A friend of mine is troubled over 1 Corinthians 15:29. She has been reading the enclosed tract, and would like to know if they did really baptize another for the dead, or how should she understand the above passage. If it is not taking up too much of your valuable time to answer, I believe you can help her in this, as the remarks in the "Corner" have been a great help to her.
My time is valuable only as I am doing just such work as this, and it is therefore never an intrusion or imposition, to ask such questions. It is my business to set forth the Scriptures in answer to them, and I am most happy when I have the privilege of so doing.
Perhaps I should first quote from the tract referred to. The following two paragraphs cover the item in question: The seeker after truth may properly inquire: "If it is necessary for men and women to be baptized, what will become of the good people who have died without that privilege?" To this the reply of the Scriptures is that the dead who died without hearing the Gospel will have it preached to them. They who obey it will be saved, but they who reject it will be condemned, as though they were in the flesh. "For this cause was the Gospel preached to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit."
"But a dead person cannot be baptized," says one. Very true; but God is just. He who has provided a way in which the dead can be baptized for, by the living, as shown by the Apostle Paul in his questions: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not of all? why are they then baptized for the dead?" Paul referred to baptism for the dead as a proof of the resurrection, his questions showing plainly that baptism for the dead was both believed in and practiced by the early Christians.
A little study will suffice to show that this is altogether a fallacy; but we study the Scriptures, not for the purpose of disproving these unwarranted assertions, but in order to be strengthened by the truth that is in them.
In the first place we need to recall and hold to the fact that "the dead know not anything." (Ecclesiastes 9:5) "His sons come to honor, and he knows it not; and they are brought low, but he perceives it not of them." (Job 14:21)
These are simple statements of a truth that involves the very heart of the Gospel, which teaches that there is no life apart from Christ; but we have not time or space at present to go further into a consideration of it. These two Scripture statements are certainly sufficient to show that the dead can be baptized just as easily as they can hear and believe, and no more. "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved," (Mark 16:16) not he that believes and has another baptized for him. Having settled it by incontrovertible proof that might be multiplied indefinitely, that it is utterly impossible for the dead either to believe or to be baptized, we must consider the significance of baptism, for the answer to the question depends wholly on that. Whoever knows the real meaning of baptism can never have any trouble over baptism for the dead. "As many of you as have been baptized into Jesus Christ have put on Christ." (Galatians 3:27)
It is only in Christ that we can be saved. "Neither is there salvation in any other." (Acts 4:12)
Therefore since we put on Christ, or come into Him, by baptism, it is easy to see how "baptism does now save us." (1 Peter 3:21)
It is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." (1 Peter 3:21)
But, "So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." (Romans 6:3-6)
In His death Christ gives His life for us,--that eternal life which He could lay down and take again, and which He laid down that He might take it again, (John 10:17-18) and us with it. If we consent to die with Him, we shall surely live with Him. And this must take place now. The new life which believers live by the power of the resurrection of Jesus, is the proof of His resurrection, and the pledge of the final resurrection of all the righteous.
But this new life is wholly Christ's life.
"I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Putting on Christ and abiding in Him, we are thenceforth wholly swallowed up, immersed, in His life; and it is of this reality that baptism in water is a figure.
Thus we have before us the meaning of being baptized for the dead. It is to be baptized into the crucified Christ; but the efficacy depends wholly on the resurrection of Jesus. It would be useless to be baptized for a dead Christ, or into His death, if He were not also raised from the dead. This is the significance of 1 Corinthians 15:29.
Please take special notice that the baptism is to be into Christ. A person may be baptized, plunged, into water, a thousand times without having once being baptized into Christ. That means a new creature--a life as new as though it were wholly another person now living. Of this living wholly in Christ, the burial in water, and rising again, is but a figure. Now while the figure amounts to nothing without the fact, the thing itself, the real putting on of Christ by faith in His death and life, is valid without anything else.
God is indeed just, and therefore although He gives us emblems, figures, setting forth Gospel truth, He does not make salvation dependent on those emblems. None can be saved without faith in Christ; but it is possible to be saved without having been baptized in water. Therefore it is that when Jesus said, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved," (Mark 16:16) He added only, "but he that believes not shall be damned," (Mark 16:16) and did not say that he that is not baptized is damned.
The dead will never have the Gospel preached to them; and the Bible nowhere says that they will. It does indeed say that the Gospel was preached to them that are dead; and that relieves God of all responsibility. All who have lived and died have heard the Gospel, and consequently they do not need to hear it any more. It was not preached to them that were dead, however. They were all alive when it was preached to them, but now they are dead. It was preached to them for the same reason that it is now preached to us, "that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit;" (1 Peter 4:6) that is, that they might be delivered from the flesh, and live spiritual lives.
This is no disparagement of baptism in water. That is a most impressive and beautiful and solemn public declaration of one's acceptance of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ; and since Christ has instituted it, everyone who knows and loves Him will be most glad to submit to it; but salvation is dependent on the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord, and not upon a new sign of it.
There will be many in the kingdom of God from among the heathen, who have died without ever having heard of baptism, or even the name of Christ, but who have seen the life that was manifest, ( 1 John 1:1-3) and have accepted it; they have walked in that light "which lights every man that comes into the world," (John 1:9) and have not held down the truth in unrighteousness; (Romans 1:18) and: "In every nation he that fears God, and works righteousness, is accepted with Him." (Acts 10:35)
May we be as faithful with our greater measure of light.--Present Truth, December 4, 1902--Note: This topic is also covered in the Present Truth of April 23, 1903, found later in this collection.