Commentaries:
People's Commentary (NT)
1 Corinthians 15:29
Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead? Paul
again returns to the argument for the resurrection. This passage is
difficult, and has received almost as many interpretations as there
have been commentators. Some have held that there was a custom of
baptizing living persons for the benefit of persons who had died
without baptism. Had that custom existed, Paul would have rebuked it.
It did arise afterwards, as an abuse from the misinterpretation of this
passage, among the followers of Cerinthis, and, in our times, of Joseph
Smith. I will try to make clear its meaning: (1) All the Corinthians
were baptized (Acts 18:8). (2) Their baptism was a "planting" in the
likeness of the burial of Christ, and in the "likeness of his
resurrection" (Romans 6:4). They were in, and raised from, a watery
tomb. (3) Their baptism in the likeness of the death and resurrection
of Christ was in hope of their own resurrection from the dead through
Christ's resurrection. ("Huper Nekroon", "for", or "on account of the
dead", with the exception of resurrection from the dead.) But if Christ
has not risen, and the dead rise not, this memorial and emblematic
burial has no meaning. "Why, then, are they baptized for the dead"?
that is, for the sake of their own resurrection from the dead. This
interpretation harmonizes better with Paul's argument than any I have
seen.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
1 Corinthians 15:29
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