From: sun075!Gerry.Palo@uunet.uu.net (Gerry Palo) Subject: Re: Christianity and repeated lives Lines: 100 In article smayo@world.std.com (Sc ott A Mayo) writes: >>Gerry Palo writes: >> > ...there is nothing in Christianity that precludes the idea of >> > repeated lives on earth. > >Doesn't it say somewhere "It is appointed to man once to die, >and then judgement?" I don't have a concordance here but I have >some dim memory that this appears *somewhere* in the Bible. >Given a fairly specific context for what judgement is, I'd say >that more or less decides the issue. > >[Heb 9:27 --clh] Indeed, the immediate context [NASB] is: 26 Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgement; 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, not to bear sin, tro those who eagerly await him. The first point is that this verse is part of an even larger context, the subject of which is not the destiny of the individual human soul but rather the singular nature of Christ's sacrifice, "once", and the fulfillment of the law for all of fallen mankind. Rudolf Frieling elaborates this in detail in his "Christianity and Reincarnation". The thrust of the passage in its context is to liken the one time incarnation and sacrifice of Christ for all mankind to the individual experience of the human being after death. The "once" is repeated and emphasized, and it highlights the singularity of Christ's deed. One thing for certain it does is to refute the claims of some that Christ incarnates more than once. But the comparison to the human experience - die once, then judgement (note: not "the judgement", but just "judgement". The word for judgement is "krisis". Hebrews 9:27 is the one passage most often quoted in defense of the doctrine that the Bible denies reincarnation. At this point, I would just emphasize again that the passages that (arguably) speak against it are few, and that invariably they are talking about something eles, and the apparent denial of reincarnation is either inferred, or, as in the case of Hebrews, taken literally and deposited into an implied context, namely a doctrine of the destiny of the human being after death. What should be considered seriously is that the Bible is essentially silent about the fate of the individual human being between death and the Last Day. If you take the few passages that could possibly be interpreted to mean a single earth life, they are arguable. And there are other passages that point, arguably, in the other direc- tion. such as Matthew 11:14 and John 9:2. We can continue to debate the individual scraps of scripture that might have a bearinig on this, and indeed we should discuss them. But what I wanted to introduce into the discussion was an approach to the idea of repeated earth lives that, unlike Hindu, Buddhist and "new age" teachings, takes full cognizance of the divinity, singular incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, and second coming of Christ as the savior of mankind; the accountability of each individual for his deeds and the reality of the Fall and of sin and its consequences; the redemption of man from sin through Christ; the resurrection of the body, and the Last Judgement. Taken in this larger sense, many serious questions take on an entirely different perspective. E.g. the destiny of those who died in their sins before Christ came. the relationship of faith and grace to works, the meaning of "deathbed conversion", the meaning of the sacraments, and many other things. Not that I propose to answer all those questions by a simple doctrine of convenience, but only that the discussion takes on a different dimension, and in my opinion one that is truly worthy of both man, the earth, and their Creator and Redeemer. There are many deep questions that continue to be deep, such as the meaning of the second death, and how the whole of Christian doctrine would apply to this larger perspective of human existence. There are those who deeply believe that the things of which the Bible does not speak are not things we should be concerned with. But Christ also indicated that there were other things that we would come to know in the future, including things that his disciples (and therefore others) could not bear yet. This idea that the human capacity for growth in knowledge, not only of the individual in one lifetime, but of the whole of humanity, also takes on great meaning when we realize that our growth in the spirit is a long term process. The Bible was not meant to codify all spiritual knowledge in one place forever, but to proclaim the gospel of the incarnation and redeeming deed of Christ - taking the gospel in the greater context, from Genesis to Revelation. Now, salvation (healing) becomes, not the end of man's sojourn but its beginning. And the Last Judgement and the New Heaven and Earth that follow it become its fulfullment. Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)