An article in the Telegraph certainly caught my attention. The headline read, "Immortality Only 20 Years Away." That's a pretty bold statement, and the implications of such an attempt are important in so many areas.
God told Adam in Genesis 2:17, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (ESV) That seems to be pretty straightforward: sin=death. The implication of the statement is that before sin entered the world, death was not present in the world. In one sense, the desire to not die is part of the original makeup of humans. Death impacts us so greatly because it seems "wrong" to how we know things ought to be.
Consider what science is attempting to offer and compare it to what God offers. Science wants to offer us immortality or the opportunity to not die, while God offers us eternal life. Science wants to keep us "from" dying, while God wants to "give" us life.
Books and movies understand that immortality is not all it is purported to be. In reflecting on the various media that I have encountered in my life that address the theme of immortality: pain, suffering, misery, evil, and even death surround those who are immortal.
Immortality is the dream of those who forget God or fear God. For the follower of Christ, the inevitability of death is overwhelmed by the hope of eternal life in God's presence. For those who do not know Christ, the first death leads to the second death, so postponement is a preferable.
The pursuit of medicine and science to ease suffering an increase the quality of life is a God-given gift to mankind. We honor God when we pursue those noble purposes. The quest for immortality can never deliver what it promises because it never addresses the issue of our soul, nor does the promise of never dying mean that it will allow us to really live.
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