Do you think scientists will ever be able to discover a way to keep us from getting old and dying?
We are grateful for the remarkable advances that have been made in medical science. Many of us wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for them. But in spite of all our extraordinary medical adventures, one thing has not changed at all: that’s death. The death rate is still 100%. Nor will it ever change, because death is normal. It isn’t any problem. Death is the penalty we all pay because of our rebellion against God. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and…. the wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23-24; 6:23).
A more interesting question is why anyone would want to live forever? It’s an arresting thought, and never more so than today when so many people are doing whatever they can do to live longer. The rock n roll generation, who like to break the rules of age-appropriate behaviour, disdains the idea of retiring, resting, slowing down, giving up, and ceasing to strive.
There is nothing new in the quest for immortality. Ancient Chinese and early modern European alchemists dreamt of an elixir that would give perpetual life. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Dr. Frankenstein pursues the dream by reanimating bodily parts of the dead. But it is only in recent times that the idea has captured masses of people, with millions following diets and exercise regimes in the hope that they can back off dying for as long as possible. There are a few who go even further.
A growing number of rich people who are trying to solve their biggest problem: Aging!
Would you consider uploading your brain to the cloud if it meant you could live forever? What if you knew to do so you’d have to be euthanized as part of the procedure? If you had the chance to be preserved your brain or body after death and resuscitated in a future where medical science is light-years ahead, would you take it? For some prominent billionaires, the answer is a resounding yes.
There are groups of immortalists, who have their cadavers frozen until technology develops to a point where they can be resuscitated or who stuff themselves with hundreds of vitamins every day while looking forward to a time when they can upload their minds into cyberspace and escape death altogether.
Joon Yun, a doctor who runs a health-care hedge fund, announced that he and his wife had given the first two million dollars toward funding the challenge. “I have the idea that aging is plastic, that it’s encoded,” he said. “If something is encoded, you can crack the code.”
In 2013, Google launched Calico, short for the California Life Company, with a billion dollars in funding. Calico added a tremendous amount of validation to aging research. All that’s known is that it’s tracking a thousand mice from birth to death to try to determine “biomarkers” of aging.
The Greeks warned us about the great danger of grasping for godlike powers. All the leading immortalises started out in tech, and all had a father who died young. They share an early loss of innocence and a profound faith that the human mind can perfect even the human body.
Death is not End!
But listen folks, death is not the end! You and I not only have a mind and a body, we also have a super soul that will never die, and someday will enter eternity and stand before God. And if we know Christ and have put our faith and trust in him, we don’t need to fear death, because by his death and resurrection he has opened Heaven’s door for us.
Commit your life to Jesus Christ and begin living not only for this life, but for eternity. Make it your eternal goal to live for God, not for this world’s false promises. As the Bible says, “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is” (Colossians 3:1).
In trying to escape death, we are literally attempting to transcend the natural world. There are no such moments in life that can never end. Our lives have meaning because they are bounded by death.
You can live forever with God in heaven. Pray Now!
