Do We Want to Live Forever?
A commentary by John Ross Schroeder
Good News senior writer, United Kingdom
Posted July 29, 2010
This intriguing question was recently posed in a major American newsweekly. "If
we could live forever, would we really want to?" (Jonathan
Weiner, Newsweek, "The Trouble With Immortality," July
5, 2010, emphasis added throughout). Clearly some intellectuals feel
that immortal life would eventually become boring. One late author observed: "After
all, there is such a thing as life-saturation: the point when everything
is pure effort and total repetition."
Solely from a human viewpoint, perhaps there is a grain of validity
to this thinking. King Solomon wrote: "Remember now your Creator
in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years
draw near when you say, 'I have no pleasure in them'" (Ecclesiastes
12:1). Septuagenarians and octogenarians may have to use their God-given
imaginations to make human life perpetually interesting. The most important
thing is a daily relationship with our Creator. Remember the prayer
of Moses: "Satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice
and be glad all our days!" (Psalm 90:14).
Been there, done that
The Newsweek essay addresses the potential for an extra-long
human lifespan: "Thousand-year lives would be the ultimate
in conservation. We might even grow up faster as a species if we
lived long enough to pay the price for our species's sins in our
own skins." But the Bible tells us that this 1,000-year life
span has already been tried. Men and women in the world before the Flood
of Noah's time often lived for 900 years and more. See the genealogy
in Genesis chapter 5.
The price for their many sins was duly paid with suffering and death.
The ultimate result was that all but eight persons perished in a global
flood. The extra years only hardened the old world's addiction
to evil—becoming worse and worse as the decades rolled by (Genesis
6:5, 12). After the Flood, God mercifully but gradually shortened the
human life span to the normal 70 or 80 years spoken of in Psalm 90:10.
Only in very recent decades have more and more people begun to live
to 100 years of age and more.
The Newsweek article expressed our longed-for wishes. "We
want a good long life. We also want a good life." The Bible promises
human beings an abundant, continually interesting life, but ultimately
in a totally different dimension—not in the human flesh.
God promises us a new spirit body (Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Corinthians
15:51-54). His Word plainly tells us that "flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God" (verse 50).
Both men and women were created in God's image so we could enjoy
everlasting life with Him in His divine family (Genesis 1:26-27; 1 John
3:1-2). But first we have to both learn and live by His spiritual
values while in the human flesh.
Joy, not boredom
One thing is certain. God has never been bored! Disobedience to His
law remains the unrealized source of human boredom. Keeping God's
commandments (defined as righteousness, see Psalm 119:172) produces
the opposite effect.
The apostle Paul summed up God's overall assessment of King David's
life in Acts 13:22: "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man
after My own heart, who will do all My will." What is
the ultimate result of this way of life? David looked forward to eternal
fellowship with God. He wrote: "In Your presence is fullness of
joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).
The fulfillment of this passage will happen at the time of the resurrection. "As
for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when
I awake in Your likeness" (Psalm 17:15). Death is a sleep
from which we awake when God resurrects us.
Some 3,000 years ago a Middle Eastern patriarch asked this fundamental
question: "If a man dies, shall he live again?" (Job 14:14).
Is immortality really possible for human beings? Is everlastingly abundant,
perpetually interesting immortal life written into our destiny? God
says it is! To more fully understand both how and why from the Bible,
request in print or download our free booklets What
Is Your Destiny? and What
Happens After Death?
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