Wasting Away & Renewed Day by Day

The human body is an amazing organism; while the mapping of the human genome may have taken some of the mystery of life away, the process of life is still amazing and complex. The story of life isn’t really told on an external level; the cellular structure of life is where much of the action really is. The human body is said to consist of an estimated 20 to 30 trillion cells. Dozens of different kinds of cells are organized into specialized groups called tissues, and different tissue types are assembled into organs; all together, these assembled organs form the human body. All cells are derived from previously existing cells, and cell replacement is essential for life to continue.

In the human body, for example, an estimated 25 million cell divisions occur every second in order to replace cells that have completed their normal life cycles. Cells of the liver, intestine, and skin may be replaced every few days, and recent research indicates that even brain cells undergo cell division in the part of the brain associated with memory. Millions of times per second in the human body, cells die as an essential part of the normal cycle of cellular replacement; when cells stop normal cell division they start to age, which is part of the process of aging and death.

This is the visible part of what goes one within us. Paul may not have understood all the biological processes that cause this to happen, but he could make an inspired observation that is as true today as then. “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

Physically, the process of aging could also be called the process of dying. This is the result of sin (Rom. 5:12), and unless our Lord returns, this is what awaits us all. Beside this physical process itself, one can add the uncertainty of life. None of us knows what each day we live will bring. Who knows if we will suffer from a fatal accident, or some other unforeseen catastrophe? James reminds us, “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring — what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes” (4:14). Death cannot be mastered in this life.

Paul, however, offers us encouragement in knowing that, as the flesh grows weaker, the inner person, that which is spiritual, is being renewed. The power of death cannot not destroy us spiritually, and the spiritual can continue to grow even as the flesh draws closer to its demise. This is how, if we live for Christ, death is gain (Phil. 1:21). God has prepared a spiritual body for us, fit for eternity (1 Cor. 15:53), which is not subject to the ravages of sin. It is incomparable to the physical body, as to its nature and glory. We live for that which now is unseen, what will last for eternity, a spiritual body like Christ’s (1 John 3:2), which knows nothing of mourning, or crying, or pain, or death (1 Cor. 15:26; Rev. 21:4).

Paul’s challenge is to look beyond the ravages of today to the splendor of tomorrow, not to that which is seen, but that which is unseen. To do this we must walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). We must trust in God and His purposes for life. Where is your focus in life? “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matt. 6:25).

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.”

Robert