The Messiah Herald Issue 09 April 2018 | Page 10

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. 10 MESSIAH HERALD / ISSUE 09 / APR 2018 MESSIAH HERALD / ISSUE 09 / APR 2018 11