SELF-DISCOVERY
SELF-DISCOVERY
ORIGINAL SIN AND
INNER BAPTISM
Every single human being is born with the Original Sin.
Baptism is the means to free yourself from it.
WHAT IS THE ORIGINAL SIN?
W
HEN ADAM AND EVE DISOBEYED
God by eating the forbidden fruit in the
Garden of Eden, they committed the first
sin of Heaven. We have inherited this ancestral sin
from Adam and Eve.
A sin, itself, is not necessarily an act that is
negative in nature. Rather, anything you do that God
has forbidden you to do is a sin.
To illustrate the reality of sinning, let’s consider
the following scenario. A mother tells her young
child, ‘Do not sleep yet.’ Perhaps the mother has
plans or she wants to implement a regular sleeping
schedule for her child which would be ruined if he
slept too early. The act of sleeping is not bad in itself;
nevertheless, if the child went to sleep early despite
his mother’s statement, he would be disobeying her.
Similarly, a sin is a sort of conviction granted to
people who disobey God. Keeping this in mind, it is
easy to understand what the Original Sin is.
INNER BAPTISM
According to the Christian faith, every baby in
this world is born with the Original Sin, while
the Muslim faith asserts that every baby is born
with a negative spirit known as the Carnal Self.
Compared side-by-side, it seems these religions
are talking about the same thing from different
ends.
In Islam, God reveals the bone of contention: the
negative spirit; in Christianity, he reveals the
result: man’s unyielding nature of going against
God’s will.
There are two aspects to baptism: the
ritualistic side and the inner dimension. The
ritualistic aspect is a celebration of birth or
conversion to Christianity; the newborn baby or
newly-converted Christian is taken to a church
to be baptised in front of close relatives and
family friends. The other aspect of baptism is
the spiritual aspect, in which the source of the
Original Sin is removed.
In simple words, the inner dimension of
baptism is to cast out the negative spirit which
carries the Original Sin.
The outer aspect of baptism is done by the
priest in the church. The inner aspect of baptism
cannot be done by anyone but you; you have to do
it yourself when you grow up. In Christianity, it is
called Inner Baptism. In Sufi Islam, it is known as
Purification of the Carnal Self.
The Original Sin is that, by nature, a
human being is disobedient to God.
When you are born in a Christian family, you go
through baptism to remove the Original Sin and
become pure. In the light of the Biblical explanation,
if you are able to remove the Original Sin through
baptism, it simply means you are no longer
disobedient to God.
Sadly, there is not a single person who identifies
as a Christian today who can say that they have
not sinned, even after having been baptised. This
suggests that they did not go through baptism in its
entirety.
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MESSIAH HERALD / ISSUE 09 / APR 2018
MESSIAH HERALD / ISSUE 09 / APR 2018
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