Baptism for the Dead

A single verse in the Bible speaks of baptism for the dead: Chapter 15 verse 29 of Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, itself the longest focused textual reflection on death in the New Testament. This entry explores this much ignored verse, the imagery of death in ordinary Christian baptism, and how vicarious baptism became foundational within Mormonism and fostered its program of genealogy.

Textual Conundrum

This Corinthians passage has often been included in funeral services because it highlights the centrality of resurrection within Christianity. Written to oppose arguments against resurrection, it links Jesus's resurrection with the future resurrection of believers, convinced that Christianity devoid of resurrection is vacuous. Just when concluding his depiction of a future when sin and death are conquered and God is supreme, he cites the practice of those who are “baptized for the dead,” emphasizing that such a rite would be pointless without the ultimate resurrection of the dead. For Paul, that rite demonstrated belief in resurrection; otherwise, the practice would deny its underlying motivation. Whatever its original meaning, this text's existence within scripture allowed subsequent commentators either to ignore it as inappropriate to need, as has often been the case, or to breathe new life into it as occasion demands.

John Calvin (1509–1564), the Protestant reformer, was but one who pondered vicarious baptism, well aware that the early Church Fathers Ambrose (339–397) and Chrysostom (347–407) and others had assumed the text referred to the custom, albeit rather superstitious and corrupt, of baptizing a living person at the graveside of some unbaptized Christian who had suffered an unexpectedly sudden death prior to baptism. Calvin not only alludes to various interpretations but also tells how he changed his mind over this text. He could not believe that Paul would ever allude to something with which he personally disagreed simply to have an example to prove a point. Calvin's early view had been that the text was a general indication that baptism was an important aspect of the Christian life as far as eternity was concerned. All that baptism embraced would be realized in the afterlife world of the dead: In that sense baptism was “for the dead.” But then Calvin changed his mind, accepting the text as referring to Christians who, while still learning about the faith as catechumens were not fully prepared for baptism, discovered that they were soon to die, perhaps of a terminal illness. Now, despairing of life, with baptism of no use to them in this world, they saw themselves as “dead people.” In being baptized for the dead, they were being baptized as and for themselves as people as good as dead. This would be a comfort to them and an example to their healthier fellows on the value of baptism.

Baptism at Large

It is certainly true that baptism was profoundly important as a mark of full identity within early Christianity as within its subsequent history. Integral to its theological meaning has been an interplay of the ideas of life and death portrayed in the image of the resurrection. To be baptized was to be associated with the death and resurrection of [Page 99]Jesus. The water of baptism was, among other things, like the grave. One entered it, “died,” and emerged as though from the grave. While baptism mirrored what had already happened to Jesus, it foreshowed what would happen to believers at the future day of resurrection. Baptism was also a form of rebirth.

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