Getting born again is God’s invention to salvage the lost souls who have a desiring heart to come back to the Creator. It is a system which has helped man to retrace his steps back to the Eden righteousness. With just one prayer all of man’s sins are wiped off: past, present and future sin are forgiven (Ephesians 1:7; Acts 3:19; Hebrews 10:18; Colossians 2:13; 1John 2:12; Isaiah 43:25).

That God had designed a reviviscent blueprint which entails a spiritual rebirth was alien to the scriptural intellectualism even of Nicodemus. Methinks the Nativity manifestation of the Incarnation is a pointer to an eventual spiritual parturition of God’s children. How is it that only the Bible reveals this soteriological truth? Only the Bible has the containerization of theological truths and what is more, it is the very Logos (Jesus Christ) who taught the possibility of a spiritual rebirth. No religious sect gives a definite doctrine on how to gain a citizenship of heaven.

“Just ensure that you keep out of evil deeds and heaven is your sure bet;” is what many traditional religions teach. It, no doubt, runs diametrically opposed to Isaiah. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” This is the prophet’s declaration in chapter 64 verse 6, speaking the truthfulness of the mind of God. The word ‘righteousnesses’ is tsedâqâh (tsed-aw-kaw’): ‘rightness (abstractly), subjectively (rectitude), objectively (justice), morally (virtue) or figuratively (prosperity).’                                                                                      All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags

The things we pride our lives in, God judges as ‘filthy rags.’ ‘Filthy’ in Hebrew is ‛êd (ayd): ‘menstrual flux (as periodical); by implication (in plural) soiling;’ and ‘rags’ is beged (behg’-ed) ‘a covering, that is, clothing; also treachery or pillage.’ The prompting psychological energy for every act of man must have an ignition from the Holy Spirit in order to be garbed in the divinely decreed righteousness found only in the accomplished work of Christ. Imagine all the sweat that goes into all the triumphal news coverage of your philanthropic exploits being judged as ‘filthy rags’ when tended as the winning evidences before the Almighty Judge: all because Jesus Christ is not involved?

Hindu’s Jivatma

The Hindu religion believes that, “Since heavenly abodes are also tied to the cycle of birth and death, any dweller of Heaven or Hell will again be recycled to a different plane and in a different form per the karma and “maya” i.e. the illusion of Samsara. This cycle is broken only by self-realization by the Jivatma.” How many cycled people can, with all truthfulness, share their heavenly or hellish experience? The Bible says that, ”And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” (Hebrews 9:27).

According to the Book of the Dead, which reveals the ancient Egyptian religion, departed souls would undergo a literal journey to reach Heaven, along the way to which there could exist hazards and other entities attempting to deny the reaching of Heaven. Their heart would finally be weighed with the feather of truth, and if the sins weighed it down their heart was devoured. This Egyptian belief runs contrary to God’s protocol. 1Corinthians 15:52 reveals how afterlife journey takes place, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

Accordingly, Bahá’ís view life as a preparatory stage, where one can develop and perfect those qualities which will be needed in the next life. The key to spiritual progress is to follow the path outlined by the current Manifestation of God, which Bahá’ís believe is currently Bahá’u’lláh (the founder of Bahá’í Faith). Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved.” The puzzle here is: which God? Is Christ Jesus involved?

Bahá’í’s idea of heaven

The Bahá’í teachings state that each soul can continue to progress in the afterlife, but the soul’s development is not entirely dependent on its own conscious efforts, the nature of which we are not aware, but also augmented by the grace of God, the prayers of others, and good deeds performed by others on Earth in the name of that person.

What I would need to know is this: which God is Bahá’u’lláh manifesting, Allah, Brahma or Jehovah? Bahá’u’lláh means ‘Glory of God’ and his original name is Mīrzā Ḥosayn ʿAlī Nūrī born November 12, 1817, Tehrān, Iran.

His name invokes the identity of Christ. Is he Jesus who must of necessity be involved in the salvation of the lost soul of mankind? He is not. He does not meet the spiritual requirement.   (…to be continued…) 

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