WHY DO WE GROW OLD AND DIE?

B y Olumide T. Agunbiade

The question why humans grow old and die is one that scientists have been trying to answer for decades. The Bible also has much to say on the subject. By examining what science has learned about it in light of the Bible we can get a much better understanding of the cause of aging and death.

 What Do Scientists Say?
Today, despite the amazing advances of modern science, biologists’ questions about why we grow old and die remain largely unanswered. Said The GuardianWeekly of London: “One of the great mysteries of medical science has been not why people die of cardiovascular disease or cancer: it was why they die even when there is nothing wrong at all. If human cells divide, and go on renewing themselves by division for 70 years or so, why should they suddenly stop replicating all at once?”

What Does the Bible Say?

When God created the first human pair they were meant to live forever and enjoy life. His purpose for them did not include death. The first human pair were told to be fruitful, fill the earth, and subdue it.

• (Ecclesiastes 3:11) "Everything he has made pretty in its time. Even time indefinite he has put in their heart ..."

·          (Genesis 1:27-28) And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. ²⁸ Further, God blessed them and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” 

·         Death was first mentioned as the penalty for disobedience.  All God required of them was obedience and the worship due him as the creator of everything.

• (Genesis 2:16-17) And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. ¹⁷ But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”

·         ·         (Revelation 4:11) “You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.”

·         Idyllic ecological conditions were set up for them. Their garden home would care for their needs; they, in turn were to care for the garden, extending it as needed as the human family would grow.

• (Genesis 2:9) Thus Jehovah God made to grow out of the ground every tree desirable to one’s sight and good for food and also the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.
• (Genesis 2:15) And Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of E′den to cultivate it and to take care of it
• Genesis 3: 17-19  and Romans 5:12.