why must our bodies get old?

mama2one

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes
 
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Tom 1

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes

I think we learn a lot from getting physically older. Tripping over 40 and stumbling quite a way further has certainly taught me a few things. You can't have the same perspective at 25 as you do at 40+, having a body you can do pretty much anything with just makes a difference to how you think and act. When you realise you can't do anything you want and get away with it any more, it makes you more reflective.
 
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grasping the after wind

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes

Adam and Eve.
 
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Halbhh

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes
An ageless new body -- that's part of the promise! "Eternal Life"

So, you are asking I think instead -- Why are we here in a mortal, temporary body? (which will if not killed sooner, age and decline to death anyway)

We are here in temporary mortal bodies that will suffer and die in order to learn, and also to choose.

To learn to love others, for which suffering actually often helps us (we begin to value others more when we have more sympathy for them, which suffering teaches almost every one of us to have more sympathy and love towards others. also times of suffering I can attest helps one to forget distractions and remember what we really care about the most).

To choose whether or not to follow Christ (because we can choose to do so, or to not do so...)

And impending death of this body is very helpful, to help us realize this time of learning and choosing isn't our permanent state/condition. It's only school.
 
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RaymondG

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes
We dont have to get old...... I stopped aging at 28.... Now, unfortunately, Im "lying" whenever I tell anyone my true age...
 
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ViaCrucis

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes

"sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned" - Romans 5:12

Death, according to Scripture, is the chief enemy--the chief enemy against God's creation. So we read that when the Lord returns in glory, He comes to raise the dead, and there is the full and final victory over death. So in 1 Corinthians 15, St. Paul writes that, "For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:25-26), and concerning the bodily resurrection of the dead at the Lord's return,

"For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Corinthians 15:52-57

After the Lord's return, and God makes all things new and sets all things right, here is what the Age to Come is like:

"Then I saw a new heavens and a new earth, for the first heavens and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heavens from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold! The dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.'

And He who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold! I am making all things new!'
" - Revelation 21:1-5

The promise we have in Christ is that even as God raised Him up, so shall we be raised up on the Last Day. Our life in eternity isn't "in heaven" as disembodied spirits (a popular modern misconception, but one which the Bible never teaches and Christianity has never accepted). Rather eternal life includes eternal bodily life. Death and sin has rendered our flesh weak, mortal, perishable--we die, we suffer, we struggle, we get sick, we eventually grow old and decay in the ground back into dust. That isn't what God designed things to be.

The resurrection of Jesus means that the promise of resurrection is true. That is why Paul writes that if there is no future resurrection of the dead, then Jesus isn't risen either, and if Jesus isn't risen, then our faith is pointless and we are to be pitied (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-24). Which is why Paul also writes in Romans 8:11 that the Holy Spirit in us is the evidence that what God has done for Jesus He will do for us as well.

So why sickness, old age, death? Because we live in a fallen world, a world that is ravaged by death, a creation held in bondage and slavery to death. It is precisely that slavery and captivity to death that Christ came to rescue us--save us--from; and ultimately to save and rescue all of creation.

The essential message of the entire Bible is this: God's faithfulness to creation in Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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mama2one

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When you realise you can't do anything you want and get away with it any more, it makes you more reflective.

does it, though?
just makes me annoyed to not be able to do what I could @ age 25
 
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mama2one

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To learn to love others, for which suffering actually often helps us (we begin to value others more when we have more sympathy for them, which suffering teaches almost every one of us to have more sympathy and love towards others.

the suffering I have had for years hasn't given me more sympathy towards others AT ALL

since my condition is hidden, I don't get sympathy

once I mentioned it to someone, their reply was
"everyone has aches & pains" which I found very dismissive

so really, I don't feel sympathy for others since I've received none
maybe if someone ever said "don't know how you manage", maybe I'd feel sympathy for someone else
 
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renniks

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes
Because of the curse of sin.
Romans 8
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
 
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Halbhh

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the suffering I have had for years hasn't given me more sympathy towards others AT ALL

since my condition is hidden, I don't get sympathy

once I mentioned it to someone, their reply was
"everyone has aches & pains" which I found very dismissive

so really, I don't feel sympathy for others since I've received none
maybe if someone ever said "don't know how you manage", maybe I'd feel sympathy for someone else
I'm sorry you didn't encounter others that cared much back then!

But....trying to imagine that, I think I'd' still end up with increased sympathy for a child in pain, is my guess. (And later perhaps, also for adults possibly, if I finally just saw those individuals without sympathy as just representing only themselves alone)
 
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public hermit

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wondered this for a while as I watch elderly neighbors & family age/slow down

why didn't God let our bodies stay youthful?
we could still live/age but why not do it in a 25 yr old body?

why must we suffer with old age diseases & end up in wheelchairs and/or nursing homes

I can definitely relate. Not only am I getting older, but my parents are really going through it. It's hard to see people I know who were strong and vibrant struggle so much now.

I think we can only speculate as to why God created a world that would be like this one, particularly the fact the everything, including our bodies, is curruptable and finite. We come into existence, hang around for a bit, and then make our exit. But more than that, this process of becoming is painful. It's one thing for a non-living entity to come and go, but for conscious entities it means suffering.

I don't think the Genesis account helps us much. No matter how you cut it, God created a world where sin, suffering, and death were possible, and I doubt the "fall" of humanity was some kind of surprise to God. God knew in creating us we would sin and go through all this, but God created the world anyway. So, God must have a reason for this kind of world.

So, where does that leave us? I don't know, but it seems clear God intended for things to be this way or they wouldn't be. Maybe another way to approach it is ask ourselves what kind of beings can last forever. Maybe God created us finite so that we can become what is needed to last forever.

Sin and evil are destructive and contrary to the divine intention for life. For a being to embrace sin and evil is for that being to embrace destruction, which means such a being cannot last forever unless that trajectory of destruction is corrected. Humans do sin and we do evil. Something must be done in us so that we are fit for everlasting existence in the divine presence. That, I think, is what this painful and short life is for, to prepare us for "the weight of glory."
 
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Sophrosyne

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There is several reasons one of which has already been mentioned that is sin (corruption) entering into God's creation that essentially causes decay which leads to the body breaking down over time.
The second reason is I think related to the environment prior to Noah's ark vs afterwards that many conditions that were there that were more favorable to long lives were removed/destroyed/gone as I am not totally sure the full reasons for doing such I will related to the outcome and why God desired man to no longer live so long.

As my attention span right now is fleeting I do not know where in the Bible it says this but God intentionally shortened people lives because (IMO) of the evil people were doing and with the ability to live hundreds and hundreds of years (some early bible figures lives around 900 years in the beginning) think of the amount of evil the world would have to endure if evil dictators and kings would live even 200-300 years instead of say 80 years or thereabouts. Imagine the suffering that someone struggling and poor would have to endure if they lived 200 years and imagine a successful highly intelligent serial killer or other professional criminal that is never caught would do?

As much as I would think it would be wonderful for the most godly people to live incredibly wrong lives on the earth if only Christians were to live that long it would be a big amount of proof of God and I think God wants people to have faith in him such that they don't have absolutely easy proof beyond scientific doubt that he is the source of long life.

The Bible doesn't give much clues on how people who lived hundreds of years or even say 150-180 years or so back then aged but we do have a situation where Sarah got pregnant at I think 80 or so which to this date I've never heard of that happening. I don't know if it was as much of a miracle for people that lived longer back then as much as it would be now it may have been she was similar in age in health to someone in their 50s or 60s perhaps at 80. It may well have been Eve who may have lived 500+ years and bore children into her 300s even looked like a woman of 20 now at 202 years we really do not know. I am not sure if they have totally mapped DNA either and by that have discovered what errors in it that could be "fixed" to increase life or what environmental stuff that encourages degradation that we are inundated that weakens our lives. Some think that the earth had a totally different environment before the Ark that was changed and the change required the flood to happen and this change removed a lot of protection or more favorable environment for longevity.

A final thought is, as Christians this life is but a blink in time compared to infinite length of time or life in heaven.
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around "forever", that is in heaven the desire to live here forever not changing in your body etc would that make your desire to be with the Lord in heaven a lot less attractive to folks? I think that the way we live and decisions about God and good and evil are sometimes accelerated greatly by the knowledge that the possibility of our lives not extending beyond a number that is finite and short vs a number that is huge or infinite affects our life choices. If you knew that you only had 5 years of life left would your choices differ from having 200 years left? Many people do things with an idea in the back of their head that is along the deed/reward consideration that they can do something wrong now and make up for it later. If later is 100 years the chance of them getting around to it likely is greatly reduced vs the later is 20, even 40 years.
 
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Halbhh

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I don't think the Genesis account helps us much.
Yes, it's more like an abstract answer when given to this personal question about losing loved ones.

See my post for a more direct answer that I think is maybe more useful in that way. (or it is if a person has enough of the unstated pieces that I am assuming, like how after suffering one might experience that they remember something that matters more to them -- which is an experiential observation: I know it's true from experience)
 
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mama2one

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Something must be done in us so that we are fit for everlasting existence in the divine presence. That, I think, is what this painful and short life is for, to prepare us for "the weight of glory."


^ this makes sense to me

thank you
 
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mama2one

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I'm still trying to wrap my mind around "forever", that is in heaven the desire to live here forever not changing in your body etc would that make your desire to be with the Lord in heaven a lot less attractive to folks? .

^ this makes sense, also

by the time people are in their 80s, they're ready to leave planet earth

if our bodies stayed like we were in our 20s, we'd probably stay happy a long time on earth
 
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