11. THE BREATH OF LIFE
DR. EARL PARVIN
11/16/21, 1/19/22
Life begins nine months before a child takes its first breath. That is for Christians any way. The fetus’s life is totally dependent upon its mother’s breathing and that connection is through the mother’s placenta, because God knew that the baby’s blood dare not mix with the mother’s for her immune system would recognize it as foreign and seek to destroy it.
It is quite clear that “Life is in the blood” “11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life [Lev. 17:11] both Biblically and biologically. Yet it is just as clear that “breath” is the vehicle of Life from Elohim “7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. [Gen. 2:7].
We could rightly note that God is the original source of life which He chose to convey to Adam by breathing it into him. Then the “life” principle is conveyed by parents via their blood. Which again I note death is often used in Scripture as the price to be paid in a blood sacrifice for sin. “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” [Heb. 9:22].
What is it about blood which so powerfully illustrates Divine Truth that “life is IN the blood”. If you are like me, I had to school myself to understand that blood is not “life in itself” but in reality it contains a synonym for the life principle without being life. Life is literally in the blood. How or what is it IN the blood that represents life? Bear with me to illustrate.
I read the heart-wrenching story of a couple where the wife was pregnant with their second child. The first child was a fine healthy son. The pregnancy for the second was to be a daughter. An ultrasound revealed the awful truth that she was carrying a genetic blood disorder called “alpha thalassemia” that could lead to her having dangerously low red blood cells [RBC]. RBC blood cells carry hemoglobin which binds to OXYGEN which all 60 trillion cells in the body must have to live. Most babies therefor do not survive or they must have blood transfusions throughout their short lives… There is more to the story. It does have a happy ending for the family. The baby had a stem cell transplant in utero from the mother’s bone marrow. [TIME, 9/24/18]. An early procedure that was successful by God’s grace.
The point is this. Somehow I see a connection about this transfer of life via the blood. This marvelous gift of life. It is God’s loving grace to me symbolized by His wonderful Breath, represented by Oxygen, which reminds me He not only numbers the hairs on my head [though fewer now] He supplies the breath [Oxygen] to every cell [all 60 trillion] in my body. That is loving care! So, I am glad to understand it was not only God’s breath that started the first life but it was also implied in the New Testament Truth that it was still His breath in the fact that Life IS in the blood with the understanding that it was symbolized by the oxygen in the blood that is representing God’s breath as a reminder. Let us not forget the source of life as have those who buy into Evolution which denies God!
CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
I suggest that this concept is further implied in God’s design of the cardiovascular system of the human body. Would you believe that this is the first organ system the embryo starts to self-assemble and within 2 weeks of conception. Everything else, all 60 trillion cells, will depend on this system for food and power or oxygen which empowers every organelle in the cells .
The blood is made up of Oxygen carrying Red Blood Cells, disease-fighting White Blood Cells and blood clotting platelets flowing in a liquid plasma to 60 trillion cells so they could make 10 million chemical reactions every second. The Blood circulates through highly flexible, ever smaller growing blood vessels over 60,000 miles in approximately one minute.
Please note that this amazing highway starts out from the heart in LARGE arteries, which become veins and finally to capillaries which are smaller in diameter than the 6 micrometer wide red blood cell which is only 1/10th the size of a human hair. Therefore, how can the critically necessary blood with its oxygen load be delivered to those remote cells? Only the Master Designer could readily solve this problem! He created the RBC not only to be bi-concave to carry the needed oxygen but to be able to flex its shape such that it could navigate capillaries too small and then return to its normal shape on exiting with its load of CO 2 plus metabolic debris.
I am also reminded that the RBC cells do not have a nucleus, like most cells, precisely to have sufficient capacity to carry the necessary load of oxygen. This means that an RBC can not reproduce itself and these cells only live 120 days. Therefore, 1/120 of the 25 trillion RBC cell supply needed must be replaced routinely. How can this be done? God provided that the bone marrow would produce a trillion RBC daily or 2 m/s.
One other matter to note about God’s provision in this scenario is what becomes of all those dead RBC? In the blood you may recall there are also white blood cells sometimes called phagocytes? That is one of their jobs.
MAKEUP OF BLOOD
There are 70 liters of blood in a human body. It is made up of numerous protein elements: Erythrocytes [RBC] transporting oxygen, Leucocytes [WBC] for carrying phagocytes, Thrombocytes [platelets] for clotting purposes and plasma full of vitamins, minerals and whatever the cells need for their factories etc.
LYMPHATIC SYSTEM
You might also like to know that along with the massive blood vessel system highway for the RBC, there is another equally widespread lymphatic system which intertwines and parallels. What is its purpose? One of its vital jobs is to cleanse the blood and help carry the white blood cell phagocytes to fight infection. Notice, the blood capillary system is finely inter-woven with the parallel lymphatic capillary system, especially around the body’s wide spread lymph nodes.
Does this not smack of “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,I know that full well” [Psalm 139:13-14].
These co-working systems work wonderfully together because of magnificent design. These 25 billion leucocytes move around in the blood with little “legs” so to speak patrolling like State Police looking for trouble pathogens. Interestingly 25 billion more are “parked” along the blood vessels as backup. They have a “shelf-life” by design. Some live only 13 – 20 days, but other T and B cells live decades. A few others may live 50 to 70 years which are specially programed by the immune system
for specific antigens by the immune system. So we might say the lymphatic capillary system is so intimately knitted together with the blood capillary system that it is almost like swinging doors between them as a backup for any emergency.
Do you not agree we are privileged serving such a Superlative Grand Master!
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
FLASH: scientists were “surprised” when they recently discovered the reality that human brains act differently from what they call other animals. If they had only consulted the OWNER’S MANUAL [BIBLE] they would not have been surprised! God made different kinds of animals and mankind. He certainly used some carefully engineered “parts” in both as possible, but not in the brains. [11/16/21]
I read recently that a carefully modified pig’s heart was successfully transplanted into a terminally ill human male.
Now I read that space travel for astronauts has a problem called “space anemia” or the destruction of RBC by 3 million/ second or 10% while in space. Normally on earth 2 million are replaced / second. It normally took 3 to 4 months to return to normalcy here on earth. What this means for creating residency in weightlessness will require more study. The body is remarkably resilient by God’s engineering. But was it part of His plan for mankind to colonize other planets? He clearly made earth to be occupied by mankind.
CONCLUSION
Certainly life is IN the blood, carried by the blood which was marvelously designed by God which took organized skills and knowledge to make work and on the first and only spoken word. Superlative! The more we study the Word the more we adore the intricate details encased.
They have not even discovered the half.
Some of these ideas were gleaned from Dr. Gillen, in Answers In Depth, 2019,”Life Is In the Blood”.