Reincarnation

ACCORDING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT, WE DESCENDED FROM HEAVEN FIRST - John 3:13 & NO MAN HATH ASCENDED UP TO HEAVEN, BUT THAT HE CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN, EVEN THE SON OF MAN WHICH IS IN HEAVEN

Many Bible verses suggest reincarnation.

Solomon believed in reincarnation. Having forsaken the law, these ungodly men will be reborn in another life to inherit their curse.

Woe be unto you, ungodly men, which have forsaken the law of the most high God: for if you increase it shall be to your destruction. And if you be born, you shall be born to a curse Ecclesiastics 41:8-9, KJV, 1611 Edition, Apocrypha

"& as he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth.  & his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?"

Jesus answered, 'Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents, but the works of God were to be made manifest in him.' [John 9:1] 

• His disciples ask their Master if the man himself could have committed the sin that led to his blindness.

• The man, been blind from birth, had to have made transgressions in a previous life, pre-natal. 

• Such a question by these hand pick educated disciples shows they believed in Karma, reincarnation.  Christ says nothing to dispel their thoughts. 

Jesus identifies John the Baptist as Elijah. 

"For all the prophets & the law have prophesied until John. & if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who was to come." [Matthew 11:13-14] 

"& the disciples asked him, saying, 'Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?' But he answered them & said, 'Elijah indeed is to come & will restore all things.  But I say to you that Elijah has come already, & they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished.  So also shall the Son of Man suffer at their hand.'  Then the disciples understood that he had spoken of John the Baptist."  [Matthew 17:10-13]

In identifying the Baptist as Elijah, Jesus is identifying himself as the Messiah.

Signs that will precede the Messiah. "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great & dreadful day of the Lord." [Malachi 4:5]  

• This is one of the many messianic promises of the Old Testament.  One of the signs that the true Messiah has come, according to this passage from Malachi is that he be preceded by a forerunner, by Elijah. [note that this passage has been delete in Catholic bibles]

The Old Testament prophesied that Elijah himself would return before the advent of the Messiah. Jesus declared that John the Baptist was Elijah who had returned.

John carried Elijah's living spirit & not his physical memory; & since John did not possess Elijah's physical memory, he did not possess the memories of being the man Elijah; thus, John the Baptist denied being Elijah when asked:

They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" He answered, "No." 

Reincarnation is indirectly stated as a fact when Jesus declares to the believers in the Church of Philadelphia:

"HIM THAT OVERCOMETH WILL I MAKE A PILLAR IN THE TEMPLE OF MY GOD, & HE SHALL GO OUT NO MORE: [Revelation 3:12]

"Never again" suggests that there were times when they had to leave & return to the earth, preexistence & reincarnation. 

"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" [John 8:58]

• Perhaps the reincarnation of [the High Priest & King of Salem] the Old Testament figure is Christ : an old figure who: "...without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever." [Hebrews 7:3].

• What kind of man has no father or mother, is without genealogy, & without beginning of days or end of life?  Whoever this Melchizedek was, [Hebrews 7:17]. declares Jesus to be a: ".. priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." 

Before His arrest, Christ states: "All who take the sword will perish by the sword."  [Matthew 26:52]

• such a statement can only be true in the context of a future life; for it is almost impossible to pay for transgressions in one life time for a great many of us.   

• The concept is of the ancient doctrine of "karma," known in the East as reincarnation, the foundation of reality. 

 Going back to the time of Christ we do not have to look far to discover a large cheering section for the doctrine of rebirth among the orthodox Jewish leaders of that period. There are three learned Jewish philosophers appearing just before or at the time of Christ who taught the doctrine of reincarnation. They were Philo Judaeus, aka Philo of Alexandria, C. 20 B.C.E.- C. 50 C.E., who was the greatest Jewish philosopher & theologian of the Greco-Roman period whose writings have survived; the Jewish sage Hillel, the great Chaldean teacher who was the leading Pharisee in Jerusalem during the late 1st century B.C.E. & early years of the present era; & the great Jewish sage Jehoshuah ben Pandira. Today these three men are household names in Judaism & garner enormous respect from all orthodox Jews regardless of sect. They are prominent fixtures in Jewish religious history & they all taught the doctrine of reincarnation.