The Evangelical Universalist Forum

1 Cor 15:51,52 "changed in the twinkling of an eye"

Thanks LLC.
So if I understand you correctly, “Christ being raised from the dead” doesn’t refer to his physical resurrection but to his life dwelling in his body, the church.
Davo sees “baptism for the dead” as Christ’s disciples suffering for the sake spiritually dead old covenant Israelites.
How about "those who have fallen asleep”. Who are they?

I usually translate “fallen asleep” as those who know the way of the Lord but have become preoccupied or deceived by the ways of the world and are too busy “living it up” to notice what is going on. Oftentimes when things are going good, we forget God. It is only when everything goes south that our eyes and ears are opened, and we become receptive to the truth. In other words we wake up and smell the coffee.

In reading through Corinthians once again, my guess would be that those “baptized for the dead” are those who were sent to preach to the Gentiles/pagans(the people who believed in other gods) as compared to those of Israel who knew God but had simply “fallen asleep”.

Paul never prescribes “baptism for the dead.” He merely mentions it as support for his thesis that the dead are in fact raised. The simplest interpretation of Paul’s words, in this letter which is written not to theologians, but to fairly new believers, is that he speaks of bodily resurrection. It’s possible to interpret him differently of course, and nobody will go to hell for an honest mistake (not even me, should I be the one who’s wrong–but naturally, I think I’m right).

There may be (and I suspect there is) a spiritual resurrection that precedes the bodily resurrection. It’s possible that both happen at once, at the final resurrection. I honestly don’t think it matters, nor that it’s worth (to me) even a friendly argument. Soul sleep or soul death adherents often disagree, but I don’t like participating in such (to me) unnecessary arguments. Scripture can be seen to support either soul sleep or a wakeful soul in the presence of the Lord until bodily resurrection with no violence to its teachings, imo.

Romans 8 in particular (as well as this passage in Corinthians under discussion) seems to me to render significant support to the expectation that there WILL ultimately be redemption for our physical bodies in the form of a physical resurrection–in the same way that Christ was raised, the Firstborn from among the dead ones. Jesus was never spiritually dead–not even after his crucifixion–and there is a great deal of support for the thesis of His bodily resurrection, just as it is presented in the gospels. For one thing, His resurrection was universally disbelieved by those who did not follow Him. This in itself seems to me to indicate that THEY at least understood His resurrection to be a bodily resurrection and not a platitudinous “resurrection” in the form of living on through His followers. THAT is not difficult to believe at all. This sort of thing is said of many, many who die-- “She will always live on in our hearts and in our memories of her.” “As long as we remember dear little Fred, he will never truly be gone.” “We keep these heroes alive by our yearly remembrance of their valor and sacrifice for us.”

For me, the best explanation of the “baptism for the dead” is this one I found in a commentary: The various religious sects of the region apparently used baptism as an entry rite to their disciplines, similar to the usage of the followers of the Way (of Christ). Adherents to these sects were accustomed to practice baptism for the dead in order to induct their relatives into the sect they believed would save them or swell the ranks of their fellow followers, or whatever benefit they expected to accrue from this practice. Those Corinthians who became adherents of the Way did not cease to be Corinthians. They naturally extended the rite of baptism to baptism for the dead, as their cultural custom prescribed. Paul doesn’t give an opinion of this practice. He merely uses it to make his point. “Why do you bother to be baptized for the dead if the dead do not rise?”

It’s difficult to say for certain whether Paul meant the resurrection literally or metaphorically, because any literal statement by him could also be taken metaphorically. It seems to me though, from studying these passages, that Paul is laboring to make himself understood as giving assurance that our physical bodies will physically rise–changed, as a seed that sprouts is changed–incorruptible not corruptible–but still directly descended (ascended) from our corruptible physical bodies. Real, tangible bodies. Different, spiritual bodies, yet bodies nonetheless. The physical/material world is not evil. God made it and He saw that it was good. I believe He intends to perfect it, not to dispose of it.

Good post, Cindy! I also believe in a physical resurrection as “spiritual” bodies, not spirits, but immortal like Christ’s resurrected body, yet able to eat food (Luke 24:43) as well as walk through locked doors (John 20:19).

My understanding of I Corinthians 15:29 follows.

Here is the text as translated by the NKJV: “Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?”

I think the problem is with the punctuation (which, of course, is entirely absent in the Greek text). Let’s re-punctuate it:

Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized?
Is it for the dead?
If the dead do not rise at all, why then are they baptized?
Is it for the dead?

In other words, Paul is simply speaking of regular ol’ baptism here. He’s not talking about some weird, esoteric thing lost to history. His thought in this verse is basically, “The whole point of baptism is to die and rise with Christ. But if Christ isn’t risen but is a moldering corpse, what would be the point of getting baptized in the name of a dead man?”

Well, I’m no Greek scholar, Geoffrey, but I confess that in all the translations and all the commentaries I’ve read on this puzzling verse, I’ve never come across that suggestion anywhere. So . . . I would need quite a lot of convincing on that one.

With regards to 1Cor 15:29 I thought I might repost some of a previous post made HERE explaining from my perspective what was behind Paul’s “…what will they do who are baptized ON BEHALF OF the dead…”.

The Gk. word “for” (ὑπὲρ huper) = “on behalf of”. Note also that “they” is not some generic moniker but refers specifically to the same “they” of verse 11 i.e., the other disciples. Again, Paul owns this as his own experience in verses 30-31 claiming “I die daily” – this was a baptism of suffering into Christ’s death as per Rom 6:3-6… it was a metaphor of their identification with Christ and consequently their present sufferings ON BEHALF OF Christ (ὑπὲρ Phil 1:29) and others.

I don’t know, Davo. I think “they” probably refers to the people who are baptized for the dead–people with whom the readers would be familiar, some of them no doubt (imo) BEING the people who were baptized for the dead. I tend to think that Paul’s “I die daily” has nothing at all to do with being baptized for the dead, nor has the baptism of suffering or of fire, etc.

As for the work of Christ being done through the church, that’s not at all controversial that I know of. I don’t know anyone who would disagree–though maybe there are some who would. I don’t think the baptism of suffering can be creditably connected to “they who are baptized for the dead.” You’d have to be looking hard for it in order to find that meaning in this saying. Baptism was common practice in the culture of the day–it meant and means immersion and cleansing, death to one kind of life and birth to a new kind of life. Thus the rite of baptism was a culturally significant symbol and was used for all sorts of things–a baptism of fire, a baptism of suffering, etc. I’m sorry–really–but I just don’t see this as a viable theory. Equating those who were baptized on behalf of the dead with the disciples experiencing a baptism of suffering is too much of a leap in my opinion.

That said, I respect your position. I know you hold it honestly and that your goal is, as mine and everyone else here, to come to a right knowledge of God. We just disagree on this point; we’re still sibs. :slight_smile:

I believe I first encountered this interpretation in the work of Bernard Foschini “Those who are baptized for the dead” 1 Cor 15:29: An Exegetical Historical Dissertation. This appeared as five articles in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 12 (1950): 260-76, 379-88 and 13 (1951): 46-78, 172-98, 276-83.

I like this interpretation because it does not require any bizarre Christian rites that have left little or no evidence of their existence. I’m OK with your preferred interpretation, though. As long as an interpretation does not require one to believe that the 1st-century Christians were practicing a lost ritual known as “baptism for the dead”, then I don’t have a big beef with it. :slight_smile:

I like that interpretive move, Geoffrey; it fits very easily into established ways of thinking about baptism, etc. I don’t know if it is the ‘correct’ interpretation or not, but I think it is probably in the ballpark.

That’s honorable, Geoffrey. I don’t know whether these “bizarre rites” have a lot of evidence or not. There are people still today who observe them, though principally on the testimony of this one verse in the case of the Mormons. The commentator seemed to think there was sufficient evidence, but people do talk as though they know more than they actually know, and that could have been what he was doing. For me, the explanation you favor just sounds like too much of a stretch. It doesn’t ring true for me at all. Like I said to Davo, I respect your position as honestly held–I just think you’re mistaken. I could be mistaken, too.

The main issue I’d see with that is the notion of what some call “vicarious baptism”… something not found in the bible.

I think when textual context is taken into consideration Paul’s “I die daily” IS indelibly and undoubtedly linked… he didn’t just attach that as some random vacuous talking point onto the end of what he was just saying about without direct reference to it, IMO.

Paul theologian ‘par excellence’ is following a theme… baptism into Christ (Rom 6) was clearly beyond a one-off literal “rite of baptism”; but speaks to the continual process of sacrificial life (service/suffering) in following their Master – what He did they did. Surely THIS is in line (following the thought) connecting Jesus’ declaration to the other apostles of… “You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized.” Both ‘cup’ and ‘baptism’ speak of ‘cost’ – significant cost; again all indelibly linked.

That’s all good… we’re all just exchanging ideas. :smiley:

Just one comment to clarify, Davo. I didn’t mean to say that vicarious baptism for the dead was scriptural. Paul doesn’t (imo) offer a judgment on it one way or the other. He just uses a practice that is familiar (again imo) to the Corinthians to make his point. He’s not prescribing it–just mentioning it. I would guess that he perhaps thinks it silly but not harmful–or at least, in light of other things he’s more concerned about–not harmful enough to make a point of it at that time.

Going to bed now. :slight_smile: Be blessed.

Perhaps I should also clarify… by “vicarious baptism” I was referring to the thoroughly modern explanation of the Corinthian reference because there is no inkling of such a practice in the ancient pagan world let alone Christian.

I was doing a little research on beliefs of the afterlife in ancient Greece when I ran across some interesting articles. Apparently, some believed that the soul was good, but the body was bad. So I suppose in order to be good, the soul had to leave the body. There was also some belief that it didn’t matter what one did in the body because the body was discarded upon death. Another thing I found very interesting was the belief that once one died, it was necessary for the relatives of that person to remember them. Otherwise, the spirit of the deceased no longer lived. To me, It sounds like Paul may have been addressing some of these issues.

Yes, LLC. I concur. I think that’s exactly what Paul was addressing. That was the reason (aside from possible embarrassment at the “ridiculously impossible” notion of physical resurrection) that many Greeks wanted to spiritualize the resurrection. The body is the seat of the “flesh,” and Paul promises us that the body will be redeemed through death and resurrection. Nevertheless, the physical, material world (including the body) is not evil and irredeemable simply because of its BEING physical and material, though many Greek philosophers taught that it was.

I think what Paul was trying to say is that the spirit and the body go hand in hand. If the spirit lives, the body lives. If the spirit is dead, the body is dead. One doesn’t have to leave the mortal body to become good. It’s the spirit that needs to be raised. Once the spirit inside the body is raised, the body of sin dies and is then raised a spiritual body. If one is still sinning in the body then the spirit has not been raised.

This is exactly right, however the concept in part has even crept into the evangelical notion of bemoaning one’s “fleshly” existence where one can’t wait to “go to Heaven” being finally released from this “body of flesh/death” as though it were some inadequate encumbrance… typically misunderstanding (IMO) the likes of Paul’s words in Rom 7:18, 24; 2Cor 5:2, 4 etc.

Interesting. To embrace the cross(if any man would be my disciple he must pick up his cross daily and come follow me) is to choose the spirit over the flesh. In order to do that one must believe in the resurrection, set free from the fear of death, reckon oneself dead in ordre to receive life through the spirit. Dead to the world, alive to Christ. The mind set on the flesh is death. the mind set on the spirit is life and peace(kinda fits dont it). Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Works of the flesh vs fruit of the spirit. The words i speak are spirit and life, be renewed in the spirit of your mind…etc.

The nexus is the cross, where we were crucified unto the world and the world was crucified unto us.

Phil 2:5 Have this attitude(renewed mind) in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.

Romans 8;11 And** just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.** If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Eph 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might 20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Phil 3:7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10** that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.**