When you see the above title, you may be asking yourselves, "What does this have to do with Lutheran theology or our lives as Christians?  Isn't this a topic better left to scientists or perhaps the tabloids?  How does this relate to religion?"  I hope to demonstrate in the next few paragraphs that for us who worship the Lord and Giver of life, our Lutheran faith is not at all unrelated to the question of whether or not there is life "out there" somewhere.  We should not approach this topic naively or unquestioningly but from a proper Christian and Scriptural standpoint.

 Of course, the possibility of life on other planets is being talked about more frequently now because of two recent events, the release of a big summer movie about an alien invasion, "Independence Day," and the supposed discovery of organic life on Mars (if you don't already know it, the only evidence for this discovery is from a rock found in Antarctica which possibly originated on Mars).  When you combine these things with our culture's fascination with the possibility of alien life, many people have come to believe that we simply can't be alone in this vast universe.

 However, I would like to suggest that not only is there no evidence in the Scriptures for any sort of extra-terrestrial life, there is also an overwhelming amount of evidence against it.  First of all, Genesis 1 and 2 teach that God made Adam and Eve to be the crown of His creation, giving them dominion over all living things that He had created.  It is made abundantly clear that all of this life was located on earth where Adam and Eve could exercise their divinely given dominion.  He would not have created life where they could not exercise such dominion.

 This also debunks any notion that there are higher or more intelligent forms of life out there.  For when God made man His highest creation, He made him to be absolutely unique.  God made man in His own image.  The idea that there is other life with greater capacities than humans, who alone are in the image of God Himself, is obviously foolish.

 The argument against other intelligent life in the universe is also strengthened when one considers what happened when mankind fell into sin.  The Scriptures say in Romans 8 that all of creation, the whole universe, was put in the bondage of man's sin and its decaying effects.  Since man was given dominion over all creation, all creation fell with him into sin.  If there were really other creatures equal to or higher than us, God would certainly not be so unfair as to put them under the curse of our sin.  So the fact that all creation has been "subjected to futility" as St. Paul says, clearly indicates that there are no other forms of life in the universe like ourselves or greater than us.

 Furthermore, consider this:  In order that we might be saved, the Son of God, the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity, became a true human being, taking on our human nature.  His divine and human natures are joined together in such a way that Jesus is eternally both God and man.  Jesus rose bodily from the grave and ascended bodily into heaven where He will forever be true God and true man.  Jesus had to do this in order to redeem us.  He became like us so that we could become like Him.  Now, the point is this:  If there was other intelligent life "out there," how would they be saved from the curse of sin that all the universe is under?  For Christ could not become like them.  He could not be truly and literally human as He is and also be some other created being.  The reason Christ's death on the cross saves us is because He died as one of us.  This would not allow the Lord, the only true God, to be able to save any other "beings" like us, which would go against His very nature as the God of love.  Thus, even the very Gospel of Christ itself leaves no room for there to be "alien" life on some other planet.

 However, there is another error at the root of the belief in extra-terrestrial life, and that is the theory of evolution.  Most who believe that life could exist elsewhere in the universe base those thoughts on the anti-Scriptural philosophy which says that life can come into being on its own and evolve into higher and higher forms of life under the right conditions without any God or Creator.  The literal account of creation in Genesis simply doesn't allow that possibility.  The Scriptures present the earth as being not millions or billions of years old, but rather somewhere in the thousands or tens of thousands.  Indeed, there is now a large body of scientific evidence debunking the theory of evolution and supporting a young-earth, creationist point of view.  This puts a whole new light on the supposed discovery of life on Mars recently touted by NASA.  For they claim that the rock they were studying is billions of years old.  When we hear that, a red flag should immediately go up in our minds.  (Plus, the NASA scientists failed to make clear that even if that rock did somehow get here from Mars, it could have picked up one of the countless forms of life that exist in the earth's air before it fell to the ground.)

 Clearly, then, the issue of life on other planets is not a neutral one when it comes to religion and our Lutheran faith.  It directly involves such doctrines as creation, sin, and the Gospel itself.  Therefore, this is no insignificant issue for the Christian to deal with.

 But some might ask, "What about all the various "sightings" that have been reported?"  Well, many of those have proved to be fabrications, and the others can almost all be explained by either a misperception of what the "sighter" saw or by an overzealous tabloid press that will make a story out of almost anything, regardless of the evidence.  However, I don't want to exclude possibility of the powers of darkness, demons, being at work here.  The book of Revelation clearly speaks of "signs and wonders" being produced by those powers arrayed against Christ.   Demons could certainly make use of this kind of deception to distract and draw people away from the true Christian faith.

 In my estimation our culture's extreme interest in life on other planets betrays a real spiritual hunger for something higher and greater than ourselves.  It's a clue to us of how much our neighbors need to hear the truth about that One who truly is higher and greater than us, the only true God, the Holy Trinity, who in love for us came down to where we're at in Christ in order to raise us to Himself.

 Indeed, we do believe in "extra-terrestrial" beings.  They're called angels, sent by God to protect His people.  We do believe in an "alien" invasion, the coming of our Lord in the flesh to rescue us from our eternal enemies--sin, death, and the devil.  And we do believe in life in another world, the new world of heaven to be revealed in all its glory when Christ comes again.

 So enjoy those science fiction movies; just don't forget that for the most part they are fiction.  And let people's interest in life "out there" be a reminder to you to share with them the real life "down here" to be had in Christ and in the gifts He gives in the divine service.

-Pastor Koch-