1Corinthians 15:29) Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?

Volume 2, Study 7 (4-1-10)

    As now so it was then that there were challenges to fundamental Christian doctrine. And we know, even out of the Apostle Paul's arguments for the correct doctrine of Christ's resurrection, that today there are misguided folk who are baptized for their dead ones. All the verses presented in this study deal with Christ's death and resurrection.

    'and your faith is also vain' here in this verse refers to verse 2 'unless ye have believed in vain'. In verse 2, Paul was not stating that these Christians really could have believed in vain, for true belief (i.e. Biblical faith) cannot be in vain. Instead in verse 2, Paul was preparing the reader in advance for this discussion about Christ Jesus' resurrection.
    To say it differently: If these Christians believed in what was declared to them by either Paul or the other apostles, and if their believing was in vain (i.e. it did not really bring them salvation) then it was not their fault, but was the fault of God...in that Christ did not rise again to conquer death...'and our preaching [was in] vain'.

    I.e. The apostles were most miserable in their trials and hardships, if it is all for naught.

    Note the word 'firstfruits' (plural). There shall be two resurrections; see Revelation 20. In the first resurrection there will be no judgment of those resurrected, but they shall be judged in the second resurrection.

    That is, through Christ's resurrection God worked resurrection for 'all' mankind, in that there shall be a second resurrection unto judgment of 'all'. I shall not get into teachings of hell and heaven, etc. Yet, it is clear that resurrection is about resurrection 'of the dead'.

    In verse 28 is the second resurrection described in Revelation 20:7-15 when all the dead and those still living shall come up before God in the judgment.

    The destruction of death was accomplished in Christ Jesus' resurrection, in which many 'fruits' of God to mankind also were accomplished with most of them yet to be fulfilled.

    There are people today who are baptized for the dead. This is a primary topic of this study, but before dealing with this verse we must see what the Apostle Peter had to say about Jesus' death and Jesus visiting 'the dead'.
    By the time that Paul began his ministry (see Volume 2, Study 6) Peter was well known and his teachings were being circulated to the scattered and spreading Church. Peter was seeking out Israelite synagogues, mostly east of Israel where so many of the scattered Israelites lived. Of course, Paul was going where Peter had not yet been. But by the time of this writing to the Corinthians, Peter's teachings were well known. And so in this verse Paul used Peter's teaching, which is below -

    Paul shall use Peter's teaching of 'death in the flesh' and 'quickened by the Spirit' in 1Corinthians 15. That is, the man Jesus was 'put to death in his flesh'. Whereupon Jesus' body became transformed 'quickened by the Spirit' into something quite different from his earthly body.     In Acts 2:31 Peter preached in the Spirit that Jesus' soul was not left in hell (i.e. hades) and his body did not see corruption (as a normal corpse would see).

    By 'being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit' Jesus 'went and preached unto the spirits in prison'. (Paul will speak of corpses, while here Peter says that they have spirits.)

    The picture that Peter wants us to get from the Noah Flood has several points:

1. Noah was saved by water, a picture of Christian baptism by (in) water. Yet, too many in the early Church thought of baptism as giving them “ceremoniously clean flesh, and as a result that their flesh was good”. Yes, the Noah Flood had cleansed the land of filth to give it a new clean beginning. However, the ongoing attitude toward Christian baptism should be for the Christian to focus on having a good conscience toward God and not to think of the flesh as being clean, for we are to walk by the spirit and not by the flesh.
2. Going through the obedience of baptism 'doth also now save us... by the resurrection of Jesus Christ'. It is not the baptism, but the resurrection that saves us. Pointing back to Noah, it was being in the ark in the water that points to baptism, but it was the emergence out of the ark (thus out of the water) that points to resurrection.
3. Consider again verse 19, Noah in the ark points to Jesus in his death and quickened by the Spirit. Noah emerging out of the ark onto dry ground points to Jesus' resurrection into heaven. The Noah story was done in the physical which points to Jesus in the Spirit. Noah and his family were not saved or safe until they emerged from the ark. Thus are we in Christ as the Father has joined us into the resurrection of His Son.

    In other words, all who heard the Gospel preached, the dead and the living, were given the opportunity to respond that they might 'live according to God in the spirit'. For all shall 'be judged' and 'shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead'.

    This verse was first translated in the English by the King James translators, and this translation has withstood the test of time; i.e. all English translations of the verse of which I am aware are essentially the same.
    So what does this verse (so stated) mean? Answer: I do not know. I am unaware of any other Bible passages that might go with what it seems to be saying.
    In this chapter is one of Paul's great Christian theological arguments. Thus, it seems strange that he would introduce the concept “that living people are baptized for the dead”, which concept is nowhere else in scripture. OR he was saying something different: another point that he was weaving into his ongoing argument about the doctrine of resurrection.
    First (before again considering what we have just done in Peter's teaching) we shall for the time being assume that Paul was continuing his argument as in the above verses of chapter 15. And I shall delve into the Greek words in this verse as numbered by Strong and delve into their meanings given by Strong. And I will be using their primary meanings.
    To begin with, I checked into the order of the words in the verse, and the translation has them faithful to the order of the original text.
    The Greek word for 'what' is a pronoun: who, what, which. A pronoun refers to a person, a thought, or a thing. Staying with Paul's whole argument about Christ and resurrection: if we were to select the word who then the person would be Christ. If we were to select the word what then the subject would be what Christ did. If we would select the word which it would be the same.
    The Greek word for 'shall do' is a verb to make or do.
    A Greek word for 'they' is not in the original text, nor are the words 'which are'.
    Therefore, we have a who or a what that has made or done something.
    The next Greek word is 'baptize' or 'baptism' and it means to make fully wet. Example: When preparing to eat, in a vessel of specially prepared water the Jews would 'baptize' their arms up to just above their elbows. Some modern teachers explain that the word means to dip, which is a good word for it; but perhaps plunge into or submerge is better.
    I say this because for adult baptism in church we normally think in terms of bringing up the person out of the water after having plunged him into the water which had made him fully wet. This remark may see humorous, but understand that the Greek word does not include bringing up the fully wet item, arm, or person.
    I trust that you are staying with me. Only a few days ago I was going through this for myself and you are joining me, at least for now. So stay with me.
    The Greek word for 'for' actually means over: it has to do with place, in the sense that being in a place over something has to do with the thing of higher quality being over something of lower quality. (I.e. if Christ was in a place over something then surely he was greater than the thing he was over.)
    The Greek word for 'the' means the, as in pointing out the next word.
    The Greek word for 'dead' means corpse. Paul was speaking about a resurrection of 'the dead' and he used terminology of the Old Testament. In Ezekiel 37 is the famous prophesy of dry bones that first were gathered into corpses and then the corpses were given breath to become living beings. Moreover, in Revelation 20:12 is 'I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God'.
    Therefore, to sum up, we are going to re-translate some of the verse: instead of 'Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead' let us translate it 'Else what (i.e. what did Christ) to make baptism over the dead'.
    Here we see the concept of Christ having died and 'baptized' (i.e. he descended fully into the earth). Is not Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection symbolized in the baptism of a new Christian? Ah, but in this verse Paul did not yet speak of coming up (i.e. resurrection); instead he spoke of Christ as fully descended into the earth, and over (thus greater than) the dead. These dead shall be resurrected to stand before Almighty God.
    As stated above, Paul used Peter's teaching in his defense of the resurrection doctrine.
    To say it differently: “Why did Christ go into the depths of the earth in a place above the dead where he stayed three days preaching to the dead 'if the dead rise not at all?'”
    Now let us finish the verse 'why are they then baptized for the dead?' The Greek words are the same: 'why' is who, what, which, and 'are they' are not in the original text, and 'then' means also, and 'baptized for the dead' is the same as above. By repetition, Paul was emphasizing the first part of the verse; and so we have 'what (i.e. what did Christ) also descending into the depths of the earth over the dead?'
    Putting it together in our re-translation we have:
    'Else what did Christ in making baptism [i.e. him descending into the depths of the earth] over the dead...if the dead rise not at all? What [therefore] did Christ, also descending [i.e. as all dead ones had done] into the depths of the earth over the dead?'
    This was Paul's continuation of argument against those who claimed there was no resurrection. See above 1Peter 3:21 part 3) of my comments. In the latter part of this chapter we shall see Paul's continued argument as he begins to speak of the kind of body the Christian shall have when he or she is resurrected.

    I.e. “Do not go astray, for worthless companionship spoils good and useful habits.”

    It seems that Paul had given this argument before.

    Paul continues to speak as in 15:1-33 about something going into the ground, as did Jesus, and as is described in verse 15:29 and in 1Peter 3:18-22 and 4:5,6. And remember that Christ Jesus was (is) the 'seed' of Abraham as promised in the Abrahamic Covenant.
    In death, Jesus descended into the earth for three days (i.e. like three days and nights of Jonah in the sea) and there Jesus preached to the souls (i.e. the dead) that had died before and during the Noah Flood. (Please allow my repetition.)

    I.e. “And that which is sown is not the kind of body which when quickened it shall be, but you sow the bare grain; for instance wheat or some other grain.”

    In these last two verses is the word 'glory', yet Paul has implied that every kind of body created of God has its own 'glory'. Also implied is: by the Creator every kind of body stays within its own track of ongoing production.

    For a seed to be quickened into the new life of a plant the seed's body must decay in the soil, which decay is the initial part of the quickening process. It is interesting that God designed the seed-to-plant process so that He could use it to explain to men the quickening process of salvation in Christ Jesus.
    Moreover, it is the process that all men shall go through when all shall be resurrected.
    However, as stated above, Jesus did not experience the corruption or decay part of the process. Indeed, at the right hand of God the Father Jesus is the Firstborn of many.

    Indeed, if you have observed a seed spring into the new life of a plant then you have seen 'force' in action as the soil became pushed aside and upward during the plant's emergence. True 'power' is not in the lifeless seed (as many imagine in the process), rather such 'power' is in its Creator. The Greek word in the verse is 'force', not 'power'. In God is the 'power', and according to His design He 'forcefully' handles each thing according to His design of each thing.

    Typically this verse is thought to be a comparison of the man Adam with the man Jesus. Yet, in this whole passage Paul was not speaking of living, walking, and talking beings on the earth. He was teaching about God's quickening process, a process which culminates in resurrection (resurrection of Jesus and resurrection 'of the dead').
    Paul reminded his readers that Adam came into being by God taking the natural dust of the ground and He quickened the dust into a living natural male person whom He named Adam. He took a natural rib from Adam and He quickened it into a living natural female person whom Adam named Eve. Adam and Eve were a result of God's quickening process. They had natural bodies, not spiritual bodies.
    In a similar manner, then, Jesus became the 'final Adam'. (The base word for 'man' is 'adam'.) God's Quickening Process for the Ages resulted in the new quickened spiritual body of Jesus so that the end result for men shall also be a new quickened spiritual body.

    I.e. “However, it was not Jesus' spiritual body that came first, but rather his natural body; afterward his spiritual body.”

    Here is why in the process of dying and rising that Jesus did not (and did not need to) decay or corrupt, whereas earthy men do need to corrupt within the process.

    Therefore, the living Christian is not (yet) in the kingdom of God since we continue to walk in corruption. Therefore, the Christian Church is not the the kingdom of God. Indeed, we are not even a corrupt kingdom.
    However, we do have an 'inheritance'.

    At the trumpet, the living shall be changed from corruptible man to incorruptible man without going through the dying decaying process...thus the 'mystery'. Paul had explained the process at length for the dead, yet here he declared the mystery of the living.

    In the early days and years, Paul and the other apostles thought they very well might see Jesus coming through the clouds and then they would experience their bodies going through the mysterious change of mortal bodies turning into immortal bodies.

    Verse 26: 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.'