Alchemy is a form of pseudoscience popular during the medieval age. Its primary goals were to transmute base metals into gold and to create the elixir of life. The elixir of life is a magic potion capable of conferring immortality on its drinker. In ‘The Forbidden Kingdom’, Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) describes the elixir’s potency thus: ‘One sip of this heavenly brew will give everlasting life,

free from mortal suffering and desire.’

In their bids to conquer death, many people have had their lives cut short. For instance, one Chinese emperor in the Ming Dynasty died shortly after consuming what he and his alchemists presumed was the elixir of longevity. It’s ironic how something that’s supposed to extend life indefinitely terminates it abruptly.

Today, mankind’s desire to outsmart death hasn’t waned a tad. A biogenrotologist is seeking to somehow eliminate death by reversing the ageing process through a programme he calls Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS). Some folks even arrange for their body to be preserved cryogenically after death, hoping they could be brought back to life in the future.

Indisputably, banishing death from human society is a lost cause. Neither alchemists nor contemporary scientists have been able to deliver us mortal souls from the clutches of death. This is evidenced by the simple fact that hundreds of people are dying daily all over the world. Death seems an invincible foe.

There was, however, a man who conquered this seemingly invincible enemy more than 2, 000 years ago. Through His sacrificial death, Jesus Christ achieved that which is alchemically and scientifically impossible. At Calvary, the Saviour conquered the grave, thus delivering humans from the crippling fear of death. ‘Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage’ (Hebrews 2:14-15, RSV).

Death still remains a dreadful reality today. But the Bible tells of a time in the future when this enemy will be ‘swallowed up in victory’ (1 Corinthians 15:54). When this happens, humans will rise above death, clad with immortality, free from pain, sickness, poverty and such other woes. We shall become as ‘undieable’ as the Master Himself is. This is a promise one can stake their whole life on.

The promise of eternal life isn’t one of those too-good-to-be-true notions. Remember, Jesus was once a human subject to pain and death. Once He was tortured, killed and entombed. But He rose from the dead on the third day, and is now set at the right hand of the Father, free from death.

‘For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him’―Romans 6:9, RSV

http://solemntalk./2013/07/17/he-conquered-death/