What’s The Point Of Longevity?

Bryan Johnson wants you to join his new religion. It’s called “Don’t Die.” This isn’t a joke.

The most interesting thing about Johnson isn’t that he previously used injections of his son’s blood in an attempt to stay young. It’s not that he has a six-hour morning routine that keeps his health from being a benefit to anyone but him. It’s not even that he has a $2 million annual budget for his body.

It’s that he, without irony, believes he’s ushering in a new eschaton. At the time of this writing, Johnson’s tagline on X is “Conquering death will be humanity’s greatest achievement.” While Johnson is extreme in his approach, he’s not unusual in his assumptions.

Our culture is confused over how to think about health and longevity. We’re obsessed with vaccines and Tylenol and MAHA and masks. But it’s not clear that we know what health is for.

We need a better theology of the body. Thankfully, the gospel is always good news. And it’s good news for our bodies.

God Loves Bodies

God made your body (Gen. 1:27), redeemed you by the body of his Son (1 Pet. 2:24), and promised to resurrect you to a new body (1 Cor. 15:42–44). Apparently, God loves bodies! His plan for redemption goes through them, not around them.

God’s plan for redemption goes through bodies, not around them.

But what’s the spiritual significance of bodies?

Genesis 2:7 says that God “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (KJV, emphasis added). This is an important verse, because it tells us that a human is both body (dust) and spirit, and together that makes what the Bible sees as the whole of you: a human soul. Humans are a divinely intentional and totally unique combination of body and spirit (Eccl. 12:7).

Two Errors of the Body

Genesis 2:7 helps us see two possible errors of the body. First, we can ignore the body, emphasizing only the spiritual. This is the ancient heresy of Gnosticism. “There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God,” C. S. Lewis wrote. “He likes matter. He invented it.” God didn’t just call our bodies good; he called them “very good” (Gen. 1:31). So the body is God’s gift to us, to be enjoyed and stewarded for God’s glory and our good (1 Cor. 6:19–20).

It’s also possible to idolize the body. This is the error of materialism, the worldview that says our physical selves are all there is. Meeting a true materialist is as rare as meeting a true nihilist, because both worldviews are comically unworkable in real life. But I’ve met a lot of people damaged by the idea. It typically comes in the form of an overmedicalization of all problems, a debilitating focus on body image, an impossible burden of health standards, or—as in Johnson’s case—an odd obsession with longevity.

Christianity is a rebuke to materialism as much as to Gnosticism. The Bible insists there’s a spiritual realm just as real and just as important as the physical one (Eph. 6:12).

Image God Through the Body

So what are bodies for? When we stop ignoring or idolizing bodies, their telos or purpose comes into view: to love. We’re God’s image-bearers, and “God is love” (1 John 4:8). The great commandment is to love God and love neighbor (Matt. 22:37–39).

Health and longevity aren’t ends in themselves. They’re means to an end: to glorify and enjoy God by loving him and others. Our call is not to optimize health for its own sake. Our call is rather an echo of the Christian wedding vows: to love, in sickness and in health. Knowing this truth frees us from the slavery of always needing to get everything right, obsessing over our fitness and body image.

When we see bodies as image-bearers, we turn from the mirror of vanity or shame and open the window to the world outside of us. It’s not about how our bodies can look; it’s about how our bodies can love.

Resurrection (Not Death) Is the End of the Body

But before we get too hyped on how pro-body Christianity is and how health and longevity can be reframed for love, we’d do well to remember why Johnson cares about longevity and why we have arguments over vaccines and Tylenol.

Most of us rightly intuit that death is the great enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). Christianity’s celebration of the body doesn’t minimize the problem of sickness and death. It clarifies just how wrong it is. Death and pain and sickness are products of sin breaking a world that was made for beauty, health, and shalom.

When Jesus wept over Lazarus, then called him from the tomb, he showed that in God’s kingdom, death will not have the final word (John 11:35–44). Jesus’s healings—bringing people out of sickness and death and into health—were signs of that coming reality. Everywhere he went, he gave glimpses of this kingdom (Luke 4:18–19).

And yet, Jesus also showed us that the resurrection we long for comes through death, not by going around it.

Health and longevity aren’t ends in themselves. They’re means to an end: to glorify and enjoy God by loving him and others.

This is Christianity in all its glory and honesty. Jesus had to die. Unless he comes back soon, so will we. But Christianity’s wild claim is that God in Jesus triumphs over death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ means sin and death are defeated, and the gift of eternal life is ours—with resurrected bodies included.

Johnson is a former Mormon who is on record saying he “didn’t want an afterlife.” Perhaps it was because he, like many of us, doesn’t realize just how wonderfully embodied the afterlife actually is (Luke 24:36–43; 1 Cor. 15; Phil. 3:20–21). We can sympathize with Johnson because Jesus would. He weeps over death. But I’ll take the hope of heaven over the hope of not dying every day of the week. Because someone has already conquered death. And it was the greatest achievement the world has seen.

Body Teaches the Soul

Armed with a biblical theology of the body, Christians can move into what I call the “body teaching the soul.” By that, I mean a lived spirituality that goes through the body rather than bypassing or diminishing it. Christianity affirms healing and living longer, but in the same breath, it calls you to the humility of learning to die well, not to pretend you won’t die at all. Obsess over death and you’ll forget how to live. But face it next to Jesus, and you’ll find life to the full.

So, if anyone out there knows Bryan Johnson, tell him the good news: Death has already been conquered. That’s why we follow Jesus into a healthy life.