| Highlights of DAWN | August 1975 |
The Elusive Elixir of Life
“Our God is a God of salvation; and to God, the Lord, belongs escape from death.” —Psalm 68:20, RSV
“TO HEAR Gerovital H3’s true believers talk, if Ponce de Leon lived today he wouldn’t waste his declining years searching for the Fountain of Youth. He’d simply jet to Romania for a couple of weeks of Dr. Ana Asian’s ‘world-famous Gerovital H3 treatment.’”
So begins an article in a recent issue of The National Observer in its discussion of the drug Gerovital H3, also referred to as “the miracle rejuvenator” and “the Romanian youth drug.”
Dr. Asian (who looks younger than her years) and many of her patients contend that the drug effectively combats the aging process, resulting in better memories, improved skin texture, and increased muscle strength. But the proponents of Gerovital H3 claim that it does even more than retard the aging process. It is held also to be effective in the treatment of heart disease, arthritis, depression, Parkinson’s disease, and many other ailments and symptoms of old age. The fact that almost 40,000 people, including some 30,000 from outside Romania itself, spent substantial sums of money in 1974 to visit the nationally operated Gerovital clinics clearly testifies to man’s innate repugnance toward death.
But loud as are the praises of its defenders, the drug has many critics, among them the well-known Dr. Alvin Goldfarb who, after visiting one of Dr. Asian’s clinics in 1974, said he knew “of no evidence that it [Gerovital H3] can contribute to longevity.” But the frantic search for the magic formula, for the substance or secret that will defeat pain and death, for the elusive elixir of life, goes on.
This, of course, is not surprising, nor is it incompatible with man’s nature. For man was not created to die, but to live. It is not natural to die; it is natural to desire to live; and this innate and will-nigh indestructible longing for life is imbedded in the very consciousness of every normal human being that ever breathed.
In a rebellious outburst in which he vents his frustration at the steady passage through the countless funeral parlors of the world of the cold bodies of unending numbers of humans, novelist Alan Harrington probably voiced the unspoken but deeply felt sentiments of many of his fellow humans on this earth. “Death,” he stated, “is an imposition on the human race, and no longer acceptable.” And so the struggle to delay the onset of death, if not to eliminate it entirely, continues on many fronts.
Gains in Cancer Fight
One of the great killers of mankind is the age-long scourge of cancer. It is estimated that some sixty million Americans now living will eventually be afflicted with this dread disease, and some forty million of these will die of it. But some progress is being made in the attack on cancer through the development of new techniques, principally in the use of radiation.
Required doses of radiation can now be made much smaller and, importantly, can be more accurately directed to the cancerous area itself, thus decreasing the amount of damage heretofore wrought to healthy tissue. X-ray motion pictures can now be taken that reveal to watching surgical teams just what is going on inside the body. In another development, radioactive elements are introduced into the body of the cancer victim, the course of which can be traced by sophisticated scanners, revealing the innermost workings of various organs of the body. The hope in all these efforts, of course, is to reduce the incidence of death to humans from this stubborn ailment.
Yet another area to which medical men are giving ever greater attention is in the transplanting of donated living organs into the bodies of those whose hearts, livers, corneas, intestines, or other organs have become diseased or damaged. The techniques for this kind of operation have so improved in recent years that there is a chronic shortage of healthy organs for transplanting. Indeed, so urgent is this part of the problem that Dr. Warren J. Warwick of the University of Minnesota Medical School wrote an article for Medical Opinion and Review in which he suggests (with tongue in cheek, we suspect) the creation of accident-watching clubs along busy highways to increase the availability of donated organs by the families of such as may have suffered accidental death.
Who Shall Be First?
For the many thousands who are living in limbo as they wait for a possible donor of a needed organ, only a fraction have their patience rewarded. And even these, the relatively luckier ones, may look forward to enjoying but a limited number of added years of life.
But even where organ transplants are available, other difficult problems arise. One of these is to decide who, of all those who are agonizingly awaiting it, shall get the healthy organ. Another problem has to do with determining when the prospective donor is actually dead and/or legally dead, so that the removal of the required organ can be accomplished at the earliest possible moment in order to improve the chances of a successful transplant. And still another difficulty is the possibility of rejection of the transplanted organ by the body of the donee. Meanwhile, many potential candidates for transplantation die before the awaited organ becomes available.
Piece-Meal Immortality?
In the minds of many people these transient gains in the art of replacing human parts have given rise to false hopes. In an article in The New York Times Magazine, writer David Dempsey says that “the success of transplants has encouraged … illusory intimations of immortality. Life is reduced to a set of replaceable functions.” In other words, immortality is just a matter of procuring or manufacturing a sufficient number of replaceable spare parts! Of course, we sometimes tend to forget that to acquire certain of these needed replacements someone else, somewhere else, must die.
An astonishing group of chemical substances is now being researched which have already produced remarkable results in the treatment of a broad range of human ailments. These substances are called prostaglandins, or PGs. They have already been found effective in the treatment of high blood pressure, poor circulation, and duodenal ulcers.
One could go on to recite advances in anesthesiology; in procuring and storing blood needed for transfusions; the approach of computerized medicine; the use of the laser beam in tonsillectomies, and many other developments tending to extend the life span of man, and rendering life more comfortable while that span endures.
These efforts and these results are not to be belittled. We are all the grateful beneficiaries of these increases in medical and scientific knowledge. Without these wonderful advances some of us who now hear would be deaf; some who now see would be blind; some who now walk would be lame; and some who are now alive would, instead, be dead.
Death Still Reigns
But whereas the final confrontation with the great enemy Death is thus delayed; and whereas we all may live a little longer, and somewhat more comfortably, the end result is eventually the same—death. All the labors of the scientists, the medical profession, the hospitals, the drug companies—all the efforts of man, however dedicated, however diligent, however imaginative, however long-continued, have not kept man from that ultimate rendezvous with the grave.
Why is this? And is there no hope for an end of death? Will the reality of everlasting life forever elude mankind? Will the specter of death continue to haunt humanity till the end of time?
Despite all that man has been able to do to alleviate suffering and to prolong life—and it has not been inconsiderable—death stubbornly continues to reign. There is an explanation for this. It is found in only one place—the Bible. And to those who understand and accept it, it is beautifully and reassuringly simple. In the Garden of Eden the progenitor of the human race committed the sin of disobedience and was condemned to die, bringing death to the entire human race yet unborn in his loins.—Gen. 2:17; 3:6,19
The Wages of Sin
The Apostle Paul confirms the tragic significance of that incident in Eden. He says that “by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for … all have sinned.” (Rom. 5:12) That just sentence of death is still in force against the human race, as evidenced by the sad, unceasing flow of death’s victims to the cemetery. And in spite of all the scientific and medical advances that man can devise, the human race will continue to pass into death until the condemnation on the race is lifted.
This inescapable dependence of man’s hope for life on first having his sins forgiven and the sentence of death removed is clearly illustrated by an incident in the life of our Lord at his first advent. We read that on one occasion a man was brought to him, sick of the palsy, and lying on a bed. Observing their faith, Jesus said to the sick man, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven.”
This statement by Jesus may well have puzzled the sick man. What he was interested in was to be healed! Certain of the scribes who witnessed this remarkable event thought to themselves, This man is a blasphemer. Who is he to forgive sins? But Jesus knew their thoughts, and to refute them he stated a fundamental truth; one that clearly shows that man will not gain complete health and life, in spite of all his knowledge and scientific advances, until first his sins have been forgiven. Jesus said to the scribes, “Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house.”—Matt. 9:1-8
Here, Jesus equated the forgiveness of the man’s sins with his being healed. What iota of difference does it make, Jesus asked, whether I say to the sick man, Your sins are forgiven; or, You are healed? And the man arose, his sins forgiven and his body healed, and went to his home. “But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled, and glorified God.”
The Gift of God Is Eternal Life …
This man did eventually die, and he went down into his grave, to sleep until the times of restitution of all things, which God promised by his holy prophets. For this healing was but illustrative of the grander and everlasting healing that shall eventually come to all mankind when the price for their sins has been applied on their behalf by their Redeemer and Lord, and the curse lifted.
This same principle was illustrated many centuries earlier in God’s dealing with his ancient people Israel, who were typical of the whole world of mankind. Each year, on the Day of Atonement, animal sacrifices for sin, or sin-offerings, were offered by the High Priest, and the blood carried into the Most Holy of the tabernacle and sprinkled on and before the mercy seat in the presence of Jehovah to atone for the sins of the people, thus effecting reconciliation between the people and their God. But the Israelites also went down into the grave, for these sacrifices were but typical sacrifices. They were typical of that perfect sacrifice and offset for sins offered by Jesus on Calvary, which shall lift the adamic condemnation of death from the human race, to bring life and everlasting at-one-ment between God and all the obedient of the race of mankind during the thousand-year reign of Christ and the glorified church. Paul explains that just as death passed upon all men through the disobedience of one man [Adam], so also shall life come to all men through the obedience and sacrifice of the perfect man Jesus.—Rom. 5:12-21
Life Through Our Lord Jesus Christ
It is true, of course, that Jesus laid down his life as a ransom sacrifice almost two thousand years ago, and still man continues to die. But the merit of that sacrifice has not yet been applied on behalf of all mankind. It has been applied, since Pentecost, only on behalf of the church, the footstep followers of Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands [the typical tabernacle], which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us [the church].”—Heb. 9:24; Rom. 8:34
During the almost two thousand years since Pentecost, God has been calling out of the world “a people for his name.” (Acts 15:14) Those who in faith respond to that call, consecrating their lives to their Lord, are “justified by their faith” and thus have “peace with God.” When this called-out class is proved and joined with their Lord Jesus, the Gospel-Age sacrifice for the sins of the world of mankind will have been completed. Then will the merit of that sacrifice be applied on behalf of the world, their sins forgiven, the adamic condemnation lifted, and the glorious time of the world’s healing and the pouring out of the blessings of life for all mankind begin.—I John 2:2; Matt. 25:31-34; Rev. 19:7; 21:4
The Healing Sun of Righteousness
When at last the glorious Sun of righteousness arises with healing in his wings, mankind will marvel at the power and wisdom of God to effect man’s restoration to the perfection that was lost in Adam. (Mal. 4:2) All will rejoice and praise God for the soundness and perfection of mind and body that shall then be theirs. For the very first time men will know and appreciate freedom from all sickness, sorrow, and pain, and will sense the boundless potential and joy of a perfect mind and body, and the glorious prospect of happy, everlasting life!
Man’s present efforts to improve life and relieve suffering, well-intentioned as they are, will pale into insignificance beside the accomplishments of the kingdom in restoring man to the perfection that father Adam enjoyed when placed in the Garden of Eden. And as the multitudes marveled when they saw Jesus heal the man sick of the palsy, and glorified God, they will even more greatly marvel at the grander work of healing that shall be in progress during the times of man’s restitution.
When the work of that blessed millennial day is completed, all the obedient of mankind will enjoy perfect health and everlasting life. Hospitals, hearing aids, spectacles, artificial arms, and transplanted hearts—all will have been banished! Even death itself will be destroyed! In that joyous day “the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: [for] the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.”—Isa. 33:24; 35:1-10; Rev. 20:14