The Bible’s Countercultural View of Aging

Culture’s Anti-Aging Messaging In 2025 the anti-aging industry in the United States was valued at more than seventy-seven billion dollars, an eye-popping number that is predicted to almost double by 2034.1 To put it mildly, there’s big money in vilifying the aging process. And money talks. What message does it shout about how the modern world feels toward aging? Anti. Against. Hard pass. But is that altogether wrong? Isn’t aging a part of dying and, therefore, against God’s original design? If death is an enemy, isn’t aging also an enemy that we should rail against with all our might? Is it possible that to be against aging is a form of longing for an afterlife in which we will no longer be subject to the ravages of age? To answer these questions, we need a brief theology of time. What exactly is the true story of the Bible regarding aging and the passage of time? Aging from the Beginning The creation account of Genesis 1 shows us that time was functioning from day one. We know this because of the repeated time stamp of “there was evening and there was morning,” and because on the fourth day God created the sun, moon, and stars “for signs and for seasons, and for days and years” (G...