Pastor Dave Ginter
 
Question 2:

John the Baptist is called Elijah (Matthew 11:7-14). Therefore, it seems likely that he is reincarnated, don’t you think?

 
Response:
Reincarnation is the topic! Since John the Baptist is called Elijah, could he be the reincarnated Old Testament prophet? Yes…if the Bible contradicts itself and is totally untrustworthy! No, if you understand Biblical language.

I like and agree with the way “gotquestions.org” answers this. They say, “…The concept of reincarnation would have been completely foreign to the Jewish mind. We cannot simply import Eastern religious thought into the words of a first century Jew. If anything, Elijah “come again” would have simply been Elijah raised from the dead at the coming of the Lord (cf. Daniel 12). So even if John the Baptist was literally the person of Elijah, it would have been a resurrection, not a reincarnation. To say otherwise is to force one’s preconceived view of reincarnation on Scripture…The Bible is quite clear that John the Baptist is given this designation because he came in the “spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17), not because he was Elijah in a literal sense.”

Reincarnationists teach that Jesus had a “secret teaching” for His closest followers. They claim it proved reincarnation as a necessary step in the process of eternal life (which they define as the successful conclusion of being reborn here over and over again on this earth until we succeed in getting it right!). Reincarnationists quote this “Elijah-into-John the Baptist” passage as their main evidence. 

Adherents of reincarnation also teach that the Pharisees in Jesus’ day believed firmly in reincarnation. Laughably, they base this off a quote from Flavius Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian who chronicled that the souls of righteous people are "removed into other bodies" and they will have "power to revive and live again." But this is Jewish language for resurrection, not reincarnation. Were the reincarnationists honestly trying to understand the literary medium of that historical time, they would never quote Josephus as supporting reincarnation.

The Bible nails reincarnation’s fallacy when in Hebrews 9:27-28 it says, And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. You can play with language by taking it out of its literary mode and historical setting. But you cannot change God’s Word.
 


Comments


Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply