Episode 11: Immersion for the Dead?

Summary

Question: What does 1 Corinthians 15:29 mean when it talks about those who are baptized for the dead?

Some people’s idea is that somebody can be immersed for somebody else. The idea that somebody can be responsible for somebody else’s salvation runs totally contrary to anything that the Scripture is talking about.

Ezekiel 18:20

1 Timothy 2:5

So the question is what is really going on in 1 Corinthians 15? You can tell that somebody had the question about whether there is really a resurrection from the dead. So Paul has a series of points he is making, one of which is if there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ isn’t raised from the dead. And if Christ isn’t raised from the dead then you are still in your sins.

What we need to do is backtrack and lay a little bit of groundwork. There is John’s immersion in Luke 3:3 for example, where John is preaching an immersion of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, to prepare a people to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Primarily a preparatory immersion. Then immersion in Jesus name, also in water, is for forgiveness of sins and to receive the indwelling Spirit, the point at which a person is born again. Then there is immersion in the Spirit, which included a sound like a mighty wind, tongues like fire, and speaking in other languages. This happened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost and to Cornelius and his household in Acts 10. Then there is immersion in fire. If you put things together in Matthew 3:11-12 you can see that immersion in fire is where Jesus is going to gather the wheat into His barn and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

There is another immersion.

Mark 10:35-39 It is a future cup and a future immersion at the time that Jesus is speaking.

Matthew 26:39 We know the immersion has to do with His suffering, because in the garden He says, “let this cup pass from me.”

Luke 12:49-50. The point is there is an immersion of suffering. So in 1 Corinthians 15, it isn’t John’s immersion, immersion in Jesus’ name, immersion in the Holy Spirit, or lake of fire immersion. That would point to the fact that it is going to be an immersion of suffering, so let’s see if that makes sense.

Ephesians 2:1 You were dead in your trespasses and sins. There is a spiritual death there. We’re trying to get the gospel to the dead. In Paul’s case, and a lot of the first century Christians, there was a lot of suffering involved with getting the gospel to the dead. They are immersed, that is they are suffering, for the sake of those who are lost. If there is no resurrection from the dead, which is his main point, then why go through all this suffering? When you put the word suffering in there, it makes sense.

So what 1 Corinthians 15:29 is talking about is the immersion of suffering that many Christians undergo in getting the gospel to the lost. 1 Corinthians 15:30-32.

Because Christians are conscious of the eternal consequences, they actually love the lost more than the lost love themselves. As Jesus laid down his life for us, we in the process go and lay down our lives for the sake of not only the brethren but for the reaching the lost. Christians then need to be prepared to undergo the immersion of suffering ourselves. It’s not the one immersion of Ephesians 4, because not everybody is going to do that. There are cases when someone gets immersed at the end of their life but never undergoes the immersion of suffering for the gospel. But the immersion of suffering is one that many Christians, especially going forward, can expect.