Reincarnation is the belief that, after physical death, a person goes on to be reborn in another body. In this view, the soul or spirit of a person leaves its current body at death and enters a new body to live another life. While most commonly associated with Hinduism, many other smaller religious groups also hold to some form of reincarnation. Here in the west, it is especially prevalent in various “New Age” sects and spiritist groups.

Reincarnation and Karma

The concept of reincarnation is almost always tied to behavior. The kind of life you have now is in some way based on what you did in a previous life. The actions you choose now will influence the nature of your next life. Rather than the righteous judgments of a just and good God, this is almost always linked to an impersonal law of cause and effect such as karma.

Rightly understood, karma is not rooted in morality. It isn’t punishing evil or rewarding good. It is simply a blind law of cause and effect. If you do certain things, you get certain results. The actions aren’t wrong, they just produce results you probably won’t like. There is no justice involved. Thus, while many will appeal to the ideas of karma and reincarnation as being “good”, “just”, or “fair,” such concepts are actually quite alien to the mainstream philosophies behind reincarnation. Justice and goodness are rooted in objective morality and an ultimate judgment. And these, of course, are rooted in God.

Reincarnation and Buddhism

As an aside, it should be noted that, while reincarnation is often associated with Buddhism, this is not technically correct. Reincarnation, by definition, requires some enduring aspect of a person that persists even after physical death. To put it another way, in reincarnation, something (a soul, a spirit, etc.) is being incarnated in each new body. Buddhism denies this.

In Buddhism, there is no genuine “you” even from one moment to the next. There is certainly no personal you that continues after death. There is simply an ongoing karmic chain of cause and effect that is perpetuating suffering. This chain continues from one life to the next, but you don’t because there is no you. Nothing is “incarnated” and thus nothing can be “reincarnated.” Buddhists thus typically prefer the term “rebirth” to “reincarnation,” and neither term is perfectly descriptive. Indeed, it can be hard to find good terms for Buddhist concepts because language itself is a serious problem for Buddhism.

A Biblical Response

The Bible has no place for reincarnation. For one thing, our bodies are not mere garments that we cast off like changing our clothes. They are a valuable part of us. The hope of the Christian after death is to be raised up in the very same body in which we died, now made perfect and incorruptible, but still our body! Jesus Himself speaks often of this in words like:

“Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment,” (John 5:28-29).

Everyone who has died, whether good or evil, will one day physically rise in the body in which they died. Those in Christ will rise to eternal life. Unbelievers will rise to face God’s wrath and judgment. But either way, this doesn’t work if they all have lived many lives in many different bodies. It is incompatible with reincarnation.

Likewise, the Bible has no conception of karma working itself out in an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Instead, it says:

“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,” (Hebrews 9:27).

We die only once, then we face the judgment seat of God. After that, we either receive eternal life or eternal punishment. There are no additional mortal lives, no reincarnation. The choices we make in this life are all we get. This is why it is so important to repent and turn to God now, putting our trust in Jesus Christ and His perfect sacrifice. He died so that we can live again, not over and over in suffering, but once-and-for-all forever in bliss with Him!