Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 314C
Baptism for the Dead [1 Cor 15:29]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Hello. I have a question about I Corinthians 15:29. A friend of mine belongs to another denomination, and they practice baptising for the dead. And I don't understand that. And I don't understand the verse that this person says they base their doctrine on, which is I Corinthians 15:29.
HC: In I Corinthians 15:29 we have this very provocative and intriguing verse: "What shall they do which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?"
What does God mean by this? Is this indicating that we are to be baptized for the dead? Well, the Bible is its own interpreter. And the first thing we have to do is search the Bible and see if there's anything that we can do on behalf of those who have died, loved ones. Is there anything that we can do for them now that they have died? Can we pray for them and make a change in their situation, or ask God to change their situation? Can we be baptized on their behalf? Can we do anything on their behalf?
Ant we find nothing in the Bible at all that suggests that there's anything that we can do on their behalf. The Bible teaches very emphatically that if a person is a Christian, when he dies he leaves his body and goes to be with Christ in Heaven. If he is unsaved, he goes down to a place of silence, to await the resurrection of the last day, when he is going to be judged and cast into hell. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment." There's nothing in the Bible that suggests that we can be baptized on behalf of someone else.
But then we have this verse, "What shall they do which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all?" God here is speaking about the resurrection of our bodies. In fact, that's the whole message of I Corinthians 15. Repeatedly He's talking about the resurrection of our bodies, the character of our bodies, what they'll be (they'll be spiritual bodies), the fact that if there was no resurrection then we would be of all men most miserable, our faith would be vain, and so on.
But our dead bodies, which are in the grave, were dead while we were still living. Spiritually they were dead, as Ephesians 2:l teaches us, for example, that we who were dead have been raised with Him, have been brought to life. Just because we have been saved, it does not mean that spiritually we are alive in every sense of the word. It is true that we have been made spiritually alive in our soul, in our inner essence, in that part of us that leaves the body at death and goes to live and reign with Christ in Heaven. In that department we have experienced the resurrection. This is the first resurrection. And we are alive with Christ. We are alive forevermore. Therefore the Bible can say we have eternal life.
But we still have a dead body. We still have a body that's sentenced to the grave, and our salvation will not be complete until we receive our resurrected body.
When we are saved we are baptized in water, to officially recognize the fact that we have become saved. But God is saying here that when we are saved and are baptized in water, we are also officially recognizing the fact the day is coming when our dead bodies will also experience the resurrection. The dead that we are baptized on behalf of is our own dead body.
Now if there is no resurrection of the dead, if the dead rise not at all, then the baptism that we experienced means nothing. It means that there's something phony about this whole salvation. Why should we bother with baptism? The fact is, why should we even bother with salvation at all, if there is no resurrection of the dead on the last day?
CALLER: That is beautiful. I thank you so much for clarifying that for me.
HC: You're welcome. Good night.