Reincarnation And Disablement

Early this year the subject of reincarnation dominated the British media. Perhaps many people had previously only a vague idea of what was implied by the term reincarnation, but the matter was thrust into public debate through a comment by the England football coach. At an interview with a journalist he was reported to have said: 'You and I have physically been given two hands and two legs and half decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another life time. I have nothing to hide about that. It is not only people with disabilities. What you sow you have to reap'. Coming from England's leading spokesman for the most popular national game these remarks caused great resentment among many disabled people, and were judged by the authorities involved to be so insensitive that they cost the coach his job.

What then is reincarnation, and what is karma?

Reincarnation, sometimes referred to as the transmigration of souls, is a belief that when people die they are 'reborn' in another form; perhaps as an animal or insect, or as a human being of different character and ability, and living in different circumstances. This process is repeated indefinitely until through self-discipline the soul attains to a high spiritual level. There is then release from the struggle of continued rebirths.

Karma is the doctrine that the sum of one's actions in previous states of existence controls one's status in future existences. So life as a human is just one of a chain of successive experiences, each life's condition being a consequence of actions in a previous life.

There are of course many variations of teaching among the different religions which have embraced the concept of reincarnation. Not all would say that disablement is necessarily because of sins done in a past life. Hindus, Buddhists and other eastern religions have their respective versions of the subject. It has been incorporated into the thinking of certain cults in the western world, as for instance Theosophy and Spiritism. An advocate of New Age teaching has written that death is only a delusion; it simply 'heralds the passage into another incarnation, another life where the process of karma will bring its natural compensations as we evolve on the pathway to godhood'.

Christian believers turn with relief from the contradictory speculations of religious philosophy to the clear statements of revealed truth in Scripture. For example Hebrews 9:27, 28:

And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgement; so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation.

The emphatic comparison between Christ having been offered for sins once and man being appointed to die once, strikingly refutes any notion of reincarnation. It is apparent also that God's plan of salvation centres around the substitutionary death of Christ, in whom believing the repentant sinner is justified by His blood, and saved from the wrath of God through Him (Rom. 5:9). Believers in reincarnation strive continually to 'make good karma'; in other words to add to their store of merit. The karma doctrine is one of supposed spiritual progress through human self-effort; it disregards the saving love of God in Christ.

Yet some will even attempt to find support in Scripture for the idea of reincarnation. They point out that in Matthew 17:12, when referring to John the Baptist, the Lord said that Elijah had come already; from this it is argued that John was a reincarnation of the prophet Elijah. Again from John 9:2 they reason that the man could have been born blind because of sins in a previous existence. In both these contexts of course a correct exposition excludes the construction put on them by advocates of reincarnation. As when tempting the Lord in the wilderness, Satan still misapplies Scripture to promote falsehood.

How clearly the Lord Jesus put the plight of the blind man into perspective when He answered His disciples: 'Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him' (John 9:3). Countless people have been in some way handicapped through no fault of their own making. God has worked in their experience for His own glory and their highest blessing; as when the blind man of John chapter 9 responded in faith to the Lord's word that he should go and wash in the Pool of Siloam.

Many unanswered questions arise about the deep mystery of human suffering. The believer in Christ recognizes that some of these questions will remain unresolved until that future day when we shall know as we are known (1 Cor. 13:12). Meantime nothing will be gained from 'strange teachings' which do not harmonize with God's written Word.

unknown | May 1999
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