Incarnation to resurrection

We hear of religions that teach reincarnation, where successive lives are lived, some even teaching that we could return as another life form entirely, but what if there was a way that we could be changed for the better without having to go through a continual process of reinvention?

The idea with all the religions that teach reincarnation is that ultimately the soul will live forever and will transmigrate as a metempsychosis, which means there will be continual rebirths after the death of an individual.

Depending upon the tradition, these existences may be human, animal, spiritual, or, in some instances, vegetable.

Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘Reincarnation’

These religions are typically using reason to assess the post mortal destiny of the soul. But what if there was a way in which the soul’s journey could be settled once and for all through the act of a single individual that impacts all of humankind?

Deified incarnation

There is a solution to this, of course, and the answer is in Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world, but the main key is His incarnation that led to another dramatic change, called the resurrection. One leads to the other and is of great assurance and importance to all of us.

In this scenario, it is not the human that is reincarnated, but God Himself is incarnate. The Word of God was made flesh, or human, and dwelt amongst us as both man and God, what is known as the hypostatic union; the way in which God, in Jesus Christ, took on human nature, whilst at the same time He remained fully God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1, 14

So God the Word, also called the Promised Seed, or Offspring (Gal.3:16), was sown into the womb of the woman, His mother, Mary, and became flesh, fulfilling all righteousness (Gal.4:4-5). This is the incarnation of Christ.

The wheel of drudgery

Conversely, with the man-devised religion of reincarnation, the individual has no choice in their future destiny beyond death, apart from the notion of good works during their existing lifetime.

It’s about what is known by some religions as karma; if an individual does good deeds in this lifetime they will be rewarded with a higher life form in the next. If they do wrong they will be rewarded with a lower life form.

This will fail in the long run because we cannot be saved by good works or the human ideal of what is right for the afterlife. Our own standard of righteousness cannot qualify us for eternal life (Is.64:6). We are all slaves to sin, which is falling short of God’s requirement for right standing with Him (Rom.3:23).

Many religions have recognised this fatal flaw in our nature and prescribed human good works as the avenue of escape, but that can never be the solution. Good deeds alone may make us feel better but cannot satisfy God’s higher standards. They will only bind us to rules and regulations we cannot possibly sustain.

If we are caught up in religious penance and works-driven philosophy, we will fail.

We need deliverance from this form of drudgery and captivity to the sin burdened soul. We need a complete change, a reconstruction in this lifetime, not a futile quest for a better opportunity in the next, or the next, or the next, ad infinitum. We can only settle it now whilst we are still alive in this body.

God’s offer of salvation through grace is another level of change altogether. It is freely accessed by faith. We cannot buy it, pay for it, work for it, or earn it in any way. It’s a free gift received by faith.

Jesus has already paid the price at the cross. He has cleared the ransom from over our head, and opened the prison door to release us from slavery to sin and captivity to the works of unrighteousness.

On the other hand, karma is a wheel of continuous, pointless toil because the adherents of this system are always bound by their need of religiously devised good works instituted by human requirements and traditions, wherein the captured soul can never find true liberty.

This ultimate change and release from the fruitless toil of works only comes by faith in the Incarnate Saviour, Jesus Christ. His incarnation as the Messiah, the Christ, who is the Deliverer, is God’s solution to the problem of the eternal soul, but it affects us, not as another incarnation, but as a resurrection.

Resurrection life

Jesus told His followers that He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). He was incarnated and came as God in the form of a man so that He could pay the price of our sin (Phil.2:5-8).

The wages of sin is death, and each of us had to pay this price, but the end of sin is not only death, which is merely the passage into eternity, but separation from God forever (Rom.6:23). The gift of God, on the other hand, is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There is no other incarnation waiting on the other side of death for us. We don’t turn into butterflies, crustaceans or even other mammalian beings, or come back as humans in another degree.

The threshold of mortality leads to one of two options. One is eternal separation from God in a conscious and miserable state of regret when we die in our sin. The other is eternal life with God when we receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour and all sin is forgiven.

God gave us all a choice in this. He told us that we had set before us the options of life and death, blessing or cursing, therefore, we should choose life (Deut.30:19).

The key to this is the resurrection of Christ. Speaking to His friend, also called Mary, following the death of her brother Lazarus whom Jesus miraculously raised from the dead, Jesus told her that He was given the power of resurrection for whoever believes on Him as Lord and Saviour.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11:25-26

Better than reincarnation

“Though a person die, yet they will live.” How can this take place? “Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”

Whilst we are still living, we can enter into the resurrection life in Christ Jesus through faith in Him. “Do you believe this?” There is the key to what happens to us when we die. There’s the answer to what happens to our soul in the next life.

If we can believe in Him we will bypass the need to know what will happen to the soul at death because we will already have been made alive. When He says, “whoever lives and believes in me shall never die,” He is referring to the fact that we enter eternal life when we confirm through our words that we believe (Rom.10:9).

Though this shell, our human body, will be subject to the corruption of the earth and die, yet our spirit will be regenerated, our soul will be cleansed and given the capacity to live forever in Him, and we will, at the resurrection, be given a glorified body fit for eternity.

The desire for reincarnation, which, ultimately, is a philosophy, not a reality, will be ended forever for those who believe in Jesus, and we will enter the resurrection life.

I believe

Mary’s answer toJesus when He asked if she could believe that He was the resurrection and the life was instant and heart felt.

She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

John 11:27

Can you believe this, too? If you can believe this and utter it in the presence of other believers and before God you will be saved. You will enter the resurrection life, and all will become clear to you as you begin to read and study what God has revealed to us in His Word.

Now we can know God in Christ and know the power of His resurrection, knowing what He suffered for us to bring us into faith, so that we can attain to the resurrection from the dead into eternal life with Him (Phil.3:10-11).