What Does the Bible Say About Reincarnation?

The Bible never talks explicitly about reincarnation, but it does in many places talk about the state of a human being after he or she dies. King Solomon admonishes readers, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (Ecclesiastes 9:10). He also wrote, "The living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5).

The belief in reincarnation holds that, after death, some eternal facet of human beings (commonly called the "soul" or "spirit") is returned to physical life in an altered form—either as another human being or as plant or animal life. However, the Bible makes it clear that this is not the case.

Rather than continuously cycling through an increasingly destabilized world, God's Word reveals that "it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). The Bible shows that all humanity will be restored to life (resurrected, not reincarnated; John 5:28-29).