"What can the baptized [the
Christians] do for the dead [viz. according to Hofmann here: for the dead in
sin] if the dead rise not at all; what avails them their state of being
baptized [being Christians]? What do even we [the preachers of the
gospel] rather say to them in every hour of our lives? The reader will have
seen at verses 23 et seq. that I am not insensible to the refinements of
Hofmann's exegesis, and I would gladly assist him here out of the dilemma, but
I do not really think that this will do. That "the dead" are meant to
be "the dead in sin," and upon this the whole thing hinges—that alone
is, my estimation, a violent proceeding which makes it impossible for me to go
thus far, much as I should like to do so. And thus we have no alternative but
to leave the company of this interpreter and join those led by Erasmus who
reckon that Paul was here in fact alluding to the custom of vicarious baptism,
which he employed as a means of proof without arguing against it. The reader
will find a remarkable parallel in Macc. xii. 43-45. Judas Maccabaeus offered a
sacrifice in Jerusalem for a number of Jews who had fallen in battle, and at
whose burial it transpired that they had sinned by wearing protective magic
tokens: "Doing therein right well and honourably, in that he took thought
for a resurrection. For if he were not expecting that they that had fallen
would rise again, it were superfluous and idle to pray for the dead." The
Greek world was also acquainted with various Dionysian orgies for the
uninitiated dead, and the occurrence of Christian vicarious baptism is at least
testified from the circles of Marcionites, Gerinthians, and Montanists. If we
cannot escape from this interpretation, we must explain Paul's opinion in this
wise: You are acquainted with and (from the wording of the sentence the general
custom cannot have been dealt with) some of you have in fact even practiced the
custom in question. It does not matter whether it is justifiable (Paul says
neither yes nor no to this); its meaning is the putting not only of those now
living, but of those already dead in connexion, in communion with Jesus Christ.
In doing so you affirm the resurrection of the dead, you pass over
fundamentally the boundary of human possibilities, which is drawn once for all
by death; you acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Lord of Life and Death. Either
the custom in question has this meaning, or it has none, or it is only secular,
only heathen, only sentimental, like kerygma, like "faith,"
like religion, like being a Christian generally (verses 12-19); it is either
has this meaning or is "vain." (Karl Barth, The Resurrection of
the Dead [trans. H. J. Stenning; London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited,
1933], 182-84)
(FWIW, I believe Barth to be the most boring theologian of all time; I find his work a snore fest, but it is interesting that he argued in such a manner vis-a-vis baptism for the dead and 1 Cor 15:29)
