1 Corinthians: Day 51
SCRIPTURE
29Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?30And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? 31I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you -- a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” 33Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” 34Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. (1 Corinthians 15:29-34, NRSV)
WHAT
Wait. What?! “Baptism on behalf of the dead?” What’s that all about?
And “I fought with wild animals at Ephesus.” What’s that all about? Was Paul ever in the gladiatorial arena?
This little paragraph contains some startling comments that can easily knock us off our donkey causing us to lose sight of Paul’s main argument. Let’s try to avoid that, shall we?
Paul is still arguing for the reality of resurrection, both for Jesus and for his followers. He is doing this because there were some in the Corinthian church who had a very hard time accepting that dead things, including dead people, can ever rise to new life. If there is no such thing as resurrection then Jesus was not resurrected. And if Jesus was not resurrected, then his followers will not experience resurrection. For Paul, the reality of resurrection is central to everything he’s come to believe about Jesus and about discipleship, and even more, about everything God has been up to since Genesis 1. So he attacks this disbelief head on.
In the opening salvo of his argument, which we looked at two days ago, he listed all the people who had had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus. He includes himself in the list. In yesterday’s passage, he issued this dramatic statement:
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. (1 Corinthians 15:20, NRSV)
We traced the significance of that statement back to Adam and his wife, and the history of Israel.
Today, Paul is basically adding fuel to his fire by saying, “Consider the consequences if there were no resurrection.” As we probe what he says, don’t lose sight of where these strange examples fit into the overall flow of his argument.
The first consequence he lists is:
Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? (1 Corinthians 15:29, NRSV)
OK, why are people baptized on behalf of the dead?
This line has and continues to puzzle Bible interpreters. All I can do is give you the range of interpretations people have offered because we cannot know for sure. Whatever it was, the practice of baptizing for the dead seems limited to Corinth in that it is mentioned nowhere else in the New Testament. And it was not a practice that lasted very long in the Church apparently. Paul does not even say whether he approves or disapproves of this practice. He only uses it as an example to buttress his case for resurrection because he knew the Corinthians were familiar with the practice.
William Barclay and N. T. Wright offer some possible explanations for the practice of baptizing the dead.
Professor Barclay notes that the preposition “for” in the phrase “for the dead” is the Greek word huper. “In general, this word can have two main meanings,” he says. “When used of place, it can mean above or over.” (Think of the English prefix “hyper” as meaning “oversized,” or “above average.”) In this interpretation, Paul would be pointing to people in Corinth being baptized “over” the graves of martyrs, those who died in faith, making their own baptism more sacred, a tip of the hat to “the cloud of witnesses.” The problem with this interpretation is that at the time Paul was writing to the Corinthians, persecution had not yet broken out in anything like a big way in the Roman empire. Christians might suffer ostracism and social persecution, but the time of the martyrs had not yet come.
“Far more commonly,” says Professor Barclay, “it is used of persons or things and means ‘instead of’ or ‘on behalf of’.” In this interpretation, the phrase refers to those who get themselves baptized in order to fill up the vacant places in the church which the dead have left. “The idea is that the new believer, the young Christian, comes into the Church like a new recruit to take the place of the veterans who have served their campaign and earned their release.”
However, despite these other alternatives, Professor Barclay believes it refers to a practice which soon died out in the Church: vicarious baptism.
“If a person died who had intended to become a member of the Church and was actually under instruction, sometimes someone else underwent baptism for that person. The custom sprang from a superstitious view of baptism – that, without it, a person was inevitably excluded from the bliss of heaven. It was to safeguard against this exclusion that sometimes people volunteered to be baptized literally on behalf of those who had died. Here, Paul indicates that he neither approves nor disapproves of that practice. He merely asks if there can be any point in it if there is no resurrection and the dead never rise again.”
Other possibilities are offered by interpreters, but Professor Barclay’s “vicarious baptism” interpretation seems best. But as he notes, Paul neither approves nor disapproves of the practice, he only uses it to make his point about resurrection. Something the Corinthians knew about as a regular practice makes no sense unless there is in fact a resurrection to look forward to is Paul’s main point.
Paul points to a second consequence if there is no resurrection, and thereby raises another issue, when he says:
And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you -- a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord. If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it? (Ephesians 15:30-32a, NRSV)
“If there is no resurrection,” Paul asks, “why then do people like me put ourselves in danger on behalf of the faith every day? Every day I put my life on the line for the faith. You can take that to the bank!”
He then makes this comment about fighting wild animals in Ephesus. Recall from our background commentary that Paul is writing this letter from Ephesus after he had moved on from a year and a half in Corinth. A problem is that we have no reference in Acts or anywhere to Paul ever fighting wild beasts such as would take place in the arena in Ephesus.
It is a well-known fact that Romans were entertained by watching criminals, prisoners of war, and other victims of Roman power being pitted against wild beasts for sport in the arena. The animals usually won and there was a lot of blood and drama. This, along with fights between gladiators, was all very entertaining for Romans. There was such an arena in Ephesus as attested today by its ruins.
The problem, as I said above, is that we have no record of Paul being forced into the arena to battle wild animals. Is it possible such an event occurred but was not recorded by Luke? Perhaps, but the bigger problem is that as a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37-38, Acts 22:25-28) Paul could not legally be forced into such a contest. We know from Acts that he was not afraid to trot out his Roman citizenship when needed. So that explanation is unlikely. Then what does Paul mean in this passage?
It most likely means that Paul is using the image of battling wild beasts metaphorically. We do know that something very traumatic happened to Paul in Ephesus. In Acts, Luke describes a riot in the huge theatre in Ephesus that broke out in response to Paul’s preaching, especially his attack on the silver idols of Artemis that were bringing in a lot of money for craftsmen like Demetrius (Acts 19:23-41). Paul himself also says in 2 Corinthians:
We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia [i.e., Ephesus]; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, NRSV)
Whatever specific experiences Paul had in mind in writing of fighting wild beasts, as far as he was concerned, it was like being in the arena, facing a horde of wild beasts, with nothing but the weapons of the gospel for help.
Again, his point is, “Why in the world would I or anyone else face these life and death hardships if there was no resurrection to give us hope and encouragement?”
Paul lists a final consequence if there were no resurrection in saying:
If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. (1 Corinthians 15:32b-34, NRSV)
Paul is here quoting two popular slogans of pagan moral advice. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” is the cliff we fall off if there is no resurrection. If there is no resurrection, that means there is no moral judgment by God of our lives. If there is no moral judgment by God of our lives, then we might as well do whatever we want because this life is all there is. Imagine a world in which people did whatever they wanted with no consequences!
“Bad company ruins good morals.” Here Paul cites a popular proverb, first attributed to the comic playwright Menander but in common circulation by Paul’s day. “It was the common advice of Greco-Roman moralists and Jewish wisdom teachers,” notes Professor Barclay, “to avoid morally inferior company (in the Old Testament, Psalm 119:63; Proverbs 13:20). Paul perhaps refers here to those who do not believe in the future resurrection and hence do not have the basis for morals that those who believe in a final judgment of God do; other Jewish teachers who believed in the resurrection associated disbelief in that doctrine with immorality.”
After having laid out what he takes to be very serious consequences for this life if there were no resurrection, Paul concludes this portion of his argument with:
Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. (1 Corinthians 15:34, NRSV)
He is saying, “Consider these consequences and come to a sober and right minded judgment yourselves. Don’t sin by yielding to the belief that there is no resurrection, and don’t give weight to those who peddle this nonsense. They know nothing of God. It is to your shame that I have to tell you this. You should know better by now.”
Paul can just hear the response to his argument. “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” To that question, he turns next.
APPLY
Lack of belief in bodily resurrection is not just a matter of personal belief. It can have moral consequences for a whole society.
PRAYER
Gracious God, I live in a society that is witnessing a rapid shift toward unbelief. The Christian Church may be giving these “nones” reasons not to believe, but that doesn’t change the fact that unbelief – especially, according to Paul, lack of belief in the bodily resurrection -- is not simply a matter of personal belief, but it can have serious moral consequences for a society. Such a society falls into the trap of thinking, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Let us do whatever we want for there is no God, there is no judgment, there is no eternal punishment nor reward.” I believe I am seeing the rotten fruits of that unbelief corrupting our society. God save us in your mercy. In Christ. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Despite making some startling comments in today’s passage, Paul is basically adding fuel to his argument fire by saying, “Consider the consequences if there were no resurrection.” He then lists three consequences. What are they?
2. What interpretations does Bob offer for why people were baptized for the dead in Corinth? Does Paul approve or disapprove of this practice? How does it fit into his overall argument?
3. What became of the practice of baptizing people for the dead in the early Church?
4. What does Paul say are the moral consequences for society if there is no resurrection of the dead? Would you agree or disagree with this assessment?
How can you apply these insights in your life?