Proverbs 16:31 ESV
Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.
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The terror of growing old is familiar to man. Gilgamesh dived deep in search of immortality, Alexander carved his name into cities, and Count of St. Germain simply told everybody he was. Nowadays, we can watch a culture desperate to look younger and younger, people with gray hair who really, really don’t want to be reminded of the fact. It seems natural, even. Who wants to be reminded of approaching death? Who wants to endure the feebleness and vulnerability that comes with age? Neither prospect is particularly pleasant. The Scriptures, though, give us another perspective on old age. God calls gray hairs a glory- when they are gained in righteousness.
For it is true what they say: there really is no fool like an old fool. If gray hair is a crown of glory, then we must consider how a crown relies on what is beneath it for meaning. On a pedestal, a crown is in waiting; so, for gray hairs, we give no particular reverence to a wig, perhaps admiring its craftsmanship at most. On a king, conversely, a crown is fitting, a thing of beauty and majesty, so long as he is a good king. A king’s crown is by the king made a thing of glory, for then it speaks a truth of the honor given to him, to have stewardship over the people of the Lord (Ps. 2:10-12; Rom. 13:1-5). Gray hair, likewise, when it is the crowning of a good man, then it is a highlight and a declaration of his wisdom, a testimony to the experience by which he has forged righteousness.
But what if the crown be on something less honorable than a king? What if it is worn by a monkey? A scarecrow? A dung heap? The crown is for such not a thing of glory but of mockery. The monkey who wears the crown is not lifted up by it; instead, he makes it merely a jest upon other crowns, a jackanape on a not-ape if I may be permitted the pun. So on the head of a fool, on the head of the man who loves wickedness, whose heart is far from God, the ‘crown of glory’ which is gray hair, that crown is a highlight of his foolishness, no glory to him but only shame, for he is a dung heap beneath gold, and both are less for it.
The essence of the glory of old age, then, is in how we come to that old age. The man that comes to old age on a long and hard path of righteousness, to that man his gray hair (his baldness, his white hair) is a glory, a signifier that the Lord has brought him safely through the storm to rejoice once more in Him. In such a sight we should rejoice (Is. 65:18-20). Such as man is the youth who dies a hundred years old in Isaiah 65:20, he whose vineyard still bears him fruit, whose offspring are the blessing of the Lord upon him (Ps. 127:4-5).
We cannot be like the world, who, knowing only the fool and the jackanape and the dung heap, are terrified of the crown of old age. To the world, indeed, gray hair is a mockery and a shame, gilding on a dumpster, a monument to misery and waste. Yet to the man who is in Christ it is not so, and we, by His grace, by repentance and faith, are in Christ. We therefore seek wholeheartedly to comport to that crown. We can look forward to that gray hair, if God gives it to us.
Nor is death the terror to His people that it rightly is to the world’s man and to the fool. Death is an evil, yes, a terrible pain, the rending apart of the incarnate nature of man, never to be sought for itself. Death, though, is also a step forward. Our bodily death is the final touch of sin upon us- and beyond it lies the final victory of Christ in us. Beyond death lies the body resurrected, the spirit incarnate once more to praise Him eternally. Then shall the glory be without excuse, illumining all our selves, though now we dull and damp it. Than shall He be our sun by day, the brightness which gives us light (Is. 60:19-20). Until then, though, let us live lives of righteousness, so that the gray upon our heads, if we have it now or only foresee it, is truly a crown of glory, glory upon us and from Him.
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
