Dondi
Well-Known Member
I fail to see the connection here. You excise a verse out of John 3 and claim it to prove reincarnation?
In the first place, one must understand the context of the conversation. Jesus is speaking to Nicodemis able entering the kingdom of God:
"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."
Now reincarnationists might see this and say, Ha! See I told you. But Jesus is distinguishing two things here in answer to Nicodemus's question about "how are we to be born back into the womb?. But Jesus answers that we all go through a physical birth, i.e except a man be born of water (that is through natural physical childbirth through the water that breaks upon the mother's labor). But there is also needed a birth of the Spirit of God, which is what man is lacking from the physical birth. There is a point in a man's life when the Spirit of God enters into his spirit, his life. "That which born of the flesh is flesh (physical birth), that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (spiritual birth)". Our spirit is the thing to be reborn, not our bodies. It is the Spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead that will raise up physically to life (Romans 8:11) in a resurrection, just like Christ.
After all that, Nicodemus is still confused. Why? Because he is still thinking physical, earthly things, rather than the spiritual, heavenly things.
"If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?" - John 3:12
So going into your beloved verse 13,:
"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven."
we have a telling description of the state of man. No man has ascended up to heaven. But what Jesus is explaining here is that He is FROM heaven. That He was in the beginning in heaven with God (read John 1:1-3, 14, John 17:5). And is in fact somehow STILL THERE AT THE TIME HE SAID IT: even the Son of man which is in heaven. So it is not that Jesus ever ascended up to heaven prior to His earthly existance, it is that He was sent into the world from God. He was already there. Look at four verses later:
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." - John 3:17
Jesus being from heaven was sent from God into the world. Philippians 2:5-8 describes this process:
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
This is only the incarnation of Jesus Christ. For He took on the form of a man and then died on the cross.
Moreover, when Jesus was resurrected, it wasn't reincarnation for one 1) He had His own body, He did not transmigrate into another. 2) the body that was raised was evidently not like the physical body we have now, but an incorruptable body (see I Corinthians 15:42-58), for it was able to appear and disappear, rise up into the heaven (probably into another plain of existance), yet it was corporal in the fact that Jesus ate fish and honey. It was a new body that won't feel the sting of death, or pain, or suffering.
Why would I want to be reincarnated into a dying body when I can a body like that?
