Man's quest for immortality

A fun game that conservatives like to play with progressives is to ask simple questions and watch them squirm. This was highlighted recently as multiple politicians and avid citizen journalists asked the question, “what is a woman?” Needless to say, some of the answers were comical, bordering on ridiculous. However, the broader question that should be asked is this: what is a human being? The reason I pose this question is due to the fact that our society’s view of what it means to be human is going to lead us in a direction which has the propensity to alter the fundamental nature of humanity.

We don’t have to read too far into the Bible in order to understand how human beings came to be on planet Earth. Genesis 1:26-27 explains: Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Mankind did not evolve from other lower forms of life but was created directly by God and in the image of God.

So, we can establish some fundamentals: human beings were made by God; human beings were made to worship God; and it was intended that human beings would enjoy His presence for all eternity. Now, we know that when sin entered the world, we became subject to death and eternal judgement. It is not my intention to deal with that issue in detail throughout this article. Instead, I want to focus on those who hold a different view of the origin and destiny of mankind. Because the moment you substitute the truth of mankind’s origin and destiny, it is the moment you have to invent your own. For believers, the Holy Spirit has revealed to us through the Word that we may inherit eternal life in God’s presence by having faith in Jesus (John 14:6). But for those who do not believe in the soul of mankind, they need to invent an eternity for themselves. This is the intention of transhumanism.

The quest for upgrading mankind and creating super-intelligence (and an inferred godhood) is an ancient belief. In its contemporary form, mankind believes it has finally found the key to eternal life through advanced computer technology. Yuval Noah Harari, an acolyte of the World Economic Forum, believes this to be the concept of homo deus – when man becomes god. In fact, he says, “History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods.” You see, man craves superintelligence and there is a modern belief that superintelligence and godhood will be the products of human ingenuity. But the most incredible part of our faith is not that man could somehow become a god but that God became a Man in the Person of Jesus Christ, to seek and to save the lost. He is the true God-Man.

Jesus, the Son of God, had to take on human flesh in order to redeem mankind as the Second Adam. Yuval Noah Harari believes that physical death is simply a technical problem that will yield to medical advances within the next hundred years. Not so. Death is much more than a technical problem that may be solved through technological advancement and transhumanism. Unless we are raptured, we will face the death of our bodies. Harari and his cohort believe they are replanting the tree of life in technical form – but we know that Jesus Christ has defeated death, has risen again to be seated at the right hand of the Father and promises eternal life in the Father’s kingdom to all who accept Him as Saviour. His resurrection was not a result of advanced medical technology or bio-engineering, but by the direct action of His divine power.

When you consider the history of mankind, it becomes evident that humanity’s efforts to achieve divinity do not lead to something superhuman, but they lead to something terrifyingly subhuman. The more they try to elevate themselves, the more they sink into violence and tyranny – as was horrifically demonstrated in the 20th century. Hannah Arendt, who wrote one of the first books on totalitarianism (published in 1951) was convinced that it was rooted in a utopianism based on the rejection of God and the deification of man: “What binds these men together is a firm and sincere belief in human omnipotence. Their moral cynicism, their belief that everything is permitted, rests on the solid conviction that everything is possible. In trying to create a perverse heaven on earth, totalitarian systems acknowledge no limit on either their conduct or their aspirations. From there it is but a short distance to the mass killing of – and terror endemic to – totalitarianism: from Nazi Germany's Auschwitz and Treblinka, to the Soviet Union's Lubyanka prison and Perm-36 gulag, to Communist China's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. The concentration and extermination camps of these regimes serve as the laboratories in which the fundamental belief of totalitarianism that everything is possible is being verified.”

Though people equate life with only the life we live on this Earth, we will exist for all eternity in one of two places – God’s eternal realm or the Lake of Fire. No technology can spare you from ultimately making the decision as to where you will spend eternity. If you accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you will be with Him. If you reject Him, you will remain in a Christless eternity where there is everlasting punishment. My prayer is that you will ignore the claims of globalists who want you to become transhuman and instead, you will choose to kneel at the cross and be washed clean by the blood of Jesus. For He holds the greatest promise in His hands: Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 John 3:1-3).