Why Jesus offers you more than immortality

Who wants to live forever?

Quite a few it would seem. Longevity Fixation Syndrome (LFS) seems to be catching. It’s an obsession with using technology, medicine, diet and fitness regimes to extend our natural lifespan and according to recent press reports, it’s taking over the minds of the super-rich.

Some believe they can stall the ageing process to the point where future technology will offer them eternal life – just not the kind you usually read about here.

Bryan Johnson, the American venture capitalist, who famously receives plasma transfusions from his son in his bid to prolong his life, also spends hours monitoring vital data, exercising, taking supplements and perfecting his sleep patterns. Others, like Johnson, spend vast amounts of money and time to the point where they can’t enjoy a regular social or work life.

LFS is now recognised as a psychological disorder that needs healing. Fortunately, a Swiss clinic, Paracelsus Recovery, is ready to offer sufferers a four-week residential programme with 15 dedicated specialists aimed at relieving them of their fixation…and their wallets of £90,000!

What kind of eternal life?

A central claim of the Christian gospel is that we will live forever. It taps into the same deep desire that attracts Bryan Johnson and his fellow longevity-seekers. But while the LFS sufferers are searching for quantity of life, the Christian faith is holding out an offer of quality of life too.

The reason why this matters is illustrated by the leitmotif that runs through The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those who use the ring to rule the world also become wraithlike creatures who don’t age and whose life becomes an eternal misery. Quantity of life is therefore not something we should be aiming for at all costs.

In focusing much of our evangelism on the eternal aspect of our lives (“wouldn’t it be great to live forever?”), perhaps we risk losing as many people as we gain. For many of us, the idea of doing anything for ever, however wonderful, is offputing. Certainly, the idea of prolonging an ordinary human life would have many questioning the benefits.

If quantity is overrated, let’s turn to the specific qualities of life that the gospel offers us.

First of all, Jesus locates our salvation in his own risen life when he says in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die”. Our new life is vouchsafed by Christ who forged the path for anyone wishing to follow him.

Jesus also assures us, in John 14:2-3, that his Father’s house is big enough and he promises to prepare a specific place for each of us. For those who feel battle weary in life by staking a claim on the resources needed to find security, dwell on this promise.

We also have the promise of being fully sanctified and healed of all the conditions that hold us captive – whether of mind, body or spirit. The biblical word we translate as “salvation” does not simply refer to the process of being forgiven and given a place in heaven. It has a much deeper meaning of being made completely whole and transformed in every respect. A moment’s thought will reveal that we will need quite a lot of psychological re-wiring to be made ready for a new life with God, face-to-face.

Paul alludes to this transformation in 1 Corinthians when he adds that we will, like Jesus after the resurrection, have new incorruptible bodies (see 15:51-52). This is just as well because the new heaven will also entail a new physical earth too.

The earth itself will be re-created into something wholly sanctified. We read in Revelation 21 that “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (v4).

Sharing in the divine life

Finally, and most startling of all, “[Jesus] has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Western Christians call it divinization and those in the East refer to it as theosis – the process by which we attain characteristics of God such that we can participate in the community of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This is what gives me hope that our new life will have a quality that makes eternity worth living.

While our universe is a spritely 13.8 billion years old, God has existed as three persons to eternity past. An eternal and constant exchange of love has been taking place amongst the persons of the trinity, and it was perfectly engaging with no need for anything else.

Our sharing in this divine life will entail an eternity of ever new revelations, never stale nor repetitive. It will form the context in which we can explore the new heaven and earth, with our healed minds and bodies, without fear, pain or want of anything.

Those suffering from Longevity Fixation Syndrome do have an echo of eternity in their hearts, but the goal they aim for is so much less than Jesus offers.