Answer
Reincarnation can be defined as “the idea that human personality (or a component of it) may survive after death and later become associated with another physical body; as a rebirth of the soul, self or spirit” (Moraes, Lucam, et al., “Children who claim previous life memories: A Case Report and Literature Review,” EXPLORE, 2024).
The Bible never addresses reincarnation specifically, but it doesn’t need to use that term to refute the idea behind it. The biblical model of life, death, and afterlife is incompatible with any form of reincarnation as posited by religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and certain New Age or neo-pagan belief systems. Hebrews 9:27 puts the whole notion of reincarnation to rest: “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” This single verse eliminates the possibility of reincarnation. Whatever people are “remembering,” it is not a past life.
Another verse the counters the notion of reincarnation is Luke 23:43. As Jesus hangs on the cross, He tells the repentant thief next to Him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” The implication is that, if the man will be with Christ in paradise that very day, he will not be reincarnated back into an earthly life. Similarly, passages such as James 4:14, which addresses the temporal nature of human life, are inconsistent with the idea of living earthly lives over and over for centuries, millennia, or all eternity.
Further, the Bible records instances of people seeing the spirits of long-dead people. Moses and Elijah, for example, were seen by some of the disciples in Matthew 17:3 during the transfiguration of Christ. Such an encounter would be impossible if reincarnation were true.
But how are we to answer those who claim they have memories of past lives? Some have recounted details of life in a bygone era and seem to have vivid memories of people, places, and events that they claim to have experienced. Many reports have been from children and have been the subject of various studies. Do these reports prove that reincarnation is a valid experience?
The first question we should ask is whether these “memories” are genuine. Human memory is notoriously unreliable (just ask any lawyer or detective), and people frequently misremember things. A person can be “sure” of something that never actually happened; another can totally forget things that did happen. Are those claiming to remember a past life misremembering images from TV shows or movies? Are they imagining they experienced events from books they read years earlier? Are they honestly mistaking dreams for genuine memories? What about fraud? In the case of children, could their “memories” of a past life be suggested to them somehow by relatives familiar with the family history or by other things they have seen and heard?
The fact is there is no solid evidence that memories of past lives are genuine. The human imagination is a powerful thing, as is the tendency toward embellishment. At the same time, human memory is a faulty thing. Ultimately, the question comes down to what is the source of truth. Is truth to be found in the unreliable minds of fallen and fallible human beings or in the timeless, holy Word of God? Christians can confidently assert that reincarnation is not a possibility for the human soul. When this life ends, our eternity in the afterlife begins.
