Originally Posted by
patrizekirsten
as i go through your thread , it seems that ur into reincarnation and karma. and u even quoted from the bible. literally not a single word in the bible tells about it.
The word Reincarnation or Preexistence is not found literally in the Bible BUT there are passages that have meaning about Reincarnation or Preexistence.
Also with regards to The Law of Karma or Law of Cause and Effect, you cannot find a single word there BUT the meaning is found as Jesus said "what You Sow is What you Reap."
IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: DON'T JUST READ and INTERPRET THE BIBLE FOR WHAT IT SAYS BUT FOR WHAT IT MEANS
Reincarnation and the Bible
In many documented near-death experiences involving Jesus, the concept of reincarnation appears. In the NDE testimony of Jeanie Dicus, she was asked by Jesus if she would like to reincarnate or return. Sandra Rogers was asked the same question by Jesus during her NDE. One of the reasons many Christians reject the validity of near-death testimony is because they sometimes appear to conflict with their interpretation of Christian doctrines. But Christians are usually very surprised to learn that reincarnation was a doctrine once held by many early Christians. Not only that, as you will soon see there is overwhelming evidence in the Bible of Jesus himself teaching it. More Biblical evidence can be found in Herbert Puryear's outstanding book entitled Why Jesus Taught Reincarnation and Dr. Quincy Howe, Jr.'s excellent book entitled Reincarnation for the Christian.
Many Christians have misconceptions about reincarnation. One particular misconception is that it means people don't inhabit heavenly realms between Earth lives. The misconception is that people reincarnate immediately after death. It ignorantly assumes people will never be permanent residents of heavenly realms. But near-death testimony reveals these misconceptions to be just that - misconceptions. People are free to spend an "eternity of eternities" in afterlife realms before reincarnating to Earth again. There is freedom of choice. This is because time, as we know it on Earth, does not exist in the afterlife realms as it does here. The ultimate purpose for reincarnation is for us to learn enough lessons and gain enough experience from Earth lives that reincarnation is no longer necessary. Like a graduation. Reincarnation is not the goal. Eternal life means never having to die anymore. That is the goal - overcoming death and rebirth. Reincarnation is the method and means to attain this goal. For more information on this visit my research conclusions on reincarnation.
A good understanding of reincarnation begins by understanding the ancient teachings on the subject and comparing them to what we know about NDEs. The following are teachings of the various ancient religions on reincarnation.
Resurrection and the Persian Religion
For thousands of years, Christians believed that when a person dies their soul would sleep in the grave along with their corpse. This soul sleep continues until a time in the future known as the "last day" or also known as the "final judgment." This doctrine concerns a time when Jesus supposedly returns in the sky and clouds with the angels to awakened sleeping souls in the graves. Then all corpses will crawl out of their graves like in the movie "Night of the Living Dead." This doctrine is the orthodox Christian doctrine called "resurrection" and it is the result of a misunderstanding of the higher teachings of Jesus concerning the reincarnation of the spirit into a new body and the real resurrection which is a spiritual rebirth or "awakening" within a person already alive. The orthodox concept of resurrection as the "Night of the Living Dead" is also the result of a great schism which occurred in early Christian history concerning pre-existence and the nature of Jesus. Was he a man who became God? Was he God born as a man? The struggle was between the Church established by Paul in Rome and the remnants of the Jerusalem Church who fled to Egypt after Rome invaded Israel in 70 AD. The Roman faction rejected pre-existence and reincarnation and believed Jesus was God become man. The Jerusalem faction knew Jesus was a man who achieved the human-divine at-one-ment which is the goal of everyone to escape reincarnation cycle of birth and death and have eternal life. But Rome won the political battle and orthodox resurrection became the "Night of the Living Dead."
Many Christians would be surprised to learn that the resurrection of corpses did not originate with Christianity nor with Judaism. It originated with the Zoroastrian religion in ancient Persia (of Magi fame). During the Babylonian exile of the Jews in Old Testament times, the Jews were influenced by Zoroastrian concepts such as the resurrection of corpses, a final day of judgment, the dualism of good versus evil, the hierarchy of angels including fallen angels, and the arch rival of God called Satan. Over time, these Zoroastrian doctrines were incorporated into the religious doctrines of Judaism. From those days forward, a foreign concept of regeneration called "resurrection" competed with the much older concept of reincarnation and the concept of Sheol - concepts that can be found in the Hebrew scriptures.
Reincarnation and the Hebrew Religion
The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote about the Pharisees being believers in reincarnation. The Pharisees were the Jewish sect which Paul belonged to before his NDE and conversion to Christianity. Josephus wrote about the Pharisees' belief that the souls of evil men are punished after death. But the souls of good men are "removed into other bodies"and they will have "power to revive and live again."
From time to time throughout Jewish history, there was a persistent belief about dead prophets returning to life through reincarnation. But the Sadducees, a purist sect of Judaism, rejected the Persian concepts of resurrection and all Hellenistic influences involving reincarnation that was happening in Jesus' day. The Sadducees accepted only the orthodox Hebrew belief in Sheol. So there were a variety of influences going on in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.
When Jesus began his ministry, many people wondered if he was the reincarnation of one of the prophets. Some people wondered the same thing concerning John the Baptist. And even Jesus affirmed to his disciples that John the Baptist was indeed the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah. Throughout his ministry, Jesus taught people about the true resurrection - a spiritual rebirth within a living person. Thus, when Jesus stated that he was the resurrection and the life, he was teaching them a radical new principle. It was a rebirth of the spirit - not into a new body - as when we are born from our mother's womb - but a rebirth of our spirit within the body we now inhabit. Jesus was distinguishing between what was already believed in those days concerning the afterlife and a new teaching concerning a spiritual change within us that can lead to liberation. He was making a distinction between "the resurrection of the body" (returning to life from physical death) and "the resurrection of the spirit" (returning to life from spiritual death). As you will soon see, this confusion concerning Jesus teachings is documented in John 3 when Jesus had to explain to Nicodemus the difference between physical rebirth and spiritual rebirth.
Reincarnation and Early Christianity
The first great Father of the early orthodox Church was Origen (A.D. 185-254) who was the first person since Paul to develop a system of theology around the teachings of Jesus. Origen was an ardent defender of pre-existence and reincarnation. Pre-existence is the religious concept of the soul as not being created at birth; rather the soul existed before birth in heaven or in a past life on Earth. Origen taught that pre-existence is found in Hebrew scriptures and the teachings of Jesus.
Origen was a disciple of Clement of Alexandria who was a disciple of the apostle Peter. Clement and Origen wrote about receiving secret teachings of Jesus handed down from the apostles. One of these secret teachings was the concept of physical and spiritual rebirth. The existence of secret teachings and mysteries from Jesus is recorded in the Bible. Here are some of them:
He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance." (Matt. 13:11-12)
I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness - the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. 1:25-27)
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. (1 Cor. 15:51)
The doctrines of pre-existence and reincarnation existed as secret teachings of Jesus until they were declared a heresy by the Roman Church in 553 A.D. It was at this time that the Roman Church aggressively destroyed competing teachings and so-called heresies within the Church. Along with the destruction of unorthodox teachings came the destruction of Jews, Gnostics, and ultimately anyone who stood in the way of the Inquisition and Crusades.
But on December, 1945, writings containing many of these secrets of early Christianity were unearthed in upper Egypt. This area was one of the the main locations where Christians fled to when the Romans invaded Israel. It was here that these secrets were continued to be taught. Undisturbed since their concealment almost two thousand years ago, these writings of the secret teachings belonged to a early sect of Christians called Gnostics and these writings ranked in importance with the Dead Sea Scrolls which were discovered two years later. These so-called secret teachings concerning life and death are strikingly similar to what we know about near-death experiences.
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