The worldwide blockbuster movie Jurassic Park imagined a world where dinosaurs were brought back to life via the techniques of genetics and cloning. The head of the project recovered dinosaur DNA from ancient mosquitos trapped in amber. These mosquito’s had feasted on dino blood and the scientists at Jurassic Park extracted Dino DNA from that blood, and then used it to clone dinosaurs.
Of course the move is far fetched, but there are some in the world suggesting we could do the same thing with Jesus. The Second Coming Project is suggesting a kind of religious Jurassic Park. An uncorrupted cell of Jesus would be extracted from ancient religious relics and used to create a clone of Jesus. It would be planted in the womb of a virgin, thus bringing about the Second Coming of Jesus!
Of course the proposal has about as much scientific validity as Hollywood’s Jurassic Park, but what if we could clone Jesus? Would we end up with the Son of God? British evangelical leader David Hilborn says, "Divinity is what distinguishes Jesus from the rest of us, and divinity is not contained in DNA," says Hilborn. "There are no genes or chromosomes for God."
This helps us overcome a common misunderstanding of Jesus’ divinity. Many people imagine Jesus as half human, half God. At a popular level it has even been said that Jesus carried 23 human chromosomes and 23 divine chromosomes! But this misunderstands Jesus’ nature. He was fully human and fully divine. So cloning Jesus’ DNA, even if it could be done, would not give us the incarnate Son of God.
Source: Scott Higgins. Cloning proposal can be found at clonejesus.com.
Hilborn quote from Bible Review Jots and Tittles section, December 2000.
Applications: Jesus, incarnation, Second Coming, Christ's return, eschatology