John 9:1-3

CHAPTER 7

METEMPSYCHOSIS

John 9:1-3. This word means the transmigration of souls, a doctrine, long ages ago, exceedingly prevalent in India, China, Japan, and many other Oriental countries, going on the hypothesis that the Deity created all human souls at the beginning of the world, and ever since they have been inhabiting mortal bodies, at death passing out and taking possession of a baby somewhere in the world and living again, and so on. A sect of religious philosophers, called Theosophists, has recently appeared in this country, now scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, one of whose prominent tenets is this reincarnation of human souls, none going away, but, as they move on through different ages, accumulating wisdom, and rising to a higher spiritual development, so that eventually, rising above the earth, they will inhabit ethereal worlds. They quote this Scripture very prominently in the maintenance of this heathen dogma of reincarnation, which their speakers especially emphasize, “ And passing along, He saw a man blind from his birth; and His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he may be born blind?” The Theosophists stoutly claim that this is a recognition of the pre-existence of the man before his natural birth. I trow, the disciples simply spoke a little inadvertently, and did not aim to recognize the responsible existence of the man before his natural birth. “ Jesus responded, Neither did he nor his parents sin, but in order that the works of God may be manifest in him.” Hence, you see, our Lord negatives the whole matter, putting His veto on the hypothesis of the man's pre-natal sin, and at the same time affirming that his blindness had not resulted from any especial sin of his nor his parents, but, at least incidentally, was a providential provision for the mighty work he was about to execute.