Did Jesus Teach Reincarnation?

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “Unless you are reborn, you can’t experience God’s kingdom.” – Jesus Christ (John 3:3 FBV)

In Buddhism, people are reborn into five realms. There is the earthly realm, the animal realm, the ghost realm, the hell realm, or the heavenly realm. Each transition is a rebirth. When you die, you are reborn into another bodily manifestation.

So Jesus makes perfect sense to a Buddhist. In order to go to heaven, you have to be reborn into a heavenly body. Even the Apostle Paul realized that our body “ is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). That is, in order to go to heaven you have to have the right kind of body. Physical bodies don’t go to heaven, only spiritual bodies do. As Paul Said, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50).

The problem is that even a heavenly existence is temporary. It is still part of an existence that is impermanent, defective, and without an independent entity. After a long time in heaven, people die and are born again into other realms. Nothing lasts in the conditioned world. Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Even heavenly existence. This is why, at the end of time, “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).

Jesus taught that John the Baptist was “Elijah” reincarnated (Matthew 11:13-14; 17:10-13). This means that Jesus believed in reincarnation. And since Elijah was a prophet of God that live centuries ago, it seems clear that Elijah must have been in heaven before being reborn as John the Baptist.

It appears that reincarnation was a common belief during Jesus’ time. For when Jesus asked his disciples who people said he was, they answered, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Matt. 16:14). All of these men were dead, some a very long time ago. So they must have meant that they thought Jesus was the reincarnation of John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

Jesus seemed to believe in reincarnation, but not all the church followed him in this. The Gnostics were the branch of Christianity that kept this belief alive. The proto-orthodox branch ended up rejecting reincarnation. Origen, an early church father, is our most famous Christian proponent of the idea of reincarnation. Origen stated, “The soul has neither beginning nor end. [They] come into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of their previous lives.”

Qualifications for Philosophers

I am afraid that any guidance I give you here will be misunderstood unless I first define what I mean by a philosopher.

There are at least two kinds of people that are called philosophers, the academic professor of philosophy and the lover of wisdom.

To be honest, it is only recently that lovers of wisdom are again being called philosophers. I am not sure all the academics are happy about this. But it is not like most academic philosophers were pursuing wisdom anyway. They weren’t.

The fact is that in the hands of academics philosophy has become irrelevant, boring, and neglected. There was a time when philosophy was a way of life, a heroic quest for wisdom, and the doorway to the good life.

Now that the pursuers of wisdom are reclaiming their title of philosopher, some are stepping forward to put barriers between the lover and the beloved.

In answering the question “How to Become a Philosopher”, one University answers, “Going to an accredited university to earn your BA in philosophy is the first step in becoming a Philosopher.” But that is not enough, “Go to graduate school to earn your master’s degree or PhD in philosophy. ”

If a Ph.D. is required then Socrates, Confucius, and the Buddha were not philosophers. This may be required to teach at a University, but it is not a requirement to be a philosopher.

The only requirement for one to be a philosopher is to pursue wisdom and the good life through reason, observation, and deep thinking.

Yes, you can call yourself a philosopher. No, you will not be accepted by academia. But the pursuit of wisdom is not about the acceptance of society it is about gaining insights into living skillfully.

Are the academic philosophers really philosophers? Most are historians of philosophy and professors of other people’s ideas. So technically no, they are not real philosophers. At least not like philosophers of old.

But I have no desire to police the word philosopher. They can call themselves whatever they want, but so can I.

Ungrounded Speculation

It is interesting, in fact, fascinating, that those who are interested in Gnosticism tend to speculate all over the place. They bring in occult ideas such as alchemy, Kabbalah, and astrology.

But their interests and mine are different. I’m in a quest to discover the historic Christianity. I want to understand the early Christian background, so that I know what Christianity was like in the first and second centuries.

And from that Christianity, draw out the best version of Christianity to confront the modern world. I’m calling that version of Christianity, “Gnostic Christianity.” Because the only type of Christianity that can survive the modern era, is one that embraces myth and science, but doesn’t confuse them

The context of early Christianity is Judaism, the Essenes, Greco-Roman philosophy, and the Mystery Religions. Religions. These are the areas of study that I’m interested in and that have relevance to the formation of early Christianity.

Christianity the Foundational Myth of Western civilization

You can certainly leave Christianity but it does not leave you. Your liberation from it is delusion. Christ is the way. You can certainly run away, but then you are no longer on the way. – Carl Jung (Red Book)

Christianity is the foundational myth of Western civilization. Myth is what provides context and perspective to our lives. They create the interpretation of consensus reality we live in. Christianity is the myth we are given.

The Bible is, with its many myths, the foundational document of western civilization. “For a while,” notes one psychologist, “literally, there was only one book and that book was the Bible.” But the Bible and its story formed the lexicon out of which all others books emerged.

The Bible was the fundamental text, for upon it most other texts were dependent. The psychologist cited the work of William Shakespeare as one of several “texts that influenced more other texts” before identifying the Bible as the ultimate source of all “linguistic production.”

Unfortunately, being the foundational text does not mean that it is true. The Bible is not literally true. Rather, the Bible and its myths form the vocabulary and frame of references out of which we, Western civilization, weave meaning and purpose.

This is why Carl Jung believed that liberation from Christianity is delusion. It is the best map of reality we have. We need to reengage it as myth, and not make the mistake of fundamentalists. Christianity is true as myth, it is just not literal history.

Gnostic Christianity Defined

Gnosticism is not a single thing. It is not a belief system at all. Rather, it is an orientation towards religion. So in Gnostic Christianity, the orientation is Gnostic, but the belief system is Christian. In other words, it is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ as taught by Paul, John, Thomas, and Valentinus.

In order to help the reader understand what I mean by Gnostic Christianity, I offer the following definition, taken from my book Understanding Gnosticism:

Gnostic Christianity

  1. aims for salvation through mystical knowledge (gnosis) of God through Christ.
  2. approaches Scripture as primarily myths, though they contain some historical facts.
  3. interpret Scripture allegorically, though some things might be literally true, the deeper truths never are.
  4. seek new revelations from God, and therefore is open to further Scriptural works.
  5. reserve secret truths for the initiated.
  6. follows the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Prophet, Priest, King, Messiah, Savior, and God in the flesh.

It appears to me that Sethian Gnosticism went astray, by confusing the secret teaching with gnosis (mystical experience). Jesus Christ and mystic union with God got lost in the secret teaching, occult knowledge, and myths making. Valentinus, therefore, is the true representative of the Christianity taught by Paul, John, and Thomas. Too many confuse occultist and mystics. Gnostic Christian were, in my view, mystics.

References

Jay N. Forrest, Understanding Gnosticism: Rethinking Church History, United States: Tserrof Books, 2024.



Dr. Jay Forrest
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