Truth Magazine

By Clinton D. Hamilton

That there are difficult passages in the Bible, one cannot deny. Because a passage may pose some difficulty does not mean, however, that one cannot understand what God has revealed. As always, one must look to the language and the context in which the language occurs. Also one must take into consideration what is revealed in other passages. One must not interpret a passage in a manner that would put it in contradiction of plain teaching elsewhere. Truth is an entity in which there is no contradiction. If one correctly interprets a passage, it will not be a contradiction of teaching elsewhere.

Baptism for the dead is a major doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church. Basically, this teaching is based on 1 Corinthians 15:29. The question which is the subject of this article is based on this passage.

Question: In 1 Corinthians 15:29, what is being baptized for the dead?

Response: The question is clear and unambiguous; the issue is squarely put. The first 11 verses of 1 Corinthians 15 affirms the following: the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and his being seen by many after his resurrection. Both Paul and the other apostles by the grace of God preached the gospel that involved the resurrection of Christ (vv. 9-11). The Corinthians heard, believed, stood, and were saved by their obedience to the gospel, “if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain” (vv. 1-2). What Paul preached is what he received from the Lord (v. 3; see also Gal. 1:11-17).

Companionships or association with false teachers evidently had led some into error on the question of the resurrection. Paul said, “Be not deceived: Evil companion-ships corrupt good morals” (v. 33). Companionships is translated from homilia, which means an association of people “who are of the same company” (Vine). In this context, it refers to those in close association who are evil in their false teachings. Thayer defines the term to mean “companionship, intercourse, and communion.” The idea is to be close in association and influenced by that association. They were being influenced by their association with false teachers and thus were led into error about the resurrection. Corrupt is rendered from phtheiro which means to bring one to a worse state (Vine). Both Thayer and Vine point out that the expression in 1 Corinthians 15:33 is from the pagan poet Menander whose saying had become a proverb. Thayer says that in an ethical sense the word conveys the idea of corrupt or depraved. Ethos is the word from which morals are translated; it means custom or habit. Thayer points out that contextually it refers to “usage prescribed by law, institute, prescription, rite.” In the passage before us, morals refers to the teaching about which Paul spoke in the first few verses of I Corinthians 15 concerning the resurrection of Christ.

By listening to false teachers with whom they had a close association, they had become depraved in that they believed error about the resurrection. To counteract this depravity in what they believed, Paul proceeded with a series of arguments. He demonstrated that the denial of the resurrection, as some were wont to do, was illogical and unsound in relation to the evidence for the resurrection, the gospel they heard, and their own practices (vv. 12-32). Eyewitness testimony is the best human testimony possible; many had witnessed the resurrection of Christ and testified about it (vv. 5-8). In addition to these witnesses, there is the testimony of the scriptures that Jesus would be raised the third day (vv. 3-4). The scriptures as the testimony of God, Peter tells us, is more sure than eyewitness testimony (2 Pet. 1:19-21) because it is from God by the Holy Spirit who moved holy men of old to speak.

Let us observe Paul’s arguments. If Christ is preached as being raised from the dead, how say some of you there is no resurrection of the dead (v. 12)? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised (v. 13). If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching and your faith are in vain (v. 14). If the preaching of the apostles that God raised Christ from the dead is false, then the apostles were false witnesses and there is no resurrection (v. 15). If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain, and you are yet in your sins (vv. 16-17). If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then they that have fallen asleep in Jesus have perished (v. 18). If there is hope in Christ only in this life, then we are most pitiable (v. 19).

Christ has been raised from the dead and is so preached, the first fruits of them that are asleep, for by man camedeath and by man came the resurrection of the dead (vv. 20-21). As in Adam, all die: so also, in Christ all shall be made alive (v. 22). There is an order in the resurrection: Christ, the first fruits, then they that are Christ’s at his coming (v. 23). When the resurrection occurs, then comes the end when the kingdom shall be delivered to the Father when all power and authority shall have been abolished and the last enemy, death, also shall have been abolished (vv. 24-28).

Paul continued his arguments by saying that if the dead are not raised, how do you explain baptizing on behalf of the dead ones (v. 29)? This evidently was a practice among them, for his question assumes this. He does not endorse or confirm the teaching and practice. However, he makes an ad hominem argument against them. Their practice of baptizing for the dead would be logically absurd if there is no resurrection.

Paul continues. If there is no resurrection of the dead, what is the profit in all the suffering and jeopardy that Paul endures every hour (v. 30)? Paul says he dies daily and fought with beastly false teachers in Ephesus; if there is no resurrection, there would no profit in their evil associations having corrupted or depraved them about the fact of the resurrection of the dead (v. 33). Paul then calls on them to “awake to righteousness, and sin not, for some have no knowledge of God: I speak this to move you to shame” (v. 34).

Having demonstrated the futility of the false teaching which some of them had come to embrace, he then deals with questions of possibility connected with the resurrection (vv. 35-49). The ultimate victory over sin and death which it brings is the resurrection to be with the Lord (vv. 50-56). This victory comes through the resurrected Christ (v. 57). “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (v. 58).

In conclusion, a number of observations, comments and arguments will be made relative to what verse 29 teaches about the expression “baptized for the dead.” In the original text, the expression is of baptizomenoi huper ton nekron. The manner in which this is introduced after the interruption of his arguments from verses 23 through 28 shows Paul’s contempt for the practice (see Alford in his The Greek New Testament). There is an ellipsis which in effect states, “If it be as the adversaries suppose,” certain consequences follow. By the use of the third person and the article, Alford argues that Paul “indirectly separates him-self and those to whom he is writing from participation in or approval of the practice” of baptizing for the dead. If there is no resurrection of the dead, those who engage in the practice of baptizing for the dead cannot explain why they practice it. Doing so under these circumstances would be logically absurd to the extreme.

The dead in this passage evidently refers to those whose bodies and spirits have been separated. In the next conditional clause following, Paul uses the term nekroi referring to people who have left the body. Therefore, one cannot say dead is used figuratively to refer to one who is dead in sin. Figurative language is not used.

Huper is a preposition which in this context has the sense on behalf of some one else, the dead ones. There was, no doubt, a practice of their being baptized on behalf of people who have died. Paul does not endorse or approve the practice but uses it to show its futility if there is no resurrection of the dead. This interpretation does no violence either to the language or the context.

Other scriptures teach that one will meet God and Christ in judgment as he exits life. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and then cometh judgment” (Heb. 9:27). We all must appear before the judgment-seat of God (Rom. 14:10). When we are “made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ,” it will be to “receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). Jesus said men shall come forth from the tombs: “they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment” (Jn. 5:28-29). God has “appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31). One cannot do something on behalf of the dead; the dead ones will go to judgment as they died.

When one analyzes the language, the context, and other passages which have implications on the interpretation of the language in context, one is forced, I believe, to the conclusion that Paul refers to something they were doing. By an ad hominen argument (taking their own practice and using it to show their inconsistency), he demonstrates that their practice of baptizing for or on behalf of dead people contradicts their denial of the resurrection. Jesus used such an ad hominem argument against the Pharisees when they charged him with casting out demons by Beelzebub (Matt. 12:22-37; Mk. 3:22-30; Lk. 11:14-26). He said, “And if I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore shall they be your judges” (Matt. 12:27; Lk. 11:19). He does not endorse and confirm that their exorcists actually cast out demons but he demonstrated they were inconsistent in the way they approved others and condemned him. The above interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:29 is not in conflict with any other scriptures and does not violate the language and the context in which it occurs.

Guardian of Truth XXXVII: No 19, p. 5-6
October 7, 1993

By Tim Mize

If you grew up like I did, going to church regularly, you saw often enough Christians eating the Lord’s Supper. You heard over and over how this is done in memory of the crucifixion of Jesus. It cannot have escaped you how important, how loaded with significance his death is thought to be.

It may have escaped you, though, exactly what makes it so important. What is the significance of Christ being killed on a cross? What is so important about it, so that we have to be reminded so often? Think with me for a moment about just one thing that gives the cross its weighty importance: The cross of Christ declares the sinfulness of the world.

Someone might say, “No such demonstration is necessary, for anybody can see how evil the world is.” One might point to our sliding standards of personal morality, or to the social injustices in the world, where the powerful exploit the weak. One could cite the terrible crimes and atrocities of human history. Just those of modem years seem evidence enough that even our new, progressive world is fraught with evil.

All these things granted, the death of Jesus Christ still stands as the singular and supreme demonstration of the reality of evil in the world. Of course, like these other things, it stands as one other example of how persistent is “man’s inhumanity to man.” More than that, however, it shows how persistent is man’s violence toward God. It was not just hatred toward one man, but hatred toward God that drove the nails into the cross.

This is the great sin of the world  the sin against God (Ps. 51:4). Jesus Christ was God’s gift to the world. He was God’s obedient servant. Indeed, he was the Son of God. But how was he received? The world circled him like a pack of wolves, and tore upon him to destroy him.

Think of Jesus as being like a test, to prove the world. God put Jesus in its midst, so that his reality, his work, and his righteousness and love stood uniquely within it. But how did the world respond? It hated Jesus. It attacked and tried to destroy him. The true character of this world is thus proved. In it bums a deep-seated hostility toward its Creator. God could have placed his Son in it at any time and any place; we know that the response would have been the same.

Why, then, would God place his Son in the world, knowing that it would crush him? It was not to test the world that he did so, but to save it. God wants to recover humanity in spite of its evil. This too makes the cross a demonstration of the depth and awfulness of the world’s sins. The world is so bad as to require so drastic an act as this to rescue it, the placing of Jesus Christ in it to die by its hand.

The cross, then, is a mirror for the world. It can see there a true reflection of its ugly, evil self. As we observe that, though, we must remember that “the world” is no mere abstraction. It is made up of individual persons, including you and me. Everyone of us alive this very hour, if we but will, can look at the crucifixion of Jesus and see our very selves reflected there  and not in the crucified, but in the crucifiers. We ourselves have shared this same hostility toward God and man, this very evil that nailed Jesus to a cross. Each of us, it is true, in our own way has stood with the mob and cried with it, “Crucify him! crucify him!” (Luke 23:21)

The cross of Jesus, then, stands as a minor for us all. We see there not only the reality of our sin but also its awfulness and ugliness. We see there the desperateness of our condition, so that so terrible and drastic an act has been called for.

Guardian of Truth XXXVII: No 19, p. 7
October 7, 1993

By Walton Weaver

The third claim Jesus makes for Himself in conversation with Thomas and Philip, as recorded in John 14:5ff., is, “I am . . . the life.” He uses the definite article as he did in the first two claims. This use of the article, as in the other instances, demonstrates the uniqueness of the claim. He does not claim merely to be life, but he claims that he is “the life.” The last two claims that he is the truth and the life have special significance in their relation to the first claim that he is the way. Through his death and his going to the Father Jesus would open up the way into fellowship with the Father. He could not have accomplished this great work had he not been the truth and the life.

One sense in which Jesus is “the life” is that all life (cf. John 1:3), both physical and spiritual, finds its meaning and origin in him. Paul affirms that “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17), and John begins his gospel by saying, “In him was life” (John 1:4). But when Jesus said, “I am . . . the life,” there appears to be no doubt that he meant spiritual life. John also likely has spiritual life in mind when he says, “In Him was life,” because he immediately adds, “and the life was the light of men,” where “light” must refer to the spiritual realm. But how is it that Jesus is “the life” in a spiritual sense?

In the statement “in him was life” there is a reference to the very essence of the Word who was “with God, and … was God” (v. 1). From this description of the divine nature of the Word as he was in the beginning, John takes up the word “life” and gives to it its truest and highest meaning. Life in the very best sense of the term belongs eternally to the Word which was with God, and was God.

The Manifested Life

1. The Word As The Life. The first epistle of John begins with the expression, “What was from the beginning,” and in so doing takes us back into eternity again when the Word was with God. We do not know for sure that this expression refers to the same Word we read about in the first chapter of the gospel of John until we read on in the verse. This becomes clear when we see John describe “what was from the beginning” as that which the eyewitnesses had “heard,” “seen,” “beheld,” and “handled.” At this point we can know for sure that he is speaking of the Word as he does in his gospel record. By this statement John indicates that what had been with God (“What was from the beginning”) had now come into the arena of human experience. The Word had made himself known in history: “And the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us” (v. 2). The emphasis in this verse “is the historical reality of that to which John bears witness. It is the eternal life, he says, which was with the Father and then appeared to us. The language used here is precisely that which was used of the personal Word which was with God in the beginning (Jn. 1:2). It was the personal manifestation of the eternal life in the historical person of Jesus which was of crucial importance for the writer and his readers” (I. Howard Marshall).

2. The Meaning of “Manifested.” The word “manifested” is the key word in the second verse. It is used two times in this one verse. The term means to bring to light or make known what already exists. What was it that had already existed but had now been made known? The “life” was what had been from the beginning, and now “the life was manifested,” or made known. This is a favorite word of John to describe Jesus’ first coming (1 John 3:5, 8; cf. John 1:31). He also uses it to refer to the second coming (1 John 2:28). But how was the Word manifested when he came into the world? John is more specific in his gospel when he says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

When the Word “became flesh” he was not converted into something different from what he was when he was “with God, and . . . was God.” He simply entered into a new state of existence. He assumed or took on a new nature when he became man, yet “the life” that was in him as the Word was ever the same. This life was now “manifested” in flesh.

The Eternal Life

John says that the life that was manifested was “eternal life.” Could we expect anything less when we consider that this “life” or Word not only was “with God” but also “was God”? Could he be God and not be eternal? This in itself shows that the words “became flesh” in John 1:14 do not mean transmuted into flesh. How could that which is eternal be transmuted or converted into that which is transient and temporary? The word “eternal” only brings out what is inherent in the concept itself. It describes the eternal quality and duration of the life which he is in himself.

Jesus tells us that “the Father has life in himself,” and “He gave the Son also to have life in himself’ (John 5:26). This describes the self-sufficiency of both the Father and the Son. Each has eternal life inherent in himself; or, perhaps we should say, life as an independent possession. Even though this life was in the Son as well as in the Father, it was “given” of the Father to the Son. At first this does not seem consistent with John’s earlier claim that “in him was life.” So, how are we to understand this statement from Jesus? Surely it must refer to the time when the Word became flesh. As the Word Jesus ever had life in himself, but as he stood before the unbelieving Jews and made this statement, “he was vindicating his own authority and action, by connecting them with the Father’s will and action. And he was not, as he stood before the Jews, simply theEtemal Word, but, rather, the God-man” (Alvah Hovey).

Life In The Son

1. God’s Eternal Purpose. God had planned from eternity to make life available to man “in Christ Jesus.” Paul refers to this eternal purpose of God as “his kind intention which he purposed in him” (Eph. 1:9). When the time was right God would “sum up all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth” (Eph. 1:10). John speaks of this plan of redeeming man in terms of life in Christ: “And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:11-12). Only God who “has life in himself’ could make this life available, and no one but Christ, the Son of God, whom the Father “gave … to have life in himself’ could offer “life in the Son.” This unique Son of the Father in heaven was the only One who could lay hold of the claim, “I am . . . the life.”

2. Out Of Death Into Life. Jesus himself shows how one may pass “out of death into life,” i.e., by hearing his words and believing him (the Father) who sent him (John 5:24). To pass out of death into life is to leave the realm where death rules and to pass over into the realm where life rules. John shows that the realm where life rules is “in the Son.” Paul describes the sphere of death as “the power of darkness,” and the sphere into which one is transferred as “the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). One cannot have the life which Christ offers unless he is brought into him in whom life is found, that is, into Christ.

What is to be gained “in Christ” when one passes out of death into life? Redemption and forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7), salvation (2 Tim. 2:10), freedom from condemnation (Rom. 8:1), and all spiritual blessings (Eph. 1:3). But how does one come “into Christ”? He is “baptized into Christ” (Rom. 6:3, 4; Gal. 3:27). Other things must precede baptism into Christ, such as faith (John 8:24; Mark 16:16), repentance (Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 2:38; 17:30, 31), and confession of one’s faith in Christ (Rom. 10:10; Act 8:37), but one comes “into Christ” at the point of his baptism into Christ.

In baptism one is “buried with him [Christ] through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Could we find a better description of how it is, and at what point, one passes out of death into life? We die with Christ in baptism, and we gain newness of life in him as we are raised up with him. He has “made us alive together with Christ (by grace ye were saved), and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). Wonderful thought! Marvelous grace!

My friend, do you have this “life in the Son”? No one but Jesus Christ could claim, “I am… the life,” and no one but Christ can make you alive in him today! Would you not put your trust in him, and “arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16)? As Ananias asked Saul, “Why do you delay?” Jesus Christ is “the life,” obey him today!

Guardian of Truth XXXVII: No 19, p. 10-11
October 7, 1993

By Larry Ray Hafley

Who spoke these words?

Christianity is the foundation of our national morality, and the family (is) the basis of racial and political life.

We want to be active, to work and make brotherly peace with one another, to struggle together, so that some day the hour will come when we can step before him and will have the right to ask him: Lord, you see, we have changed; the nation is no longer the nation of dishonor, of shame, of self-laceration, of timidity and little faith; no, Lord, the … nation has once more grown strong in spirit, strong in will, strong in persistence, strong in enduring all sacrifices. Lord, we will not swerve from you; now bless our struggle.

I am well aware of what a man can do and where his limits lie, but I hold to the conviction that men who have been created by God ought also to live in accordance with the will of the Almighty…. Ultimately the individual man is weak in all his nature and actions when he goes contrary to almighty Providence and its will, but he becomes immeasurably strong the moment he acts in harmony with this Providence! Then there pours down upon him that force which has distinguished all the great men of the world.

He made it a maxim that “one could not do enough to cultivate ties with the common people.”

This country must not be a power without culture and must not have strength without beauty.

About whom where these words spoken?

His soul seems made of leather, and incapable of any grand or noble emotion. Compared with the mass of men, he is a line of flat prose in a beautiful and spirited lyric. He lowers, he never elevates you. You leave his presence with your enthusiasm dampened, your better feelings crushed, your hopes cast to the winds. You ask not, can this man carry the nation through its terrible struggles? but can the nation carry this man through them, and not perish in the attempt…. He is thickheaded; he is ignorant; he is tricky, somewhat astute, in a small way, and obstinate as a mule…. He is wrong-headed, the attorney, not the lawyer, the petty politician not the statesman, and, in my belief, ill-deserving of the soubriquet of Honest… . You cannot change (his) character or conduct. He remained … surrounded by toadies and office-seekers, to persuade himself that he was specially chosen by the Almighty for this crisis, and well chosen. This conceit has never yet been beaten out of him, and until it is, no human wisdom can be of much avail.

(His) ruthlessness . . . had long been apparent to his foes … (he) showed himself to be a man who would hold to principles only so long as he had more to gain than lose by them. Observing this . . . (some) defined him as slippery, mendacious, and above all not to be trusted.

That despot . . . that wretched and detestable abortion, whose contemptible emptiness and folly will receive the ridicule of the civilized world.

Othersdesigned to expose him as a master of deceit, a clod, a tyrant, a bawdy clown, a monster.

Surely, the first set of quotations did not come from Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam, Hussein or Attila the Hun! They were spoken by Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, or Lincoln, do you not suppose?

Whatever the source or object, evil men occasionally say good things, and god men have evil things said of them (Jesus and Paul, for example). Also, good men may speak evil, at times, and evil men may have god things said of them.

However, in the final analysis, our judgments do not matter (I Cor. 4:3-5). God will judge, and he will do so in complete righteousness (2 Tim. 4:8). By him, thoughts, words and deeds are weighed (1 Sam. 2:3; Prov. 24:12). Abraham Lincoln once said that if his actions during the Civil War were proved correct, it would not matter what his critics said, but that if his judgments and decisions were wrong, ten thousands angels swearing that they were right would not alter the verdict. That assessment, as it is applied to our affairs shall be judged by the “law of liberty” (Jas. 2:12).

It is easy to be misled by evil men who speak “great swellings words” (Jude 16). “By good words and fair speeches,” wicked men “deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom. 16:17,18). This is the essence of wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15). If there were not such critters, Jesus would not have warned against them. Our problem is that those we regard (judge) to be sheep are always genuine sheep. A wolf is always a wolf. We know the difference, or so we think! But Jesus still said there will be wolves “in sheep’s clothing.” Yes, you know that, but have you ever seen one? Do you not find that your sheep are always real sheep, but others have a wolf problem? Careful, now, for such thinking makes Jesus’ warning void, so far as you are concerned.

“Take heed what ye hear” (Mk. 4:24). “Take heed … how ye hear” (Lk. 8:18). So, take heed how you hear what you hear. It is not enough to see whether the creature bleats or growls. A sheep cannot growl, we presume, but a wolf can bleat. Jesus said so (Matt. 7:15; Rom. 16:18).

A sheep may be called a wolf (Matt. 5:11; 1 Pet. 3:16; 4:14). The Lamb of God was (Matt. 27:63; In. 7:12). Good men will be reviled. We know it is a truth, but those whom we revile are never good men. They are always deserving of our harsh words of condemnation. Does not every one so think? If I never revile good men, and you never speak evil of good men, who does? No one? No, somebody does, but we do not. Who, then? Dare you and I ask, “Lord, it is I?”

Could one of my brethren or “my Pastor” be one of those wolves in sheep’s clothing? Before extinguishing the thought, consider the implications hinted at above. Could I be guilty of reviling a good man who teaches the word of God in truth? Again, reflect. Remember, as you seek to study, know and live in harmony with the will of God in any area of truth, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20). It matters not how sincerely, how sweetly, they may bleat.

Incidentally, in case you are curious, the first set of words cited in the beginning, expressing noble values and sound philosophy, were spoken by Adolf Hitler (Hitler, Joachim C. Fest, pp. 388, 389, 423, 521, 527). The second set of quotes was spoken against Abraham Lincoln (Civil War, Vol. 2, Shelby Foote, pp. 108, 883, 884, 906).

Indeed, in the faith, as in the world, wolves may bleat, and sheep may be called wolves. Watch.

Guardian of Truth XXXVII: No 19, p. 8-9
October 7, 1993