised from the dead, to be risen with Christ, it doesn't mean we are actually alive. I mean, what if a Christian was cremated? Would the ashes float up, i don't think they would. I doubt that God would pull us out of heaven to be raised with Christ to go back into heaven. Perhaps it is a different meaning "the dead in Christ shall rise" like, those that must keep it silent per say, appear to be dead, but will be lifted up anyway

Answer 8

It is OK to donate your organs either when your alive or dead in the eyes of God. God considers this an act of a good Samaritan helping someone in need. Not as a sin. God judges us by where are thoughts are and what good deeds we have done to help our fellow man not the condition of our bodies at or after death. I hope my answer makes sense to you.

Answer 9

I believe in Jesus and I also like the idea of organ donation. I believe our spirits will rise when Jesus comes back (if we're dead) and if others have our organs, they will either rise in the air also (to be with the Lord) or they will live (with our organs in working order) while the tribulation happens.

Answer 10

I personally would never donate my organs for fear of the afterlife. I feel like I need my body to be "whole". When at the DMV I always answer no. Its just my personal belief.