Sunday, April 9, 2023

J. Paul Sampley on 1 Corinthians 15:29 and Baptism for the Dead

  

This is another of those matters about which Paul and the Corinthians surely understood one another but which we cannot hope to fathom. The most obvious reading of the text would suggest that there are some at Corinth (note that Paul does not address them directly, but writes about them as an example) who are being baptized in behalf of dead persons, perhaps as representatives of dear ones who either never had a chance to respond to the gospel or who had died while being drawn to the faith. But the truth is that we simply do not know. Most surprising is that Paul did not oppose the practice, which seems to suppose either that grace is transferrable or that one can be a surrogate believer for another. Instead, Paul uses it to expose its folly if there is no resurrection of the dead. (J. Paul Sampley, “The First Letter to the Corinthians,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, 12 vols. [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002], 10:982, emphasis in bold added)