According to The Jerusalem Post, a team of Israeli researchers have been able to reverse the aging process within a test group of people over 64 years old, so that the cells in their bodies are effectively “going backwards in time” to a healthier state some years earlier. This may sound like good medical news, but it actually has chilling implications for those of us who believe in eternal life through Christ alone.
According to the scientists at Tel Aviv University and the Shamir Medical Center, the healthy adults in the test group were placed in a pressurized chamber and given pure oxygen to breathe for 90 minutes a day, five days a week for three months, and not only was the aging process delayed – it was actually reversed. How so?
As I explain in chapter 14 of my book Floodgates, a number of scientists, including at hi-tech companies like Google, are researching paths to increased human longevity. Many of these efforts are based on the premise that death is a disease which can be treated and overcome.
As our human cells divide over our lifetime, the end of the DNA strands inside each cell have an odd tail called a telomere, which grows shorter over time as our DNA splits and is copied into new cells – creating a sort of built-in quota for cell division called the Hayflick limit. The shorter the tail grows, the slower the rate of cell division. This is what accounts for the way the skin of an elderly person becomes flaky and dry as dying cells cannot reproduce fast enough to make new cells as they once did. Barring any other intervening factor (an auto accident, for instance), we all would eventually die of organ failure as the cells in our vital organs weaken from lack of sufficient cell reproduction.
By placing humans in pure oxygen, these Israeli scientists have found that it so revitalizes our cells the telomeres grow back in length, which means the Hayflick quota is increased again.
This is all fascinating and could lead to remarkable advances in human health and even extend our lives indefinitely. Some even see this quest for longevity if not immortality as the new holy grail of science. But from a biblical standpoint, I believe it touches on what the New Testament warns of as a coming “lawlessness” which overtakes much of humanity.
In 2 Thessalonians 2, the Apostle Paul speaks of the “mystery of lawlessness” already at work in the earth and how a “lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.” I believe this spirit of “lawlessness” refers not only to a rebellion against the moral laws of God, but also the consequences of breaking those laws – which is death. In other words, it is an attempt to bypass the “law of sin and death.” (Ezekiel 18:4)
I believe the “lawless one” – meaning the Antichrist – will promise mankind a path to eternal life without having to turn to Jesus, and many will choose it. But this rebellion will fail.
Paul proclaims that God “alone has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). Elsewhere, he says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) And: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)
So we should be very cautious about these efforts to tamper with our human makeup in a bid to cheat death, which is a defiant act against God. To seek eternal life outside of Christ is both futile and rebellious. God will never allow it! But science is pursuing it, just the same. We are crossing a final line with God that will demand divine intervention. Even as God judged mankind for “corrupting” its flesh and altering its Adamic nature in Noah’s time, so God will not tolerate our genetic mutations and scientific pursuit of immortality today.
Israeli scientists find way to reverse aging
