WE ARE EXAMINING the answers about life after death. We know that we are too big to find our final goal in a narrow grave. The next answer is reincarnation. There are those who believe that since this life is too short and too indeterminate to work out our final destiny we will come back again—be reborn on a higher or lower scale of existence according to our deeds—our karma. India has been the center of belief in reincarnation, except that the Hindus believe in transmigration as well. Reincarnation teaches that you come back in human form, while transmigration teaches that you may go below the level of the human to the level of animals or birds. I reject both reincarnation and transmigration for the following reasons: (1) The Christian Scriptures do not teach either one. The fact that Moses and Elijah came back on the Mount of Transfiguration teaches survival, but not reincarnation. When Jesus said: “if you are willing to accept it, he is Eli´jah,” speaking of John the Baptist, He does not teach reincarnation, but only that John came in the spirit and power of Elijah. He was not Elijah.
(2) Reincarnation would be a very poor remedial system. There is no memory of previous births. Therefore, if you are being rewarded or punished for deeds done in a previous birth, it is a poor system that would reward or punish you without any connecting link of memory between reward or punishment. Suppose a judge would punish or reward you and not tell you what it is for? It is true that some have claimed they have fleeting memories of this, that, and the other regarding a previous birth, but these are precarious and doubtful. Everybody should remember.
O Father God, we need light on the future. The half-lights leave us in confusion. Show us the direction we are going, and the goal. We want to walk into the future with sure and certain tread. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I need not reincarnation, but regeneration in this incarnation.
