“In a Fear-Inspiring Way I Am Wonderfully Made”
So David sang long ago in a psalm of praise to Jehovah
ONE plus 1 equals 1. That’s strange mathematics. But then that 1 divides into 2, then 4, then 8, and continues dividing until years later the 1 has become 60 trillion or more. That’s marvelous mathematics!
We’re talking about us, about a process each one of us has experienced. One male sperm met one female ovum in our mother’s Fallopian tube and they merged to become one fertilized egg cell. Nine months and countless millions of cells later we entered the world as a newborn baby. As we grew to adulthood our cells numbered into the scores of trillions. And it all began with 1 plus 1 equals 1.
The process involves much more than mathematics that is both strange and marvelous. It is a fear-inspiring wonder, and was something for King David of Israel to sing about, three thousand years ago. His song to Jehovah his Creator is recorded in Psalm 139:13-16:
“You yourself produced my kidneys; you kept me screened off in the belly of my mother. I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was woven in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing, as regards the days when they were formed and there was not yet one among them.”
Millions of persons on earth today dismiss this fear-inspiring wonder of human birth as a process that originated by chance. Millions of others consider the process an inconvenience and nip it in the bud. However, there are still other millions that are deeply stirred by the marvels of human birth and cry out as David did: “I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made.”
Advancing knowledge has brought to light many of the wonderful workings within the darkness of the womb, but many mysteries remain. Both the knowns and the unknowns are awe-inspiring to the sensitive and appreciative millions. And they feel this awe not only for their own individual birth, but for that of their offspring, whom they recognize as “an inheritance from Jehovah.”—Ps. 127:3.
Once one of the thousands of male sperm completes its incredible journey up to the egg in the Fallopian tube and penetrates its outer shell, no other sperm may enter. The egg is fertilized, conception has occurred, and a “blueprint” has been made for a living human creature. At that moment the sex, the fundamental physical and emotional characteristics, special gifts and talents, as well as deficiencies, along with multitudes of other details, are settled. Environment both during pregnancy and after birth exerts a modifying or intensifying influence, but the basic pattern of the person is established.
Before any of the thousands of bodily parts are present, the time of their appearance is set and their size and shape and function are determined. “In your book all its parts were down in writing, as regards the days when they were formed and there was not yet one among them.” The “writing” or “blueprint” is in the 46 chromosomes with their many thousands of genes that carry the hereditary material from both parents—23 chromosomes from each parent.
At first the dividing cells are the same, but soon profound differences appear. The cells are now different in appearance and in function both from one another and from the original fertilized egg. Within eight weeks there are liver cells, heart cells, muscle cells, blood cells, brain cells, bone cells and many more—all with specialized functions, yet all with the same original set of genes as in the fertilized egg!
How this happens is still a mystery, but the following grossly oversimplifying illustration will give a glimmer of the complexities involved. There are thousands of identical factories, each with the same thousands of machines, and each machine makes a different part needed in order to assemble an automobile. Each factory, with all its machines, is capable of making a complete car. Strangely, however, in each factory only one machine operates, making only one specific auto part. All the other machines are shut down! One factory makes spark-plug wires, another makes door handles, a third makes a certain gear, each factory using only the machine needed for that particular part. Each factory makes only the part assigned to it, using only the one machine needed to produce that part, and all the other machines are idle. But when all the parts made by all these factories are brought together and assembled, a complete car is the result.
Similarly, each body cell is like a factory, its sets or combinations of genes are like the machines—only the cells and gene combinations number into the trillions instead of the thousands used in the analogy. Each set of genes is specialized so as to make a specific part for the human body. Each cell has all the multitudes of gene combinations needed to produce our body, but only one set of genes (one machine in our analogy) operates to make its own specific assigned part—liver cells, for example. All the other genes in this cell are shut down. Similarly, other cells specialize and operate only the gene combinations or “machines” that make heart cells, or skin cells, or muscle cells, and so on. All together, the cells produce all the various kinds of tissue needed to make a complete human body.
What causes certain sets of genes to work, and what turns off all the other genes in that cell? What governs what cells will make what parts? What makes production start, and what tells when it’s to start? What turns off these cells when the parts are completed, unlike wild cancer cells that don’t know when to stop? And why do the cells that start making certain organs always come together in just the right place, so that teeth always grow in the mouth and not on top of the head, and lungs always connect up with the air passages and not the intestines?
Scientists offer theories, but they do not know. We know it’s because nothing is left to chance; the cells follow the blueprint-like “writing” Jehovah put into the genes. To us this is fear-inspiring, wonderful, and strong cause for us to laud him. “Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware.”
Another wonder to be aware of: the mother’s body does not reject the embryo, although it is a foreign body having a different genetic makeup. The human body normally does not tolerate any tissue that differs from it genetically in even the slightest degree, yet half of the genes in the embryo come from the father. Notwithstanding this, the mother’s body not only tolerates the genetically foreign tissue of the child but nourishes it for nine months! Scientific experiments have shown that something happens during pregnancy that suppresses the mechanisms of rejection, and the developing child is safely isolated from this danger. As the psalm says, “You kept me screened off in the belly of my mother.”
While screened off in the womb the child has everything done for it. Mother nourishes it, protects it, keeps it warm, and her bloodstream passes on the vital oxygen to baby’s blood by way of the placenta. But with baby’s birth a crisis arrives. No more oxygen from mother! Baby must get it for himself, quickly, or die!
A dramatic, lifesaving change takes place. The pathway of the circulating blood must be altered. In the womb a hole in the wall of the fetal heart that separated the right and left chambers kept much of the blood from ever going toward the lungs. Of what blood did head that way, most bypassed the lungs through a large temporary vessel. Only about 10 percent of the blood went through the lungs. But upon birth all of it must do so, and fast! To accomplish this, within seconds after birth the hole in the wall separating the heart chambers closes and all the blood now goes toward the lungs. The big vessel that shunted the blood off from the lungs now constricts and all blood passes through the lungs. Baby breathes, the activated lungs oxygenate the blood, the dramatic changes have been made, metabolism continues, and baby lives!
Man cannot make a single simple living cell in his multimillion-dollar laboratories, but a man and a woman together can make another human being. Of infinite complexity, an original, unlike any other person on earth. An amazing feat, awesome and incomprehensible—yet valued so little by so many, who so blithely snuff out this new life developing in the womb because they do not wish to be bothered with it. They are oblivious to the fact that this “fruitage of the belly is a reward” from Jehovah, and is fear-inspiring and wonderful.—Ps. 127:3.
[Blurb on page 6]
Why do the cells that start making certain organs always come in just the right place, so that teeth always grow in the mouth and not on top of the head?
[Blurb on page 7]
Nothing is left to chance. The cells follow the blueprint-like “writing” Jehovah put into the genes