Some Resurrection Incentives Series

1 CORINTHIANS 15: 29-34 [RESURRECTION REALITIES SERIES]

SOME RESURRECTION INCENTIVES

Scripture is not theoretical, impractical, or irrelevant. If truth is denied we cannot think or live right. Right doctrine is inseparably connected to right moral behavior. Right principles are given to lead to right conduct. Scripture is not given to simply be discussed; it is to be lived out. When its truth is denied there are devastating moral and spiritual consequences.

Though the resurrection of the human body is a future event it has compelling implications for our present lives. The major thrust in 15:29-34 is: if you remove the resurrection, if you deny this crucial and wonderful truth of God's redemptive work, you have removed one of the greatest motivations the Lord gives for coming to Christ and for living for Christ. He therefore points out three powerful incentives the resurrection gives: (1) an incentive for salvation; (2) an incentive for service; and (3) an incentive for sanctification.

I. AN INCENTIVE FOR SALVATION, 29.

The argument begins in verse 29 with a difficult to understand thought. “Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?”

This verse is one of the most difficult in all of Scripture and has many legitimate possible interpretations. It also has been used to support many strange and heretical ideas. As to what this verse does mean, we can only guess, since history has locked it into obscurity.

We can be sure though that it does not teach vicarious or proxy baptism for the dead, as claimed by ancient gnostic heretics such as Marcion and by the Mormon church today. Paul did not teach that a person who has died can be saved, or helped in any way, by another person's being baptized in his behalf. Baptismal regeneration, the idea that one is saved by being baptized, or that baptism is in some way necessary for salvation, is unscriptural.

If one person's faith cannot save another, then certainly one person's baptism cannot save another. Baptism is simply an act of obedient faith that proclaims identity with Christ (Rom. 6:3–4). No one is saved by baptism—not even living persons, much less dead ones. “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Heb 9: 27). Death ends all opportunity for salvation and for spiritual help of any sort.

In the New Testament baptism is closely associated with salvation, of which it is an outward testimony. Although a person does not have to be baptized to be a Christian, he has to be baptized to be an obedient Christian—with the obvious exception of a believer who has no opportunity to be baptized before death. Baptism is an integral part of Christ's Great Commission (Mt 28:19). In the early church a person who was saved was assumed to have been baptized; and a person was not baptized unless the church was satisfied he was saved. To ask, then, if a person was baptized, was equivalent to asking if he was saved.

No interpretation of this text is entirely satisfactory. It could be that some in Corinth believed a false view of baptism and were baptized for the dead. Paul then took up and used it as an argument against those who denied the Resurrection. Also it is noteworthy that Paul referred to those (not “we”) who are “baptized for the dead.”

It could also be possible that Paul may be affirming the truth that Christians who face death with joy and hope are a powerful testimony. It may be that the first seeds of faith were planted in Paul's own heart by the testimony of Stephen, whose death the young Paul (then Saul) witnessed and whose confident and loving dying testimony he heard (Acts 7:59–8:1).

During the FINNISH-RUSSIAN WAR seven captured Russian soldiers were sentenced to death by the Finnish army. The evening before they were to be shot, one of the soldiers began singing “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.” Asked why he was singing such a song, he answered tearfully that he had heard it sung by a group of Salvation Army “soldiers” just three weeks earlier. As a boy he had heard his mother talk and sing of Jesus many times, but would not accept her Savior. The previous night, as he lay contemplating his execution, he had a vision of his mother's face, which reminded him of the hymn he had recently heard. The words of the song and verses from the Bible that he had heard long ago came to his mind. He testified before his fellow prisoners and his captors that he had prayed for Christ to forgive his sins and cleanse his soul and make him ready to stand before God. All the men, prisoners and guards alike, were deeply moved, and most spent the night praying, weeping, talking about spiritual things, and singing hymns. In the morning, just before the seven were shot, they asked to be able to sing once more “Safe in the Arms of Jesus,” which they were allowed to do.