What do you make of the text which speaks about being "baptized for the dead"? I am told that it means that anyone who believes can be baptized for some other person who died out of the faith, and thus the dead person can be saved just as though he had believed and been baptized himself in life. What do you think?
I think it is altogether best to get so well acquainted with the meaning of baptism from the Scriptures, that loose, irresponsible guesses or assertions will not move us, and that we shall not feel inclined to take counsel of either our own or any other person's opinions.
No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation; for the Scripture came not by the will of man. Therefore it is not for any man or set of men on earth to read any text, and then say dogmatically, "This means so and so."
Not thus are the Scriptures expounded. This "Private Corner," and, indeed, the entire Present Truth, exists solely for the purpose of so setting forth the truths of Scripture that all who read will see that these truths are self-evident, and will accept them, not because some person has said so, but because they themselves see plainly that they are so. Now let us see what we can learn from this text.
The 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians is the famous resurrection chapter. The apostle, in the portion in which the verse occurs, is answering the assertion of some, that there is no resurrection of the dead, and he asks, "Else what shall they do that are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not? Why are they then baptized for the dead?" (1 Corinthians 15:29)
His proof of the resurrection is the positive fact that Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. In reading this scripture we are reminded of the words of Peter, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you." (1 Peter 1:3-4)
The resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that alone, is our hope. By it He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness," (Romans 1:4) and by it we are begotten sons of God. Therefore it is that we, as many as are "baptized into Jesus Christ [are] 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." (Romans 6:3-5)
Our hope of the resurrection of the body at the coming of the Lord Jesus, is our resurrection with Him now, to "walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)
Every baptism, therefore, has reference to the resurrection--first of all of Christ, and afterwards of those who are Christ's at His coming. Every person who is intelligently, and thus really, baptized, thereby signifies that he yields his body, and his whole life, to Christ, accepting His death and resurrection. By it he signifies his belief that Jesus died and rose again, for him, and that his own resurrection is, through his faith in Christ, totally sure. Thus, and thus only, can anybody be baptized for the dead.
To say that a person who has not believed, and who has died in unbelief, can be saved through another's baptism for him, is most completely to misapprehend the Gospel of our salvation. God is not a vain, capricious person, to be pleased with mummeries. Everything that He requires in the Gospel, is for a definite purpose. Everything is for the purpose of affecting a radical change in the individual, and not to gratify some arbitrary wish of God.
For one person to be baptized for another who is dead, could not possibly affect that other one's character; and it is change of life in the individual himself that God desires. When one is understandingly baptized for the dead and risen Christ, and for his own death and resurrection in Him, a complete change is wrought in him. He becomes thenceforth a new man.
But if God, who knows the hearts of all, sees that some person who died unbaptized had real, even though undefined faith, He will save that man because of his own faith, and not because ten thousand men have had themselves baptized on his behalf.
Think what would be the result if the idea of the one you refer to, which, unfortunately has too many adherents, were true. It would mean that heaven would be peopled with a lot of people who never desired salvation. It means that unrepentant sinners by wholesale can be saved, if only they have friends to go through the ceremony of baptism for them.
It virtually means universal salvation, and that not through the merits of Christ, nor even through the merit of a large part of the "saved," but through--not the merits, but--the ceremonies performed by a lot of human saviours. Merely to follow the idea out to its natural conclusion is to show the monstrosity of it.
But we do wrong even to speak of people being saved by such means. That would not be salvation, if it were possible. It would be the peopling of heaven with a lot of unsaved people; it would be in fact, the transference of "this present evil world" into the world to come. And that again shows that the idea is opposed to the Gospel, and a perversion of the Scriptures; for: "[Christ] gave himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world," (Galatians 1:4) and His very name and existence depend on the fact that "He shall save His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21)
Salvation that does not cleanse the soul from sin is not salvation at all. Thanks be to God, "Jesus saves!"--Present Truth, April 23, 1903--Note: This topic is also covered in the Present Truth of December 4, 1902, found earlier in this collection.