Born Once Die Twice; Born Twice Die Once

Hello dear readers. I guess my posts are benefiting you guys is some way. So this time I was thinking about what to write as I was walking to my college and then suddenly I remembered an incident happened months back. I named this incident as "Life Changing". It happened unexpectedly that one of my close brother's (brother in Christ) dad passed away. He passed away due to some unexpected heart problem. As I was there for the funeral and burial, my whole concept of looking at life changed. It is common to people who attend these kind of occasions but it was different in the sense that I see what people actually reflected on the one who died. The goods and bads were made transparent that day. But it wasn't that which made me write this but it was the next day. During the burial, a normal service took place with Pastor giving his warm message to those who lost their loved one. After the ceremony, another Pastor (Pastor Abraham) quoted this statement "Born once, die twice; Born twice, die once". I don't know whether he knew how deep it could mean but it was a deep quote. I decided to write about it today.

     I see that many or almost three quarter of us get the concept of baptism pretty shallow or some even so inaccurate. Before I was saved, I hardly found the logic behind this sacred ceremony. I ridiculed baptism and in fact, I took it just to shut my mom's nag about my conversion. But from that day on I made a point to know what it meant completely to value my salvation. I hear people ask and say:

a) Ok, I believe in Jesus and I will pray and obey to all what He said but I don't want to baptize.

b) I am a born Christian. My parents are Christians and so why do I need baptism?

c) Why do we need to baptize? 

etc.

     It is pretty simple actually. Baptism is not an act of tradition but a symbol of acceptance and repentance. Ok now first let us see the first part of the title "Born once die twice". Every single living being on Earth born once. That is a common thing and we also know what when there is something called birth, there is definitely something called death. And one day we will die; this is certainly accepted by all levels of humanity and creatures. But The Holy Bible says in Revelations 2:11, Revelations 20:6 & 14 and Revelations 21:8 that those who are not born in Christ will suffer Second Death. What is Second Death? We human are made up of Body, Spirit and Soul. Since the fall of due to the disobedience of the First Man Adam, we have lost our spirit and lived like animals. Thats why we hardly see any difference between man and animal in earliest time frames. When the soul departs from the body, technically when we die, body rots to dust and soul goes either to Hell or Heaven depending on the deeds. Since man naturally sin, it is almost impossible for any soul to enter Heaven. And so when we die without being saved, we suffer death on Earth and also in Hell eternally. It is said that in Hell, we have double the senses we have now and so a prick can cause pain as much as a stab. 

     Now going to the second part of the title "Born twice, die once". As told before, it almost impossible for any man to enter Heaven. So God being aware of this, came down as man like us to suffer the world's sin once shot on the cross, dying to defeat the Death and Hades and finally rising to Glory, He opened a chance for us to enter Heaven. To assure that our Body and Soul doesn't adapt with the corrupted nature again, He gave us His Holy Spirit to have governance over the two elements and to drive us close to perfection in order to be worthy of His Kingdom. Now we don't live bodily but we are given Spirit to live spiritually. But though the door to Heaven is now open, there are some rules and methods to enter it. It is very logical for these rules to exist because even in today's world, you can't enter another country just like that. So, the rules are simple. We need to live a renewed life and live as Holy as possible. It can be only done with the help of The Counselor- The Holy Spirit. So why baptism? Baptism is simply an act of imitation and acceptance of what Christ has done for us on the Cross. We go down into the water with all our corrupt nature, lust, greed and sinful characters symbolizing all the agony Christ suffered on the Cross to defeat those sins. And when we rise up again, it symbolized His resurrection after having complete control over Sin and Death. We also rise up as a New Man (A New Birth) accepting the salvation from God through Christ to get away from all our past sins. 

     This act is important because it is like we celebrate birthdays to remember that we were born on that day and we are of some age during that time. Similarly, baptism symbolizes our crucifixion along with our sins like Christ and our resurrection as a new creation as Christ. It is not religious act but it is a spiritual act. After this baptism, your body and soul will be totally controlled by God Himself to be guided in the path of life. But it doesn't end there. We see in The Book of Acts that they were baptized in Holy Spirit. That was what John said about Jesus. He will baptize us in Fire and Spirit. So water baptism washes away our bodily sins and entitles us for the Salvation of Christ. After being completely cleansed, The Holy Spirit falls on and in us to remain with us to help us live in this corrupted world and to guide us to be worthy of Eternal Life. The Baptism of Holy Spirit is a topic by its own and I will certainly write about it in another blog. As for baptism, this is it. 

     When we are born once (from mother's womb), We die twice (Death and Hell);

     When we are born twice (from mother's womb and baptism), We die once (Death).

The Fruit of Baptism is Eternal Life with God.