In Acts 2:38, we find that two things are required for remission of our sins; one is repentance of our known sins in this life, and the other is water baptism in Yahshua's name, which is an appeal to Yahweh for a clear conscience. The need for baptism after we have already repented for our known sin certainly implies the need to cover sins of which we are not aware. It is our belief that the doctrine of reincarnation opens the door for Yahweh to show us our original sin for which we where cast out of heaven and also unrepented sins from any of our past lives. Repenting of these sins brings us to actually possess a clear conscience. This will deliver us from the effects of many demonic spirits that have plagued our families and us all of our lives. I CONSIDER THIS ONE OF THE GREATEST REVELATIONS OF TRUTH THAT YAHWEH HAS SHOWN US, AS THIS KNOWLEDGE HAS FREED MY FAMILY OF SOME TREMENDOUS PROBLEMS THAT NOTHING ELSE COULD REMEDY.
Ancient writings were discovered in 1945, which revealed more information about the concept of reincarnation from a sect of Christians called "Gnostics". This sect was ultimately destroyed by the Roman Orthodox Church, their followers were burned at the stake and their writings wiped out. The writings included some long lost gospels, some of which were written early than the known gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gnostic Christians claimed to possess the correct definition of "resurrection" - based on Yahshua's secret teachings, handed down to them by the apostles.
The existence of a secret tradition can be found in the New Testament: "He (Yahshua) told them, ' the secret of the kingdom of Yahweh has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'" (Mark 4:11-12)
"No, we speak of Yahweh's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that Yahweh destined for our glory before time began." (1 Corinthians 2:7)
"So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Yahweh and as those entrusted with his secret things." (1 Corinthians 4:1)
A fragment of the Secret Gospel of Mark, one of the Gnostic texts discovered, describes Yahshua performing secret initiation rites. Before the discovery of Gnostic writings, our only knowledge of it came from a letter written by Church Father Clement of Alexandria (150 AD - 211 AD), which quotes this secret gospel and refers to it as "a more spiritual gospel for the use of those who were being perfected." He said, "It even yet is most carefully guarded [by the church at Alexandria], being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries." Clement insists elsewhere that Yahshua revealed a secret teaching to those who were "capable of receiving it and being molded by it." Clement indicates that he possessed the secret tradition, which was handed down through the apostles. Such Gnostics were spiritual critics of the Orthodox Church of what they saw as not so much a popularization as a vulgarization of Christianity. The Orthodox Church stressed faith, while the Gnostic church stressed knowledge (gnosis). This secret knowledge emphasized spiritual resurrection rather than physical resurrection. Indeed, the Gnostic Christians believed reincarnation to be the true interpretation of "resurrection" for those who have not attained a spiritual resurrection through this secret knowledge.
The New Testament talks about this gnosis (knowledge): "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues." (1 Corinthians 12:7-10)
The following are some the secret teachings of Yahshua from the Gnostic gospels that affirm reincarnation, revealing the secret knowledge:
"Watch and pray that you may not be born in the flesh, but that you may leave the bitter bondage of this life." (Book of Thomas the Contender)
"When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will bear!" (Gospel of Thomas)
In the Book of Thomas the Contender, Yahshua tells the disciple Thomas that after death those who were once believers but have remained attached to things of "transitory beauty" will be consumed "in their concern about life" and will be "brought back to the visible realm".
In the Secret Book of John, reincarnation is placed at the heart of its discussion of the salvation of souls. The book was written by 185 AD at the latest. Here is the Secret Book of John's perspective on reincarnation:
All people have drunk the water of forgetfulness and exist in a state of ignorance. Some are able to overcome ignorance through the Spirit of life that descends upon them. These souls "will be saved and will become perfect," that is, escape the round of rebirth. John asks Yahshua what will happen to those who do not attain salvation. They are hurled down "into forgetfulness" and thrown into "prison", the Gnostic code word for new body. The only way for these souls to escape, says Yahshua, is to emerge from forgetfulness and acquire knowledge. A soul in this situation can do so by finding a teacher or savior who has the strength to lead her home. "This soul needs to follow another soul in whom the Spirit of life dwells, because she is saved through the Spirit. Then she will never be thrust into flesh again." (Secret Book of John) (We do not support, nor do we identify with, the modern Gnostic movement, which has nothing to do with the Early Church.)
JOB 33:28-30, ”HE HAS REDEEMED MY SOUL FROM GOING DOWN INTO THE PIT, AND MY LIFE SHALL SEE THE LIGHT. BEHOLD, YAHWEH DOES ALL THESE THINGS, TWICE, THREE TIMES, WITH A MAN, TO BRING BACK HIS SOUL FROM THE PIT, THAT HE MAY SEE THE LIGHT OF LIFE.”
There are many Bible verses, which are suggestive of reincarnation. One episode in particular from the healing miracles of Yahshua seems to point to reincarnation: "And as he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" Yahshua answered, ‘Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents, but the works of Yahweh were to be made manifest in him.'" (John 9:1)
The disciples ask the Lord if the man himself could have committed the sin that led to his blindness. Given the fact that the man has been blind from birth, we are confronted with a provocative question. When could he have made such transgressions as to make him blind at birth? The only conceivable answer is in some prenatal state. The question as posed by the disciples explicitly presupposes prenatal existence. It will also be noted that Yahshua says nothing to dispel or correct the presupposition. Here is incontrovertible support for a doctrine of human pre-existence.
Also very suggestive of reincarnation is the episode where Yahshua identifies John the Baptist as Elijah.
"For all the prophets and the law have prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who was to come." (Matthew 11:13-14)
"And the disciples asked him, saying, 'Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?' But he answered them and said, 'Elijah indeed is to come and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. Then the disciples understood that he had spoken of John the Baptist." (Matthew 17:10-13)
Here again is a clear statement of pre-existence. Despite the edict of the Emperor Justinian and the counter reaction to Origen, there is firm and explicit testimony for pre-existence in both the Old and the New Testament. Indeed, the ban against Origen notwithstanding, contemporary "Christian" scholarship acknowledges pre-existence as one of the elements of Judeo-Christian theology.
As for the John the Baptist-Elijah episode, there can be little question as to its purpose. By identifying the Baptist as Elijah, Yahshua is identifying himself as the Messiah. Throughout the gospel narrative there are explicit references to the signs that will precede the Messiah. "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and 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 would be preceded by a forerunner, by Elijah. Although the Bible also contains other reincarnation passages, these Elijah-John passages constitute clear proof of reincarnation.
The following verse is used to refute the John the Baptist/Elijah reincarnation connection. The Bible tells us that John the Baptist possessed, “... the spirit and power of Elijah." (Luke 1:17)
Those who refute this reincarnation connection say that John the Baptist merely came in the spirit and power of Elijah. However, this is a perfect description of reincarnation: the spirit and power. This is reincarnation - the reincarnation of the spirit. The Bible itself states that John the Baptist possessed the spirit that had previously lived in, and as, the man Elijah - not his physical being and memory, but his spirit.
John carried Elijah's living spirit, but not his physical memory. And 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." Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'" Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" "I baptize with water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." (John 1:21-27) But Yahshua knew better, and said so in the plainest words possible: "This is the one ... there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.... And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He who has ears, let him hear." (Matthew 11:11-15).
It comes down to this: Yahshua said John was Elijah, and John said he wasn’t. Which of the two is to be believed - Yahshua or John?
When the Yahshua came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" (Matthew 16:14) His disciples replied: "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
Considering such widespread conjecture about the doctrine of reincarnation in 1st century Israel, the people of his own time undoubtedly assumed Yahshua had been openly promoting this doctrine when he claimed that the man now known as John the Baptist was the same man who centuries earlier had been the famous prophet Elijah. Confronted by these rumors that His countrymen believed in reincarnation, did Yahshua take this opportunity to deny and refute this doctrine? No. Instead, He made statements that seem to support reincarnation.
Yahshua was sometimes taken to be a reincarnation of one of the prophets. An example of this is when Yahshua asked: "Whom do people say that I am?" (Mark 8:27) The consensus of opinion seems to have been that He was a reincarnation of either John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the Old Testament prophets.
Another Bible verse has Paul discussing the process of "resurrection" (i.e. reincarnation): "But someone may ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?' How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But Yahweh gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:35-44).
Another verse suggestive of reincarnation can be found when Yahshua declares the following to the Church of Philadelphia: "Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it." (Revelation 3:12) Yahshua is stating that people were once inhabitants of the temple of Yahweh. This is strongly suggestive of pre-existence and reincarnation. As soon as the person overcomes (the world) the person becomes a permanent inhabitant of this temple and never again has to leave it. The flip-side to this is that those who do not overcome must leave this temple of Yahweh only to return when they overcome the world.
There is another reference to reincarnation in the gospels; an indirect reference, yet an unmistakable one. In all three of the synoptic gospels, Yahshua promised that anyone leaving their homes, wives, mothers, fathers, children, or farms to follow him would personally receive hundreds more such homes, families, and so on in the future. Yahshua said: "No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or wife or children or land for me and the truthl will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age - homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields ... and in the age to come, eternal life." (Mark 10:29-30) Outside of the doctrine of reincarnation it's difficult to imagine how such a promise could be fulfilled. In one lifetime, one can only have a single set of real parents, and no one seriously proposes that each of the 70 original disciples, who actually did leave their homes and families, ever received as compensation a hundred wives, a hundred fields, and so on. Either this statement of Y'shua's occurred when he was waxing so poetic as to allow a falsehood to pass his lips, or he was making a promise that only many reincarnations could fulfill.
Indeed we can even find scriptural support for personal disincarnate pre-existence. Origen took the following Bible verse as proof of pre-existence: "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish in his sight and love." (Ephesians 1:4)
Jerome, who is just as uncomfortable as Justinian about pre-existence, interprets the passage to mean that we preexisted, not in distinct disincarnate form, but simply in the mind of Yahweh (Against Rufinus 1.22), and from this throng of thoughts Yahweh chose the elect before the creation of the world. The distinction is indeed a fine one, for Jerome is -asking us to distinguish between that which exists as a soul and that which exists as a thought. What is illuminating is that this passage from Ephesians offers very explicit scriptural testimony for individual pre-existence.
Malachi 1:2-3 and Romans 9:11-13 both state that Yahweh loved Jacob, but hated Esau even before they were born. These verses are highly suggestive of the pre-existence of Esau, a necessary tenet associated with reincarnation.
The same concept of pre-existence can also be found in the following Bible verse: "I tell you the truth," Yahshua answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" (John 8:58)
A possible incarnation of Yahshua is the Old Testament figure known as Melchizedek, the High Priest and King of Salem, who: "...without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of Yahweh he remains a priest forever." (Hebrews 7:3). It is clear from the scripture that Melchizedek was no ordinary man, assuming He even was a man - for what kind of man has no father or mother, is without genealogy, and without beginning of days or end of life? Whoever this Melchizedek was, the scriptures declare Yahshua to be a: "... priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 7:17).
There are Bible verses that are highly suggestive of the "mechanics" of reincarnation. Before His arrest, Yahshua stated:"
All who take the sword will perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52)
Common sense tells us that not all people who live "by the sword" will die by the sword. This statement can only be true if meant in the context of a future life. If in this life you "live by the sword", you will most certainly die, if not in the same life but a future life, "by the sword". In fact, this concept is the ancient doctrine of "karma" as it is known in the East where reincarnation is the foundation of reality. Here are some other Biblical references to this concept:
"Do not be deceived: Yahweh cannot be mocked. A person reaps what he sows." (Galatians 6:7)
"Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." (Exodus 21:24-25)
"In anger his master turned him over to the jailers until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (Matthew 18: 34-35)
"If any one slays with the sword, with the sword must he be slain." (Revelation 13:10)
"Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth; you will not get out until you have paid the last penny." (Matthew 5:25-26)
The above passages can be seen to at least be suggestive of reincarnation.
In James 3:6, some translations (such as the American Standard Version) mention "the wheel of nature" which seems to resemble the cycle of endless reincarnation stated by the Eastern religions. However, in this context the reference is made to the control of speech in order not to sin. The ASV translation states: "And the tongue is a fire: the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell." (James 3:6) The tongue out of control is compared with a fire that affects all aspects of existence, thought and deed, in a vicious cycle. This means that sinful speech is at the origin of many other sins, which are consequently generated, and conduct man to hell.
Nowhere in the Old Testament is reincarnation denied. Job asks: "If a person dies will he live again?" (Job 14:14) But he receives no answer. Another Old Testament verse states: "Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again...What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:4-9)
The Hebrew kabbalists interpreted this quote to mean that a generation dies and subsequently returns by the process of reincarnation.
In the New Testament, one verse in particular is often used to refute reincarnation. It is Hebrews 9:27. "... man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment...." (Hebrews 9:27)
This is often assumed, reasonably enough, to declare that each human being lives once as a mortal on earth, dies once, and then faces judgment. But this verse, on its surface, not only applies to reincarnation, but to the modern concept of resurrection. In fact, if anything, this verse can be most applied to refuting modern "Christianity's" definition of resurrection. Reincarnation states that the spirit leaves the body at death, faces judgment, then can enter a new and different body at a later time. In this way, Hebrews 9:27 does not refute reincarnation because it is not the same body that dies again. It implies one man/one death, which agrees with reincarnation, but totally disagrees with modern "Christianity's" definition of resurrection which holds that after a body dies and faces judgment; his physical body will rise from the grave at a later day to face possible death again and judgment. So Hebrews 9:27 does not refute reincarnation after all, but does refute resurrection as modern "Christianity" defines it.
From all that has been said here, one can safely draw the conclusion that reincarnation was not only known by those in Yahshua's day, by that Yahshua himself and the Bible teaches it and reincarnation should be a doctrine acceptable by every follower of Y'shuat.
THE TRUTH IS IT REQUIRES MORE THAN ONE LIFE FOR THE RESTORATION AND PERFECTION OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT.
