Reincarnation

I was brought up believing in reincarnation from an early age. My mother studied the sleeping prophet Edgar Cayce, who was put into a trance in order to find a cure for people’s illnesses; and then, one day, someone asked him about their former life, and Edgar started telling them about who they used to be.

1.    Reincarnation is the notion that we are born back into this world several times, generally speaking to improve and to learn from our former lives. This is a cornerstone of several religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism.

2.    The idea behind reincarnation is that we make grievous blunders throughout our lifetime and then God gives us a chance to try it again. We do have situations like this which we face in life; God often tests us several times over the same material, so to speak; but all of this is done within the same lifetime.

3.    Reincarnation is continually opposed by the Bible. It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment.

4.    Also opposed by Scripture is the notion that we can do something to earn our salvation. Inherent in reincarnation is the idea that we can eventually progress to a point where whatever deity that is out there becomes so impressed with our works that he just can’t help but accept us; however, the most popular notion is that in these reincarnations, man reaches some sort of divine state of being; i.e., we become like God, or we become God, which was Satan’s first sin (“I will be like the Most High.”).

5.    There are several problems with the concept of improving ourselves through several lifetimes until we reach this state of perfection:

       a.    We are saved by grace and not through works. We cannot earn our way into salvation.

       b.    We only have the record of one perfect man on this earth; no one else can make that sort of claim. This seems to be quite the cruet fate to be confined to a world for endless lives when it is obvious that so few people come even close to qualifying for a completion of the life cycle.

       c.    The fact of justice is completely ignored; no one pays for their own sin. The punishment required for any sin is much greater than we realize. In our examination of the Law, even though an eye for an eye was prescribed, there were situations where capital punishment was the penalty for sins which did not in themselves involve death.

       d.    Such a system makes Jesus Christ, the only perfect man, out to be a liar, and God’s Word out to be a book of lies.

       e.    Such a system parallels Satan’s fall and appeals to the arrogance of man.