My Father’s Genes – Part VII – God’s DNA

Part VI expanded the scope of our vision regarding the universe of DNA combinations. If human conception and birth is the method of propagating human DNA, then is being “born again” the method God provides for propagating His spiritual DNA in humans? And if so, which if any of His attributes (or DNA) should we expect to receive?

God’s DNA

How can we even begin to investigate such an awesome idea? The only way I can think of is to try to discern how much He has chosen to reveal to us through His word. It would be the height of presumption to suggest that we as humans could ever receive the same measure of holiness as God possesses, but it is not unthinkable to believe on the authority of His word that we can possess the same quality of His holiness. Else why would He command us “… just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15,16 with references to Leviticus chapters 11, 19 and 20) Peter picks up the theme again in 2 Peter 3:11,12: “…what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God….” I only need a thimble full of the Pacific Ocean to possess something qualitatively equivalent to the whole ocean. Since there are many excellent books available on the subject of holiness, I am confident that the serious reader can find sufficient material at sites such as Beacon Hill Press and similar publishers.

There are many books and Bible studies also available listing and discussing the attributes of God. I’m confident that any list I would make of the attributes of God would be far from complete. However, I’m also confident that we can list many directly from the Bible and infer others. Since we believe in the Triune God I believe it appropriate to include attributes of Jesus the Christ and the Holy Spirit as well.

A partial list might include:
• Omnipotent
• Omniscient
• Omnipresent
• Reason/Discernment
• Compassion/Gentleness
• Generosity
• Grace
• Eternal/Everlasting
• Truth
• Father
• Fortress
• Invisible
• Jealous
• Judge
• Law-giver
• Merciful
• Shield
• Strong Tower
• Shepherd
• Absolute existence
• Infinite
• Single yet triune
• Spiritual
• Eternal
• Transcendent and Immanent
• Intelligent
• Good
• Integrity
• Love
• And many others, too numerous to list.

It’s obvious that many of the attributes of God are reserved for Him and Him alone and not available to us in any “DNA” form, such as His omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. These are attributes used by Him in His role as Creator and Administrator of the universe and all that’s in it, and are important to us as we try to gain some understanding of this whole subject of being born again.

I think it would be useful at this point to take a deeper look at God’s omnipotence. The power of God is so much greater than we can even imagine that most of us put away our imagination on this subject and move on to things we think we can get our mental arms around.

There are important reasons for us to gain some understanding of God’s power. First, we don’t want to be lumped in with the Sadducees who Jesus reprimanded: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” (Matt. 22:29)

On another occasion:
17 One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
21 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
22 Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.…” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 25 Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.” (Luke 5:17-26)

There are many facets to God’s power. Some of the observable ones are:
• Creation power
• Physical power
• Intellectual power
• Medical power
• Salvation power
• Forgiveness power
• Transformation power

Other attributes of God, given us in our born-again state in order that we may reflect Him to the world around us, we can infer from many scriptures. In succeeding Parts in this series we also want to examine more closely those dealing with the “Gifts of the Spirit” and the “Fruit of the Spirit”.