The desire to prolong life and even to live forever has been the pursuit of humanity ever since Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden, being prevented from eating the fruit from the tree of life.
There have been articles, books, plays (such as Peter Pan) and films (notably Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) which have taken this prospect as its theme.
The interest in living as long as possible has been accelerated in the 20th and 21st centuries as an increasing number of people live to be 100 years-old or older.
Such is the interest in elongating human life as much as possible that, in the United Kingdom, there are non-profit bodies, research labs, and hundreds of companies and investors using the latest technologies investigating the possibilities. There are numerous products on the market seeking to reverse or disguise the ageing process.
However, secular research [1] has confirmed what Christians have known from the Bible – there is no elixir in this life, and the ageing process cannot be stopped.
People are living longer - why?
The statistics show that more people are living longer due to the reduction of mortality at the younger ages, as childhood illnesses and diseases are eradicated through means such as vaccinations and better sanitary conditions.
The study concluded that it was biological, rather than environmental, factors, that limited the extension in the prospects of living longer.
There is the realisation that longer lives will, in most people’s experiences, now incorporate more extended times of ill-health. José Manuel Aburto, one of the authors of the findings, commented: "More and more people get to live much longer now. However, the trajectory towards death in old age has not changed."
It means that for a fifth of our lives, we can be expecting to be struggling with ill-health - with chronic illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, and heart conditions.
We may be living longer, but the effects of sin - of the Fall - on our cells, means that, eventually, we will die.
How do we respond?
Our response is to be aware that our days are numbered, even though, for lots of people, that time has been extended beyond the 70 or 80 years mentioned in Psalm 90v10. The important matter is that verse 12 of the same psalm written by Moses reminds us to ask God to: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we might gain a heart of wisdom."
We are also to take on board the advice in Ecclesiastes 12v1 to "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach" – however many years that might be.
- "The long lives of primates and the ‘invariant rate of ageing’ hypothesis" by Fernando Colchero et al, Nature Communications, 16 June 2021
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