Temples are an essential, major
element of LDS religion, far more so than most non-Mormons
realize. Mormons are not considered faithful, fully
practicing members of the LDS Church until they have proven
themselves worthy to enter into a temple and are regularly
participating in its ordinances or rituals. Most of these
rituals are performed on behalf of the dead—that is, for
departed ancestors who did not have the opportunity to
receive these ordinances during their mortal lives on earth.
In this study, we will examine
what the Bible teaches about temples and compare that
teaching with the LDS view of temples and of the ordinances
it performs in them. We will then take a close look
specifically at the practice of baptisms for the dead and
consider the claim that this practice is endorsed in 1
Corinthians 15:29.
A. Temples
The word
temple literally
denotes a man-made building dedicated as a place for meeting
God through the performance of special religious rites.
Temples are an essential—one might almost say
the
essential—element of the religion of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Nothing is more important
to LDS religion or sets it apart from historic, biblical
Christianity more clearly than its temples. According to
Joseph Smith, “the main object” of the gathering of God’s
people in every age has been “to build unto the Lord a house
whereby He could reveal unto His people the ordinances of
His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach the
people the way of salvation: for there are certain
ordinances and principles that, when they are taught and
practiced, must be done in a place or house built for that
purpose” (History of
the Church 5:423). Brigham Young taught that “the
building of temples, places in which the ordinances of
salvation are administered, is necessary to carry out the
plan of redemption” (Teachings
of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, 125). Joseph
Fielding Smith asserted that the LDS Church’s temples and
ordinances “prove” that it is “the true Church of Jesus
Christ” (Doctrines of
Salvation 2:235-36). Despite these LDS prophets’ claims,
there is a complete disconnect between LDS temples and what
the Bible teaches about the temple.
Consider the temple in Jerusalem.
Solomon dedicated Jerusalem’s first temple about 960 BC.
After the Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s temple in 587/586
bc, the Jews rebuilt it under the direction of Zerubbabel in
about 516 bc. This temple was reconstructed in a massive
project initiated by Herod the Great in 20 bc, though work
continued on the surrounding Temple Mount long after Herod’s
death (see John 2:20). The Romans utterly destroyed this
temple in ad 70 in fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction no more
than forty years earlier (Mark 13:1-2, 30).The Jerusalem
temple is the only temple recognized or authorized anywhere
in the Bible. The few references in the Bible to “temples”
in the plural refer to temples of Israel’s pagan neighbors
(Jer. 43:12-13; Joel 3:5; see also Acts 17:24; 19:37). The
Bible does not even mention the Jewish temple in Heliopolis,
Egypt, which the priest Onias IV built about 160 bc as a
rival temple (not recognized by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem)
when he failed in his bid to become high priest in
Jerusalem. Right away we see a significant difference
between the biblical and LDS view of temples: Mormons
believe in having many temples whereas the Bible
consistently recognizes at most only one temple. The LDS
Church had 134 temples operating throughout the world as of
mid-2011.
As LDS scholars generally
acknowledge, the distinctive functions of the Jerusalem
temple (that is, the functions that were associated
exclusively with the temple) were not the same as those of
LDS temples. The Jerusalem temple was the authorized place
for sacrificial worship, including burnt offerings and the
solemn sacrificial rituals of the Day of Atonement. Mormons
agree that such sacrifices became obsolete following the
sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Mormons also
admit that the Jews did not perform baptisms for the dead
(in the temple or elsewhere) or other proxy ordinances. Yet
such ordinances for the dead easily account for more than 99
percent of the ordinances performed in LDS temples.
In the New Testament, Jesus’
prophetic predictions of the temple’s destruction fit into a
larger story of the passing of the old, Mosaic covenant,
with its sacrifices, priests, and temple, and the
inauguration of the new covenant that the Mosaic covenant
prefigured (see Gal. 3:23-25; 4:21-31; Col. 2:16-17; Heb.
8:1-13; 12:18-24). In this new covenant, Christ is at once
the final sacrifice
(Matt. 27:50-51; 1 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 7:27; 9:11-14, 24-28;
10:8-22; 1 Peter 1:2, 18-19), the eternal
high priest (Heb.
2:17; 3:1; 4:14-15; 5:10; 6:20; 7:11-28; 8:1-3; 9:11, 25),
and the ultimate temple (Matt. 12:6; John 1:14; 2:19-22; Rev. 21:22). Instead of
going to a temple to have a priest serve as one’s
intermediary in offering a sacrifice on one’s behalf, every
Christian believer is figuratively speaking part of the
royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6) and
is expected to behave as a living and sacred sacrifice (Rom.
12:1). Every believer is like a “living stone” in the
spiritual “temple” of the church (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 2 Cor.
6:16-18; Eph. 2:18-22; 1 Peter 2:4-10).
Except for Jewish Christians in
Jerusalem, Christians in New Testament times had no access
to any temple of God. Yet the New Testament expresses no
concern about the lack of such access for Gentile Christians
and in fact consistently treats the temple as part of a
religious system that was outmoded at best and under God’s
judgment at worst. As for the first-century Jewish
Christians, they did not perform any rites in the Jerusalem
temple comparable to the rites of the LDS Church temples.
The loss of the temple in AD 70 was a severe blow and
historic crisis for the Jewish religion, but it was not a
religious crisis for Christians.
The LDS Church contradicts the
Bible when it teaches that temples are an essential means to
individual salvation and eternal life with our Heavenly
Father, and that the lack of such temples throughout most of
church history is a mark of the Great Apostasy. According to
New Testament doctrine, salvation and eternal life are gifts
of God received simply by faith in Jesus Christ (John
3:16-18; Acts 16:31; Rom. 3:21-26; 6:23; Titus 3:4-7; 1
Peter 1:3-7; 1 John 5:11-13). Since the Christian religion
never had nor needed temples, they are not something that
Christianity could “lose” in a supposed Great Apostasy.
Indeed, the passing of the temple
was a sign that something much better had come. In response
to the Samaritan woman’s comment about their rival centers
of worship—the Samaritan temple at Gerizim and the Jewish
temple at Jerusalem—Jesus told her, “an hour is coming when
neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship
the Father.” Instead, “the true worshipers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:20-23). The temple
worship of the old religion merely foreshadowed the
spiritual worship of the new covenant in Christ. The LDS
religion, in seeking to “restore” temples, negates an
essential element of the Christian faith.
B. Ordinances for the Dead
1.
Baptism and
other ordinances for the dead are an essential and even a
dominant part of the Mormon religion.
Joseph Smith taught that baptism
for the dead is “the greatest responsibility in this world
that God has laid upon us” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 356). It certainly is the
biggest
responsibility that the LDS Church has undertaken. Mormons
believe that it is their responsibility to be baptized on
behalf of the billions of people who were never baptized in
the LDS Church—which is to say, far more than 99 percent of
the human beings who ever lived.
Their reasoning in support of
baptism for the dead is, from their theological standpoint,
inescapable. In LDS theology, in order for anyone to be
saved, he or she must be baptized by someone who has the
priesthood authority. Most people in history have not been
so baptized. A few billion people during the past two
thousand years were baptized as Christians, but the LDS
Church denies the validity of nearly all of these baptisms,
since it teaches that the priesthood authority was taken
from the earth around the end of the first century and only
restored through Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century. Of
course, many more billions of people throughout human
history—roughly a hundred billion people—were never baptized
at all. None of these people can be saved—that is, attain
individual salvation in the celestial kingdom—without
baptism. Since they are dead and their bodies cannot be
baptized, Mormons conclude that living people must undergo
baptism on behalf of those dead people who were never
baptized (or never baptized properly). Mormons regard it as
their sacred duty—their “greatest responsibility,” as Joseph
Smith put it—to get baptized on behalf of the dead. In the
afterlife, these billions of people—nearly everyone who has
ever or will ever live on earth—are given an opportunity to
accept the LDS gospel, but to receive the benefits of that
gospel someone living on earth must be baptized in their
stead.
Being baptized on behalf of
others is commonly called
vicarious baptism
or baptism by proxy.
(A proxy is simply someone who acts in another person’s
stead or place and on that person’s behalf.) LDS Church
teaching links baptism by proxy to its emphasis on reuniting
families in the afterlife, and in that context instructs
members to get baptized on behalf of departed ancestors who
never heard the “restored gospel” (Gospel
Principles, 235). In order for proxy baptism to be
performed for a departed ancestor, a Mormon must know that
person’s name and identify that person as an ancestor
(236-37). For that reason, the LDS Church is engaged in the
enormous task of attempting to cull names of human beings
from every conceivable type of historical record and to
identify each person in terms of his or her genealogical
relationship to living people. Its Family Search
organization claims to have
over a billion
names in its searchable databases, though a fair number
of these are likely to be duplications.
Mormons perform baptisms for the
dead only in their temples. In fact, proxy baptisms and
other ordinances for the dead account for almost all of the
ordinances performed in the temples. The LDS Church urges
members as young as twelve years old to prove themselves
worthy “to receive a temple recommend” in order to
participate in this work (Gospel Principles, 237). Normally, a temple-worthy Mormon will
undergo vicarious ordinances for those deceased persons
identified as his blood ancestors or close relations, but
they may also perform those ordinances for ancestors of
other Mormons who are not temple-worthy or who cannot for
some other reason go to a temple (237-38).
The Mormon argument for performing ordinances for the dead is
based on erroneous theological assumptions.
As explained above, the Mormon
practice of proxy ordinances, and especially baptism for the
dead, is based on specific theological beliefs taught by
Joseph Smith. (a) No human being in any period of history
can be saved without certain Christian ordinances,
especially baptism. (b) Baptism and other ordinances may be
performed only by individuals possessing the LDS priesthood
authority. (c) To be saved through baptism and other
ordinances means to attain individual salvation in the
celestial kingdom. (d) Nearly all people who receive that
salvation will do so by accepting the “restored” (LDS)
gospel in the afterlife. All four of these doctrinal
premises are false.
(a) Christian baptism is not necessary for the salvation of people in every period of human history.
Mormons believe that a number of
ordinances are necessary for individual salvation: not only
(1) baptism, but
also (2) endowment
(a ritual that Mormons believe imparts spiritual power to
them) and (3) marriage
for eternity (already discussed in our
response to chapter 38 of
Gospel Principles).
The Bible says absolutely nothing about a Christian rite of
endowment or about marriage for eternity (let alone proxy
ordinances of these types), but of course it does have a
fair amount to say about baptism. If people in all periods
of history, even before Christ came, needed baptism to be
saved, then the Mormons would have an important truth on
their side. If, on the other hand, people before Christ came
did not need baptism for salvation, the whole Mormon
argument for proxy ordinances falls apart.
We discussed the issue of whether
Christian baptism is necessary for salvation in
our response to chapter 20 of
Gospel Principles.
As we explained there, it is somewhat misleading to say that
in LDS doctrine baptism is necessary for “salvation,”
because it is only necessary for salvation in the sense of
entrance into the highest, celestial kingdom. Mormons do not
think baptism is necessary to live forever in a glorious
heavenly kingdom; a large mass of humanity will live forever
in the “telestial” kingdom after rejecting the gospel even
in the afterlife (see also
our response to chapter 18). The New Testament does
closely link baptism with forgiveness or remission of sins
(Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; Acts 2:38; 22:16; 1 Peter 3:20-21) but
as a rite that symbolizes that blessing, not as a work that
someone must do in order for an individual to qualify for
forgiveness.
Here another point is relevant:
the Bible certainly does not support the claim that people
in every period of human history require the Christian rite
of baptism to be forgiven of their sins. The Old Testament
never mentions baptism, and the New Testament never suggests
that Old Testament believers could not be forgiven unless
they were baptized. When John the Baptist was baptizing
people in the Jordan River, this was
not part of the Jewish religious system—it was something
new that John was
doing out in the wilderness away and apart from the
religious establishment to herald and prepare the way for
the coming of Jesus (Matthew 3:1-7; 21:25; John 1:25-31;
Acts 13:24). Likewise, Christian baptism was neither the
continuation of a familiar practice nor the restoration of a
lost practice, but a new rite inducting people into the new
covenant community in which Jesus Christ was the covenant
Mediator or Head (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:38-39; Colossians
2:10-12). In this regard baptism is in Christianity
analogous to what circumcision was under the Mosaic
covenant: a ritual of initiation into the covenant
community. Under the Mosaic covenant, circumcision of a
family’s male members was the rite for initiating those
members (along with the female members of that family) into
the covenant community of Israel. Under the new covenant in
Christ, baptism of a believer (whether male or female) is
the rite for initiating that person into the covenant
community of the church (1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians
3:27-28; Ephesians 4:4-6). Israelites under the old covenant
were not required to be baptized then, and believers under
the new covenant are not required to be circumcised now
(Romans 3:30; 1 Corinthians 7:18-19; Galatians 2:7-9; 5:2-6,
11; Colossians 3:11).
The mistake that LDS doctrine
makes here is related to the broader error of thinking that
believers in the true God in the millennia prior to the
coming of Jesus Christ were “Christians” who knew the name
Jesus Christ and knew that he was going to die by being
crucified and rise physically from the grave on the third
day. As we explained in our
response to chapter 9 of
Gospel Principles,
this error throws the integrity of the Old Testament (which
has none of this explicit Christian language) into radical
doubt and also ignores what the New Testament says about the
understanding of pre-Christian believers. The Mormon
doctrine of baptism therefore assumes an unbiblical and
historically naīve view of God’s revelation to his people
prior to the coming of Jesus Christ.
Let us be clear: no sinner, in
any period of human history, can be saved in any other way
than by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. But people
who lived before the coming of Christ did not need to know
the name Jesus, understand how he would procure their
salvation, or undergo the rite of Christian baptism—or any
other Christian ordinances—in order to be saved. And if
those pre-Christian people, including such notable believers
as Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah, did not need that rite
to be saved, no one needs to undergo proxy baptism for them.
(b) The LDS “priesthood authority” is not needed to perform valid baptisms (or any other Christian ordinances).
In our responses to
chapter 13 and
chapter 14 of
Gospel Principles we showed that the LDS concept and
system of priesthood are unbiblical. In the Bible, the
priesthood of Aaron was part of the Mosaic covenant and
therefore was made obsolete by the coming of Jesus Christ.
The priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek” refers to
the heavenly priesthood of Jesus that was prefigured by the
priesthood of Melchizedek in Genesis 14 (see Hebrews 5-8 on
both these points). In our
response to chapter 20, we also critiqued the LDS claim
that only Mormon men who hold the LDS priesthood can perform
valid baptisms. That claim amounts to saying that no
Christian who has been baptized outside of Mormonism during
the past nineteen centuries was validly baptized. Since the
LDS priesthood orders are unbiblical in the first place, we
know this claim is false; but in addition there is the fact
that the New Testament treats the matter of who performs
baptisms as entirely of no consequence (see especially 1
Corinthians 1:13-17).
IIf the LDS priesthood is not
needed in order for baptisms to be validly performed, then
it follows that the billions of Christians who have been
baptized during the past nineteen centuries without that LDS
priesthood do not need proxy baptisms performed on their
behalf. They have already been baptized, thank you very
much!
(c) Baptism symbolizes forgiveness of sins, deliverance from God’s wrath, and the hope of resurrection to immortal life, not exaltation or entrance into a higher kingdom than other people who are saved.
The first person in the Bible to perform baptisms was John the Baptist. The Gospels record that John described submitting to his baptism as an act of “fleeing from the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7; Luke 3:7). That is, baptism in John’s ministry symbolized repentance motivated by a desire to escape from God’s righteous wrath at the Final Judgment (see also in the same context Matthew 3:2, 10, 12; Luke 3:3, 9, 17). It was not about attaining exaltation in the highest heavenly kingdom, but about salvation from God’s wrath!o:p>
In the first Christian sermon,
the apostle Peter ended his message with an appeal to the
Jews in Jerusalem to repent and be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins (Acts 2:38). In
context, Peter was telling them how to be restored to a
right relationship with God in the aftermath of the sin of
the Jewish establishment which was complicit in having
Jesus, their Messiah, executed by the Romans (2:22-23,
36-37). In other words, they were in big trouble with God!
After telling them to repent and to be baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ, Peter urged them to do so with the words,
“Be saved from this perverse generation!” (2:40). As in John
the Baptist’s ministry, so here as well the act of getting
baptized dramatically symbolized believers’ appeal to God to
save them from his righteous anger against their sin.
The apostle Paul explained that
in Christian baptism, believers express their union with
Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection:
“Do you not know that all of us
who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into
death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the
dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in
newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a
death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his. We know that our old self was
crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be
brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved
to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now
if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also
live with him” (Romans 6:3-8 ESV).
The LDS Church teaches that all
people, including people who explicitly reject Jesus Christ,
will be resurrected from the dead just as Christ was and
become immortal beings. However, Paul disagrees with this
claim. Only those who are united with Christ in his death
and resurrection are assured that they will receive “a
resurrection like his.” There will be a resurrection of the
wicked or unrighteous, but it will be a resurrection for
them to stand before Christ in the Final Judgment and
receive their eternal punishment (Daniel 12:2; John 5:28-29;
Acts 24:15; Revelation 20:12-15). Thus baptism for
Christians symbolizes nothing less than salvation from
condemnation at the Final Judgment. We will have more to say
on this topic of the Final Judgment in our response to
chapter 46 of Gospel Principles. Here, though, it is important simply to
understand that baptism is not a step in a process of rising
to a higher level of salvation, but is a rite that
symbolically represents salvation itself—salvation from
God’s righteous wrath that condemns those not redeemed by
Christ to eternal loss.
NNote the way this biblical view
of baptism contrasts with the Mormon practice of proxy
baptisms. Mormons think that all human beings have already
been assured of resurrection to immortality, so that the
only issue outstanding is in which of the three glorious
heavenly kingdoms people will reside. They view baptism in
this context as one of the works that God requires of people
to progress in their efforts to make it into the highest of
those heavenly kingdoms. Since not everyone gets a chance to
perform this work, God is allowing Mormons to do it for
them. But in the Bible’s teaching, baptism is a rite that
expresses a person’s humble appeal for merciful deliverance
from God’s just condemnation. No one can do this for another
person; each person must stand before God in judgment, and
each person must appeal to God for mercy. Baptism, as a
physical ritual, is not essential for salvation, but what
baptism symbolizes is essential for salvation and no one can
do it on another person’s behalf.
(d) The idea that nearly all people will become “saved” (in any sense) only in the afterlife is without biblical foundation and undermines the Mormon view of mortality as an essential probation.
In our examination of chapter 41
of i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">Gospel Principles, we will discuss the issue of whether people who
have died without hearing the gospel may have an opportunity
to do so in the afterlife. The scope of “postmortem”
salvation in Mormon doctrine, however, is truly staggering.
If we take their doctrinal claims seriously, we must
conclude that all but a very tiny fraction of one per cent
of all human beings who have ever lived will make their
choices of eternal consequence only after they die. Mormons
account for roughly one-tenth of one per cent of people
living today, and roughly one-hundredth of one per cent of
all people who have ever lived in history. Hardly any of
that 99.99% of non-Mormons in history were validly baptized
according to Mormon beliefs or received the other ordinances
Mormons view as necessary to exaltation (notably eternal
marriage). Yet Mormons claim that all or nearly all of them
will be given an opportunity in the spirit world to repent,
believe the LDS gospel, and receive the ordinances performed
on their behalf by Mormons living on the earth in mortality.
Whatever else one may say about
this doctrine, it completely guts the belief that our
physical, mortal lives are a period of probation to prepare
us for life in the celestial kingdom. According to
Gospel Principles, God’s plan was to “provide an earth where we
could prove ourselves,” a place where “we could exercise our
agency to choose good or evil” (11). “We must continue to
follow Jesus Christ here on earth. Only by following Him can
we return to our heavenly home” (16). But the LDS doctrine
of salvation for nearly all of humanity in the spirit world
directly negates this view of life on earth as a proving
ground where we must follow Christ to make it back to the
celestial kingdom.
As we will show in detail in the
next chapter, the Bible does not support the LDS doctrine of
postmortem salvation. Following death will come, not the
opportunity for salvation, but the pronouncement of judgment
(Hebrews 9:27). This judgment will be based on what people
do in their bodies (2 Corinthians 5:10). Those who are
wicked and unrepentant in this life have no reprieve in the
next (e.g., Luke 16:19-31). If we suppose, for the sake of
argument, that there are any exceptions to this rule, in the
Bible they would indeed have to be exceptions, not the rule,
whereas postmortem salvation in Mormon theology is the rule,
not an exception. In other words, it is not necessary to
prove absolutely
that God will not save
anyone in the afterlife to show that the Mormon position
is false. All we need to know is that
as a rule the
Final Judgment is based on this life, not on the afterlife.
Once we understand that the norm
according to the Bible is that human beings in history will
be judged on the basis of their mortal lives, not on their
actions or choices in the afterlife, the LDS program of
performing proxy ordinances for those billions of people is
left without any foundation.
C. Baptism for the Dead in 1 Corinthians 15:29
Beyond any reasonable doubt or
dispute, the Bible says nothing about eternal marriages
(proxy or otherwise), and it also says nothing about proxy
ordinances to endow people with spiritual power or to “seal”
children and other family members to living Mormons. Oddly
enough, if baptism for the dead is such an important and
essential ordinance, there is absolutely no mention of it in
the Book of Mormon. There is but one biblical text that
Mormons claim refers directly to proxy ordinances:
“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?” (1 Corinthians
15:29 NKJV).
Although scholars have debated
the meaning of this verse endlessly, the debate has not been
fueled by opposition to the Mormon practice. Very few
religious groups practiced any kind of proxy baptism prior
to Joseph Smith, and
none engaged in an ambitious project to perform proxy
baptisms on behalf of nearly all of the billions of people
who have ever lived. Please let this point sink in before
moving ahead: Mormons are the first religion ever to claim
that practically everyone else in history needs to have
baptisms performed on their behalf. 1 Corinthians 15:29 has
been in everyone’s collection of New Testament since the
second century, but it was not until the nineteenth century
that anyone imagined that this verse mandated the massive
program of genealogical research and proxy baptisms that is
such a large part of the Mormon religion. In this respect,
at least, Mormon baptism for the dead is
not a restoration
of a lost or neglected practice.
This is not the place for an
academic treatment of this controversial verse, about which
whole dissertations and monographs and numerous academic
journal articles have been published. I will concentrate
here on introducing the main issues and explaining why this
verse simply cannot be viewed as precedent for the Mormon
practice of proxy baptism.
A good number of contemporary
scholarly studies of 1 Corinthians 15:29 have made some
strong arguments to show that this verse may not have been
referring to any sort of vicarious or proxy baptism. The
most significant of these explanations take the words
“baptized” and “dead” in their customary senses and turns on
the question of the precise nuance of the little preposition
“for” (Greek huper).
The proxy baptism view presupposes that “for” in this verse
means “on behalf of” or “for the sake of,” or more precisely
“in the place of,” that is, that living persons were getting
baptized in the place of persons who had already died. This
is a natural way to understand
huper and perhaps
the most obvious way to understand it here. However, it is
quite possible to understand
huper to mean
“for” or “on behalf of” or “for the sake of” in a somewhat
different way. The most common alternative explanation is
that these Corinthians were being baptized for the sake of
departed Christians—perhaps deceased family members,
martyred friends, or apostles or evangelists who had died or
been killed—and in response to the testimony of those
departed witnesses. According to this interpretation, out of
love, respect, or both for the life and witness of those
departed believers, some Corinthians had been baptized into
the Christian faith in the hope of sharing in the life to
come to which those deceased Christians had given compelling
testimony. At least a dozen major commentaries and other
academic studies in the past hundred years have supported
some version of this understanding of the verse.
One of the main reasons that
scholars are increasingly attracted to an interpretation
along these lines is that it would clear up a puzzling
mystery: there still is no evidence whatsoever (unless 1
Corinthians 15:29 is the sole exception) that anyone,
anywhere, was practicing any form of proxy baptism in the
first century or even in the early second century. Despite
all the manuscript discoveries of previously unknown
Christian writings from the early church, and despite all of
the other archaeological discoveries that have shed so much
light on Christian origins, no evidence has yet been found
to show that anyone practiced proxy baptism during the first
hundred years of Christian history.
Outside of the disputed reference
in 1 Corinthians 15:29, the first clear reference to proxy
baptism indicates that it was practiced by the Marcionites,
a heretical group that originated from the teachings of
Marcion around AD 140. By all accounts, Marcion had an
idiosyncratic view of Christianity. His “canon” of Scripture
consisted of some of Paul’s epistles—probably with some
heavy editing—and an edited version of the Gospel of Luke.
Marcion rejected the Old Testament and its God, a stance
that would have outraged Paul. The Marcionites evidently
read Paul’s epistles from their own peculiar perspective.
More than likely, the Marcionites implemented a practice of
proxy baptism after reading 1 Corinthians 15:29 and
understanding it to mean that such a practice should be
done. In short, Marcionite baptism for the dead was most
likely not a continuation of an existing practice in early
Christianity, but an innovation based on their reading of 1
Corinthians 15:29.
The argument that proxy baptism
was not practiced in the first century and was initiated as
an innovation by the Marcionites in the mid-second century
is largely (not entirely) an argument from silence. Such an
argument is not very compelling if the practice was a minor
matter, but it becomes a very compelling argument if the
practice is viewed as something of major importance. For
example, we don’t have any evidence from first-century
writings identifying the author of the second Gospel as John
Mark, but this “silence” of first-century Christian writings
is not significant because the authorship of that book was
hardly a major issue. On the other hand, it would surely be
an embarrassment to Christians to claim that belief in
Jesus’ resurrection was an essential of the faith if there
were only one passing, grammatically ambiguous reference to
it in all of first-century Christian literature. So the
overall significance of baptism for the dead as Mormons
understand it is a relevant factor in assessing whether
their interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:29 is likely to be
correct. When we recall Joseph Smith’s claim that baptism
for the dead is “the greatest responsibility in this world
that God has laid upon us,” suddenly the paucity of
references to the practice in the first hundred years of
Christianity becomes glaringly problematic.
It is in this light that we
should consider what the majority of biblical scholars still
think is the meaning and context of 1 Corinthians 15:29.
That majority view is that Paul was referring to a very
limited practice of proxy baptism that was being done only
by some of the members of the Corinthian congregation. Far
and away the most common view is that some of the
Corinthians were getting baptized for immediate family
members or friends who had come to faith in Jesus Christ but
had died before they had a chance to get baptized. In fact,
this is what the Marcionites a century later reportedly were
doing. If there is a “historic” or “traditional”
interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:29, this is it; it is the
only interpretation that has had supporters from the second
century all the way up to today.
If this interpretation is
correct, it would explain why we don’t find any other
reference to the practice in the New Testament or other
first-century Christian literature. It was a local practice,
limited to some of the Corinthian Christians, and done in
the rather exceptional circumstance of persons who had
expressed faith in Christ but had died before getting
baptized. Such a limited and exceptional practice would
merit little more than a “footnote” in the history of
first-century Christianity. It would also explain why Paul
neither commends nor condemns the practice: it isn’t
something necessary or theologically proper, but it also
isn’t something clearly harmful or theologically offensive.
Paul is much more concerned about the denial of the
resurrection of the dead by some of the Corinthians and so
“picks his battles” and focuses on that far more serious
issue.
Note the way Paul refers to those
who engage in the practice in the third person: “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?” In the Greek text, Paul
uses third-person verbs here, “will
they do” and “are
they baptized.” He does not say, as we would expect if this was a
normative Christian practice, “what will
we do” or “why are
we baptized.” Nor
does he say “what will
you do” or “why are
you baptized” as
if the whole Corinthian church engaged in this practice.
Reinforcing this perspective is the fact that Paul
immediately shifts his language in the following verses,
using first-person language in verses 30-32 (“why do
we stand,” “I die daily,”
etc.) and second-person language in verse 33 (“do not be
deceived,” “awake,” “to
your shame,”
etc.). The best explanation for these facts is that in verse
29 Paul is speaking about something that a certain group of
Christians in Corinth did, not something that Christians
regularly did or were expected to do.
Whatever the Corinthians were
doing, Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 15 were not
concerned about the fate of those who had never been
baptized. Paul’s focus here and throughout the rest of the
chapter is to prove that Christians should accept the
doctrine of a future resurrection of believers to immortal,
bodily life. His argument in 1 Corinthians 15:29 is simply
this: the practice of baptism for the dead (whatever it
meant) was inconsistent with the rejection of the doctrine
of a future resurrection of the dead. If the dead are not
raised, there is no point in baptizing for them! That is
Paul’s point. Notice also the focus of Paul’s first
rhetorical question in this verse: “Otherwise, what will
they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not
rise at all?” The question “what will they do” might be
asking what they will have accomplished, or what good will
it do them, or what will happen to them; in any case, the
focus here is on those who are baptized, not on those who
have already died. Paul does not ask, “What will the dead do
if no one is baptized for them?” Rather, he asks what the
living believers will do if the dead are not raised. Thus,
whatever 1 Corinthians 15:29 means, it is not teaching the
necessity of baptism for the salvation of dead people.
We have very strong reasons,
then, to conclude that Paul was not referring to a regular
or normative Christian practice of baptism by proxy, even
assuming it refers to proxy baptism at all (which, as we
have explained, may not even be the case). We can also
certainly rule out the notion that this practice mentioned
in 1 Corinthians 15:29 presupposed the belief that everyone
who had ever lived without being baptized needs to have
living Christians baptized by proxy on their behalf. We know
this was not the case for at least two reasons. First, as
explained in the previous section, this idea doesn’t fit
with New Testament doctrine; the theological assumptions on
which the Mormon understanding of proxy baptism rest are
biblically unsound. Second, as just noted, the way Paul
refers to the practice makes it reasonably certain that it
was a local practice that only some of the Corinthians did
and only in exceptional circumstances. The fact that there
is no other reference to proxy baptism in the whole New
Testament confirms that Paul was not referring to the kind
of major, indispensable practice carried on today in the
Mormon temples.
D. Conclusion
In this response to chapter 40 of
Gospel Principles, we have made the following points. (1) The LDS
system of temples is without biblical foundation because in
the Bible, there was one temple (not many) that served
completely different functions than the Mormon temples and
that became obsolete along with the whole Mosaic covenant
after the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ inaugurated the
new covenant. (2) The LDS system of proxy ordinances is also
without biblical foundation because that system rests on
faulty doctrinal assumptions that do not agree with the
Bible’s teachings. (3) The one possible reference to baptism
by proxy in 1 Corinthians 15:29 may not refer to proxy
baptism at all, and if it does it was a local practice
limited to some Corinthians and to exceptional
circumstances.
The importance of these
conclusions is difficult to overstate. In a sense, the
temple rituals of the LDS Church are the very essence of
Mormon religion. The fact that they rest on an unbiblical
foundation is a major reason to reject the LDS Church’s
claim to be the restoration of true and full Christianity.
For Further Study
IRR has several informative
articles on its website regarding temples and baptism for
the dead:
Brattston, David W. T. “Ancient
Gnostic Heretics and Baptism for the Dead” (2006). This
article takes a somewhat different view of the original
context of 1 Corinthians 15:29 than the one presented here
but in any case presents some good information.
Wilson, Luke P. “Are
Mormon Temples Christian?” (2004). Helpful for
understanding the contrasts between the biblical temple and
Mormon temples.
Wilson, Luke P. “The
Old Testament Temple and New Testament Faith: Are Mormon
Temples an Extension of the Biblical Temple?” (1997). Older
article that explores some of the same issues regarding the
temple in more detail.
Wilson, Luke P. “Did
Jesus Establish Baptism for the Dead?” (1996). Older
article that discusses both 1 Corinthians 15:29 and the
doctrine that baptism is necessary for salvation; gives some
helpful details not covered in this article.