A new member on our forum asked a question about 1Corinthianns 15:29 that says: otherwise what do people mean by being baptised on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptised on their behalf?
The brother then asked:
- Is this practice still valid and if not why not?
- Is baptism a standard set compusorily if we are to enter heaven?
Well, here is my attempt. In the text under scrutiny, the Apostle Paul uses Baptism twice and if we are to understand what he is talking about without using the ordinary approach of context, we need to talk about Baptism in the Bible.
Am not going to discuss the theology of water baptism in the Bible. All am going to do is to address the ritual of Baptism in relation to the text. One day we will talk about the essence of Baptism, that of John the baptist, Jesus, disciples etc. In fact, in Pauline epistles like in Romans 6, 1Corinthians 1:13-17;10:1-2; 12:13, Paul used baptism metaphorically, But for now allow me to look a baptism as a rite.
It is important to establish that Paul is not using baptism figuratively but he is addressing it in its practical sense. So let’s put it out of the way. People in Corinthian city, were being baptised for their deceased loved ones which makes it a rite and that is why we should look at 1Corinthians 15:29 as talking about a ritual.
In the Bible Baptism exercised for three rites:
- Rite of Initiation into the Church
- Purificatory Ritual
- Funerary Ritual
It is under category three that we have this discussion. In the church of Corinth, the question of of the AFTERLIFE was crucial and before Christianity came. The cult of the culture had an answer and that answer was: rites of passage/transition of which one was vicarious baptism.
What we see in chapter 15 is the Christian answer to the question of the AFTERLIFE put in contrast to the cult answer to the same question.
What we cannot refute is that the funerary ritual of baptism had soteriological (salvation) connotations and that is why Paul takes the trouble to even mention it in his discourse.
The Corinthians exercised this baptism ritual as an essential accompaniment and effective aid to the transition from terrestrial life through death to whatever form of existence was believed to follow.
According to Taylor: This ritual was presumably performed on an understanding that the ritual in and of itself was effective in the procurement of salvation for the deceased on whose behalf it was undergone.
This ritual was therefore an answer to the question of the state of the Afterlife. Christianity had an answer to the same and the answer was RESURRECTION and that is what Paul wrestles with throughout chapter 15 in which this ritual is mentioned.
To decide what answer (of the two: vicarious baptism, and resurrection) to the question is efficient we need to address the question of how we are saved.
Paul argues that we are saved by Grace through faith and not by works. And after we die, we will resurrect because the one (Jesus) we believe resurrected.
The Corinthian cult argues, that we all die, but our loved ones can only be at peace and actually experience a transition from pain to pleasure only if the living get baptised on our behalf. They did not believe in the resurrection (even those who had believed Jesus, did not believe the resurrection).
The problem with this belief system whose later enforcement was with the Gnostics and Marcionites is that it argues that: SALVATION CAN BE BESTOWED AFTER DEATH. This is the very heresy of the catholic purgatory prayers and many other wrong beliefs and practices.
So the practice was never a theologically valid act for Christianity and the reason was and is because:
- We are not saved representatively (one sinner cleaning himself for another sinner’s purity). And
- We are not saved after death.
Again, baptism is theologically not part and parcel of how we are saved. Our water baptism plays no part at all in how we are saved and neither is water baptism a component of salvation.
It was a cultic funeral rite exercised on behalf of the dead and Paul refutes it theologically for the Bible does not teach so.
God bless you, I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH
Pr. ITM White
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 