What is Reincarnation and Why it's Incompatible with Christianity

Let's start with just reincarnation in general. The word reincarnation comes from Latin roots meaning entering the flesh again. People in eastern religions for thousands of years have held this view of reincarnation, that life is circular, that there's a rebirth of a soul in a human body or sometimes as another life form such as an animal and that we spiritually evolve into enlightenment. And also I kind of want to touch on this for a second. A lot of times people say just because this has been taught and is older than Christianity that that really doesn't make much sense and that's what's called a genetic fallacy. You can't exactly say that something is true based on how old it is and technically if you want to go back that far it is as old as the garden. So just because these beliefs were before doesn't make them correct. This lie that we can be like God goes back to the dawn of humanity. So technically yeah it is pretty old. That's a whole other topic but I know that there's going to be somebody that's going to ask or say that in the comment section because every time something of eastern mysticism or reincarnation or Hinduism Buddhism comes up, somebody always brings up that argument. So I'm ahead of you. I see you. Gotta stay ahead of the comment section. It's always fun to do that. Okay anyway moving on with reincarnation some people hold this belief called life selection which means that we choose our life before we're born into it and this includes all the problems we face. So you choose the life you want based on the lessons you want to learn and need to learn. And I remember the pink holds this view as well. I remember she was giving an interview and I very specifically remember her saying that yeah I chose all these problems for my life. I'm here to to learn and to evolve spiritually and she was saying basically that everything that's happening to her happens for a reason because she wants to spiritually evolve. This is something that a lot of that's a lot of people influencers even hold this view. The whole goal of all of this of reincarnation life selection is the development of your soul. So you basically predetermine your own life events good and bad and even the worst that has happened to you means that suffering is productive to bring to you your spiritual evolution. You're born, you live, then you die and because nobody's perfect your soul is born again and will continue to be born again until all the negative karma on your soul has been removed. This can be anything from bad thoughts, wrong deeds, literally anything less than perfect. And reincarnation varies between certain belief systems from like buddhism and hinduism for example. They both have different variations of reincarnation. Even people here in the west do. We have a westernized view of this. We have sort of made up our own version of reincarnation and karma and how it works which is what I did. I mentioned this before but I kind of had a hybrid belief where people were reborn until they accepted christ and only then could they get off the karmic wheel of pain. The common belief is that humanity will eventually be perfected and cleansed through reincarnation. The goal is to end reincarnation by obtaining enlightenment. Your past life determines the kind of life you get in the next and you climb that impossible ladder to nirvana or heaven. And many people claim that this is what Jesus did and that this is what he's trying to show us how to do. That's how they bring Jesus into this mess. Now those of you out there who know your bible pretty well are probably humming and hawing and scratching your head wondering how anyone can reconcile reincarnation with biblical teachings. Am I right? I guarantee you that there are quite a lot of people out there, even some that walk through the doors of your church every week that believe this. I think this is a grand example of what happens when we are biblically illiterate and cherry-pick scripture and approach it with a subjective bias. Nobody would ever think a monotheistic jew would ever adopt teachings that resembled the pagan gentile beliefs over the teachings of Yahweh. Nobody could ever study jewish scriptures and the new testament and come to the conclusion that any of them believed in reincarnation, past lives, or karma. The only way that I have reasoned that anyone could possibly come up with these conclusions is if they had preconceived beliefs that they're trying to conform to scripture. This is called syncretism, which is a mixing of beliefs to conform to the culture or surrounding religions. It's like mixing Thomas Kincaid puzzle pieces with a Dora the Explorer puzzle. You cannot get a unified image. Dora the Explorer. Is that the best I could come up with? For this reason and much more, reincarnation is not compatible with biblical Christianity. Let me give more reasons why because that's why you guys are here and you're here for it. First, reincarnation and past lives is eastern philosophy that has one set of puzzle pieces in it and it's smashed into a first century jewish context. The original intent of the authors of the bible should be the goal. And spoiler alert, the first century monotheistic jews followed the law of Moses and believed in Yahweh who forbade pagan practices and therefore didn't believe in reincarnation. Second, everything about the message of reincarnation is completely antithetical to the gospel and Jesus's teachings. We don't have sin we need to be saved from if we can save ourselves from it with the good deeds in our next life. If we can work our negative karma off in a future incarnation then Jesus died for nothing. We can pay for our own sins apparently and in first john chapter 2 verse 2 and romans 3 25 it says that Jesus died as the atonement for our sins. If we atone for our own sins in a future incarnation then Jesus's sacrifice is unnecessary. But if we only have one life as it says in hebrews 9 27 and good deeds can't erase our sins according to romans 3 20 then a ransom must be made on our behalf to pay our debt of justice to God as it says in mark 10 45.