Since what shall the baptised for the dead do if [those that are] dead rise not at all? why also are they baptised for them?
Paul argues for resurrection by pointing to people "baptized on behalf of the dead." Few verses have drawn so many rival explanations. The commentators here agree on two things. The answer lies in how the sentence links to what came before. And the words need no strange or superstitious meaning.
The chapter breaks its own flow at verse 20. Verses 20–28 are a side-statement. Read past them and the argument closes up again.
Baptizing for the dead (1 Cor. 15:29) is, I believe, the nature and meaning of baptism. Alive in the flesh, we take our part in Christ's death as a figure. Paul puts it in a general way. The force of it is this — what good is it to take a place in death if there is no resurrection? If you take verses 20-28 as a parenthesis, the verses connect directly: verse 29 answers to 18, and 30-32 to 19. This makes it easier to understand.
The picture behind the words is an army in the field.
"Baptized for the dead" means, in my judgment, simply those who were coming in — "those who are being baptized." They took the place of the saints who had died and filled up the ranks. For grace in the face of all dangers keeps up God's standing army here below... The resurrection is the key to suffering and to death itself for Christ's name. Without such a hope, it would be folly to join such a devoted band. With it, His name will never lack recruits in faith — even for a life or a death of suffering.
The Greek word behind "for" has more than one sense. Elsewhere it can mean "in place of."
The expression may be rendered: "Baptized in place of the dead." Both the Common and Revised Versions render this preposition "for." The same word is rendered "instead of" in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and Philemon 13, though the Revised Version has corrected it to "on behalf of" in both places. But the lexicons admit the meaning "instead of."
Others weigh the same word and land on "concerning." The practical point is the same.
Other scholars agree that the word here means "concerning" or "relating to." They reject the superstitious theory that a living person was baptized for a dead one who had never been baptized... If Christ has not been raised, it would be absurd to spoil your prospects in this life by being baptized. Baptism marks a formal break with the old way of living. We would be tying ourselves to the death of one whom the world judged unfit to live any longer. And nothing would lie beyond the grave... But death is not the goal. Resurrection opens a new sphere of endless blessing!
Dozens of theories crowd around this verse. Gaebelein cuts back to what baptism already means.
Some thirty different interpretations of this statement exist. Most are so strained that they deserve no mention... There is no need to invent theories. Look at it in the simplest way and the difficulty disappears. They had been baptized and had taken the place of being dead with Christ. In this sense they had been baptized for the dead. But if the dead do not rise, this ordinance has no meaning or value at all. As a symbol it is tied closely to death and resurrection.
Some read the verse as living Corinthians standing in at baptism for dead relatives. Kelly gives two reasons to drop that reading.
There is no need to depart from the ordinary meaning of "baptized," "for," or "dead." Still less can we allow that the Corinthians, or anyone else in that early day, had invented a new and superstitious use of baptism — either for people about to die, or for relatives who had already died without it. If such a wicked fraud existed, Paul would never have been content to mention it in passing.
The verse is finally an argument from behaviour. People do not walk into danger for nothing.
The early disciples were, even while Paul was writing, the objects of fierce persecution from a hostile world. Gaps appeared in their ranks as one after another was struck down. And yet for every man who fell, two stepped into the ranks. They were eager to be baptized for the dead, and to become a target for the enemy themselves. Why was this? They were looking on to a glorious reward in the coming day.
- Parenthesis — Verses 20–28 are a side-statement; verse 29 picks up verse 18, and verse 30 picks up verse 19.
- Ranks — The picture is an army: new believers stepping into the places of saints who had died.
- Preposition — "For" here means "in place of" or "concerning," not a stand-in ritual for someone else.
- Baptism — To be baptized is to take your part in death; strip out resurrection and the act means nothing.
- Recruits — A coming reward is why people kept stepping into a place that had just cost someone his life.
Why do *we* also endanger ourselves every hour?
Paul turns from teaching to his own life and asks why he and his fellow workers live in constant danger. The question is an argument. If the dead are not raised, the way these men live makes no sense.
Verses 20-28 form a long aside. Verse 30 picks up the thread dropped at verse 19. One writer sets out the links and the picture behind the wording:
Read verses 20-28 as a long aside. Then verse 18 explains verse 29, and verse 19 explains verses 30-32. So, if there is no resurrection, those "who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." Otherwise, "what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?" Why step into their place in the ranks, and be in danger every hour, if the dead are not raised? What advantage was it for Paul to have fought with beasts at Ephesus if the dead are not raised? The "danger every hour" and the "fighting" both point to men at risk, like soldiers in a war.
The danger Paul names was not a debating phrase. One writer points to the events behind it:
Verse 30 confirms this reading of verse 29. Why should the Apostle and his fellow workers put themselves in the enemy's way, if there were no resurrection? He was not using a mere figure of speech when he asked it. It was a hard fact, and a daily fact for him. Not long before, he had lived through the violent riot in the theatre at Ephesus, recorded in Acts 19. Men fought against him like wild beasts, and every day his life was in danger.
Take away resurrection and such risk-taking becomes foolish. Paul names the motto he would live by instead:
He carries on the argument of verse 19. If there is no resurrection, we believers are of all people most to be pitied. So he asks why we are in danger every hour. What folly to run the risk of death if there is no resurrection… What sense was there in enduring all this suffering, and risking his life, if the dead are not raised? If there is no resurrection, would he not have been wiser to live by the rule of those who say, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die"?
Paul does not answer his question by pointing to a soul that survives death. The hope he lives for is bodily:
Their own profession refutes this error. The apostles' patience and devotion shame it as well. They were in danger every hour, willingly counting themselves as sheep for the slaughter, for the name of Jesus. But why this unconcern about personal risk, if their hope in Christ was only for this mortal life? Philosophy might look for a cure for life's natural ills by claiming that the nobler part of man never dies… But the apostle knows nothing of a man without a body. Death carries the believer to his better portion, yet it is only a prelude. It leads on to the day when he is found in Christ, clothed in a body like the Lord's.
Read the other way round, the verse becomes an encouragement. If the dead rise, joining these ranks is the only wise choice:
To stand in danger every hour, to die daily, to go through the conflict the apostle had with his enemies at Ephesus — all this was madness "if the dead are not raised." But suppose the dead are to rise and reign. Suppose all outside their ranks are only enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season, pleasures that will give way to sure and stern eternal judgment. Then the only wisdom was to join those ranks, whatever came to cut them down or harass them in this life… Resurrection, as God reveals it, puts everything in its true place and light. That includes the suffering place of the Christian, from its start to its close here below. Resurrection is its key, its encouragement, and its reward.
- Placement — Verse 30 picks up the thought of verse 19 after the long aside of verses 20-28. The question belongs to one running argument.
- Ranks — The picture is military. New believers step into the places of those who have died. The apostles stand in danger every hour, like soldiers in a war.
- Fact — Paul's danger was real and recent. At Ephesus men fought him like wild beasts.
- Folly — Without resurrection, such a life is madness. The honest answer would be to eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
- Key — Resurrection is the key, the encouragement, and the reward of Christian suffering. The hope is a raised body like the Lord's, not just a soul that survives.
Daily I die, by your boasting which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul has argued that without resurrection the Christian life is folly, so now he points to his own life as the proof. But what does it mean to swear by his pride in the Corinthians, and how can a living man die every day?
Paul appeals not to his own record but to the converts themselves, faults and all.
The Corinthian believers were his boast and joy, whatever their faults — and no one had more reason to feel those faults than the apostle. But he had that joy in Christ Jesus, which gave it force and permanence. So he swears by it that he dies day by day.
Some readers worry that a solemn appeal like this breaks Jesus' command not to swear. Commentators answer that this kind of appeal is not what He forbade:
Neither our Lord nor His servant forbade appeals to God like those in Romans 1:9, 1 Corinthians 15:31, 2 Corinthians 1:23, Galatians 1:20, and similar places.
Paul is not describing an inward process of killing off his sin. He means his daily working conditions. He could not count on surviving to the next morning.
"I die every day" means dying in an outward sense every day. As people would say, Paul's life was not worth a penny.
Commentators differ on whether that is the whole sense. Others find a second layer beneath the danger — the reason the danger never broke him:
These words carry two meanings. First, they back up his earlier question. They show how ready he always was to risk death for the sake of the gospel, and in that sense his words carry a rebuke to the people he is writing to. Second, they tell us the true secret of his steadiness, and the spring that kept the martyr spirit alive in him. He points them to death as a daily experience of his soul.
Strip out the resurrection and Paul's life becomes not heroic but insane. That is the point he presses on people who had begun to doubt the resurrection.
To be in danger every hour, to die daily, to go through the kind of fight the apostle had with his enemies in Ephesus — all of it was madness, "if the dead are not raised." ... Resurrection, as it is revealed of Him, puts everything in its true place and light. That includes the suffering place of the Christian, from its start to its close here below. Resurrection is its key, its encouragement, and its reward.
Paul's service and his boasting both rest on the resurrection. His faith is not blind:
So he served the Lord, and boasted in His saints — how absurd, if there is no resurrection! ... Faith is not fanatical. It reasons as soundly as it feels loyally and works by love.
The verse rebukes as well as testifies. The Corinthians had taken the privileges of Christ without the cost.
They had drifted in heart from sharing His rejection. In fact they had hardly known it yet. They had received Christ for eternal life and redemption, but they still knew nothing of dying daily.
Most readers will never face what Paul faced. Commentators still apply the verse to every believer.
We are not called to go through the intense persecutions Paul faced. But like him, we can bring the death of Christ to bear on every circumstance of life. Then we too can show the life of Jesus, and know the sweetness of the joys of that holy life while we wait for Him.
- Boast — Paul swears by his joy in the Corinthians. That joy holds firm because he has it in Christ Jesus.
- Die — the daily dying is outward first. Paul was always exposed to a violent end, and his life was not worth a penny in human terms. Others also hear in it death as a daily experience of the soul.
- Madness — without resurrection, facing danger every hour is not courage but madness. Faith is not fanatical; it reasons soundly.
- Key — resurrection puts the Christian's suffering in its true place. It is the key, the encouragement, and the reward of the whole path.
- Cost — the Corinthians took Christ for life and redemption, but drifted from sharing His rejection. We can bring that same death to bear on ordinary circumstances, so that the life of Jesus shows.