3935 — Baptism for the Dead
By Editor
This is another obscure text which Mormons use to show that one can be baptized for another after that one is dead. It has with it a sort of doctrine of purgatory, that it is possible for the righteousness of one sinful person to be substituted for the unrighteousness of another sinful person. That is not the thought of the apostle. If one will read that whole chapter, take into consideration the teaching of the whole chapter, and especially verses 1 to the text in question, he will see that the whole argument of the apostle is, our only hope is in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus died for our sins, according to the Scripture. He was the only one through whom we have any hope. All who had died hoping in Him are without hope unless He was raised from the dead. If His death did not avail for our sins, and His resurrection for our life, all are hopeless. They that have fallen asleep in Christ Jesus are perished. Whoever, then, was baptized by faith in Christ, was baptized into His death. They were baptized with the fact that He Himself died in their behalf, and that they themselves were accounted dead because of their sins, only because Christ rose from the dead. That, in a brief way, is the meaning of the text. Those who were baptized for the dead, were baptized with faith in Christ, who died for all, and with hope in the resurrection wrought through Him.