Scientists find possible life signature on distant planet

The BBC reports that scientists have discovered “new but tentative evidence that a faraway world orbiting another star may be home to life.” A Cambridge University team studying the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b has detected signs of molecules that on Earth are only produced by simple organisms. However, the team and independent astronomers stress that more data is needed.

K2-18b is two and a half times the size of our planet and seven hundred trillion miles away from us. Scientists discovered in its atmosphere the chemical signature of gases produced on Earth by marine phytoplankton and bacteria. However, they cannot be sure that these gases are produced in the same way on the distant planet.

Nikole Lewis, an exoplanetary scientist at Cornell University, responded to the news: “I’m not screaming, aliens! But I always reserve my right to scream ‘aliens!’”

Nonetheless, the Cambridge lead researcher believes his team is on the right track, calling their findings “the strongest evidence yet that there is possibly life out there.” He added, “Decades from now, we may look back at this point in time and recognize it was when the living universe came within reach.”

How should we view this possibility through the prism of Scripture?

God created K2-18b

The Bible declares that “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), including planet K2-18b. However, it does not state whether God created life only on our planet.

If he did create organisms on other planets, we do not know if, like humans, they are made in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:27) and thus with intellect and free will. If they are, we must assume that they eventually misused this freedom to sin against their Maker.

In this case, they need the atonement of Jesus as much as we do. We can then speculate whether he has visited their planet as he did ours and died for their sins as he did for ours.

However, here’s where all such speculation ends: whatever Jesus does about salvation on other planets, we know what he has done about salvation on ours.

“Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

I am writing this article for Good Friday, joining billions of others around the planet in remembering our Savior’s tortured death on our behalf. Here’s a dimension of his execution that deserves our focus today: “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 10:39). You might think that “tree” is simply a reference to the wood of the Roman cross, but far more is meant here.

This word in Greek (xylon) is used in the Greek translation of Deuteronomy 21:23: “Cursed by God is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” As a result, we know that Jesus was “cursed by God” when he died on his wooden cross.

Paul made the same allusion: “When they carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb” (Acts 13:29). The apostle later expanded the significance of this reference:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13–14).

What does it mean to be “cursed” by God? The Greek word (katara) is the opposite of eulogia, “blessing.” One scholar defines it as “the destruction resulting from judgment” that involves “both the sentence of the divine judgment and the ruin therein inflicted.” By “becoming a curse for us,” Jesus took this sentence on himself and paid its price.

All of this was involved in Jesus’ crucifixion on a “tree.” Had he died by stoning (the typical Jewish method) or beheading (the way Rome executed its citizens), his atoning death would not so clearly have paid the debt for our sins. Stephen was stoned to death (Acts 7:54–60), while reliable early tradition says Paul was beheaded. The Jewish people would not have connected either death to the curse of God as they could with Jesus.

To summarize: Jesus was “cursed by God” when he was “hanged on a tree” so we could become the children of God and live forever before his throne (John 1:12; Revelation 7:9–12).

My visit to death row

I will always remember visiting death row and the execution room at Huntsville State Prison some years ago. The death chamber is where the condemned prisoner lies on a gurney, his arms strapped in a perpendicular position from his body, then tubes are inserted into his arm to carry chemicals into his body that stop his heart and end his life.

The warden, a gracious elderly gentleman and a committed Christian, led me on my visit. Standing in that room, I imagined one of my sons on that gurney and nearly broke into tears. Then I imagined the kindly warden taking my son’s place, reaching out his arms, taking the lethal injection, and dying a death he did not deserve so my son could live.

I realized that I would spend the rest of my life seeking to honor his sacrifice with unspeakable gratitude.

This is the invitation of Good Friday to your heart and mine today.