REINCARNATION & THE HOLY BIBLE [Part 3 Of 4]

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[From the STMcC archive; 2005, September.]

Continued From Part 2 . . .

ALLUSIONS TO REINCARNATION IN THE BIBLE
The following passages cannot be fully comprehended until the principle of reincarnation is applied to them.

* JOB 1:21
"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there."
Obviously we don't RETURN to the womb unless it is for the purpose of rebirth. But since this statement comes from Job, a man whose understanding of God's Ways was very limited, this verse cannot stand alone.

* ZECHARIAH 12:10
"And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced."
Having been written about 540 years before the birth of Jesus, this is both a prophecy about the coming Messiah and His death on the cross, as well as a reference to reincarnation. Note that those who crucified Jesus will be living on the Earth to witness His Second Coming.

* MATTHEW 23:31-35 
"You are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your father's guilt...that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah...whom YOU murdered between the temple and the altar."
God is clear in The Bible that each man is accountable for his own sin, and that the sins of the fathers are NOT imputed to the sons. (See 2 Chronicles 25:4 amongst others. This incidentally, is also instructive when considering contemporary Christianity's understanding of Adam and Eve's "Original Sin." But we won't go there now.) Jesus is saying that the generation to whom He spoke included the individuals who had murdered the Old Testament prophets.

* MARK, Chapter 13
"Take heed that no one deceives YOU. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am He,' and will deceive many . . . And what I say to YOU, I say to all: Watch!"

In this chapter, we find Jesus explaining to His disciples, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, the signs that will be prevalent on the Earth at the time of His Second Coming, and the things that His followers will endure. But notice how often He uses the word "YOU" in this passage. (Get your Bible and read the ENTIRE chapter for yourself.) He is clearly saying to His Disciples that they will have been reborn and present on Earth at the time of His Return! Beyond the reincarnation aspect of it, this is a VERY IMPORTANT chapter that EVERYONE had better understand thoroughly or else they will be setting themselves up for terrible judgment (which I believe is right around the corner).

* JOHN 21:21-23
"If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me."
Here Jesus implies that John will continually reincarnate to promote the Gospel until Jesus’ Second Coming.

* ROMANS 7:9 
"I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died."

Saint Paul may be implying that he lived on Earth prior to The Law of God being delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, because obviously "The Law of Moses" had been known and practiced for many hundreds of years before the birth of Paul. It should also be remembered that Paul also said to the early Christians, "...we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing."

(See HEBREWS 5, a chapter that speaks directly about Jesus and His prior lifetime on the Earth as Melchizedek, the High Priest. Unless Jesus had been Melchizedek, He would be a priest of “the Order of Melchizedek” but He wouldn't actually be the High Priest of the Order. And that would be inconsistent with the New Testament’s view of Jesus’ place in the spiritual hierarchy.)

Incidentally, I have discovered a couple of other Biblical verses that seem to imply that Jesus himself had lived one prior earthly incarnation (or more) in which he was “born of a woman”. However, this “stuffs” about our own reincarnating is probably difficult enough for many to accept, without me actually exploring the subject as it relates even to our Master, Jesus. I’ll save that one for another year . . . or decade.

* REVELATION 3:12 
"He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more."
That's a quote from Jesus. If it doesn't mean that the person who overcomes the impulses of the brutish, "natural" man of the Earth, and learns to live the life of Love that God commands, will not be required to reincarnate further, then I have no idea what it means. And I doubt that anyone else does either. In my opinion, a person would have to be pretty doggedly determined NOT to see reincarnation in The Bible in order to deny that this passage refers to a cessation of reincarnating on the Earth.

KARMIC LAW THAT IMPLIES REINCARNATION IN THE BIBLE

* PROVERBS 22:16
"He who oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he who gives to the rich, will surely come to poverty."
You don't need me to prove to you that many people throughout history have gained riches by unethical and immoral means, and yet died with their great wealth. This statement from God then MUST imply that the poverty will sometimes come upon the individual in a subsequent lifetime. Otherwise, God is mistaken. And God has NEVER been mistaken!

* ISAIAH 33:1
"Woe to you who plunder, though you have not been plundered; and you who deal treacherously, though they have not dealt treacherously with you! When you cease plundering, you will be plundered; when you make an end of dealing treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you."
The same idea as above. We know that not all who have plundered in ONE lifetime have themselves been plundered in that SAME lifetime.

* GENESIS 9:6
"Whoever sheds man's blood, by man HIS blood shall be shed."
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* MATTHEW 26:52
"Put your sword in its place, for ALL who take the sword will perish by the sword."
God couldn't have been more clear in the verse from Genesis. It's a reciprocal world we live in. In the passage from Matthew, we find Jesus warning Peter not to kill the servant of the high priest or else it was guaranteed that he, Peter, would suffer the same fate. Jesus was reminding him of God's karmic law established in Genesis 9:6. Now we ALL know that millions of people have murdered human beings throughout history and yet a great many of the killers did not perish from this Earth by violent means. A famous example is the gangster Mickey Cohen. He was a triggerman or "hit man" for the mob who acknowledged having murdered men: "I have killed no men that in the first place didn't deserve killing." And yet Cohen did not die by violence; he passed away in his sleep in 1976 as a result of stomach cancer.

Many murderers have even escaped capture and imprisonment. They seemingly have gotten away with murder. But "GOD IS NOT MOCKED; FOR WHATEVER A MAN SOWS, THAT HE WILL ALSO REAP" (Galatians 6:7), and His Law polices itself perfectly. Sometimes the karmic consequences do not manifest until a life (or lives) later, but God's law is perfect! All lessons will be taught according to God's own timetable. But if the verses in GENESIS 9:6 and MATTHEW 26:52 do not imply reincarnation, then surely it would be correct to assume that some individuals have gotten away with murder, and that both God and Jesus were wrong.

Even if there were no other references to reincarnation in the entire Bible, these two verses ALONE would be sufficient for us to determine that reincarnation is a Biblical concept!

* REVELATION 13:10
"He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword MUST be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints."

The same idea yet again. God has established a reciprocal world in which we are meant to learn our lessons through a "Cause and Effect" dynamic.

CONCLUSION

There are other references to reincarnation in The Holy Bible, but these will be more than adequate to convince "he who has ears to hear" that reincarnation is a Biblically sound concept.

But now that we see reincarnation is a fundamental part of God's plan, is there any reason to read more about it? Certainly it would not hurt to (CAUTIOUSLY) read a few books on the subject in order to gain a greater appreciation for it. But to continue reading title after title will not serve any purpose other than to simply reconfirm what you have already found. Merely understanding how reincarnation works will NOT make you a better person.

I contend that once reincarnation has been accepted, it is time to simply go on with our Living, Loving, and Learning. We don't need to dwell on a Law that God maintains with or without our conscious knowledge. If reincarnation helps you to accept certain circumstances in your life that otherwise would seem unfair on the surface, then for you it is quite helpful. But STILL, what you will do from this moment on is preeminent, and THAT is where your heart and mind should be focused.

Now that we understand that there is a cause behind every effect in our lives, let's vow not to be like that dog in Proverbs:

"As a dog returns to his own vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly." ~ PROVERBS 26:11
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Let's not dwell on nor repeat our past mistakes, but go forward boldly in our faith with a conviction that - with the help of God's Son - we can live the life of Love that we have been called to.

Sure, many people will feel compelled to try to explain away these references to reincarnation, but until they can answer ALL of them in a very REASONABLE way that is consistent with the overall message of The Bible, they would be better off to simply accept the Ways of God . . . For "His mercy endures FOREVER." (Psalm 136)

Still, each person should be free to follow the path of their own conscience.

I sincerely hope that I did not convey a condescending attitude toward contemporary Christians in this guide. That certainly was not my intention. I love my Christian Brothers and Sisters, and I have learned a great deal about Jesus and The Bible from many of the Christian writers whom I have read over the years. I simply feel that much of contemporary Christian theology is not entirely Biblically sound, and does not correlate with what I have been taught by The Spirit. But beyond a theological dispute, I have no animosity toward Christians whatsoever.
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In fact, I refer to myself as a "Maverick Mystic" but my beliefs are more closely aligned with modern Christianity than they are to most of the "New Age" teachings, much of which I consider to be occultic and exceedingly dangerous.

Bless And Be Blessed! (Get it? Karmic law.)

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"TAKE UP [YOUR] CROSS AND FOLLOW ME . . . I AM THE WAY."
~ Jesus (Matthew 16:24 & John 14:6)

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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
Continued below in “Reincarnation & The Holy Bible: 2010 Addendum [Part 4]”

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