What is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 15:29? If these things are not so Paul has just rehearsed the gospel facts—Christ died, was buried, was raised, and appeared to many (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). He has already said, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised” (1 Corinthians 15:13). So he now adds another “if.” • Without a literal resurrection every earlier statement crumbles: preaching is empty (15:14), faith is futile (15:17), and believers who have “fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (15:18). • Acts 23:6 shows that Paul’s entire ministry rested on “the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” If that hope is false, why keep preaching or suffering (15:30-32)? With this groundwork, he turns to a practice familiar to the Corinthian church to expose the absurdity of denying resurrection. what will those do who are baptized for the dead? The simplest reading is “baptized on account of the dead.” People were coming to faith and entering the waters because the deaths of believers—often martyrs—had testified powerfully that Jesus truly lives. • New converts were stirred by the steadfast hope they saw in dying saints; their own baptism declared, “I want what they had” (Philippians 1:20-21). • Romans 6:3-4 ties baptism directly to death and resurrection with Christ. If resurrection is fiction, the whole symbol is emptied of meaning. • 2 Timothy 2:11 echoes the same logic: “If we died with Him, we will also live with Him.” Paul does not endorse proxy baptism; he simply points to a well-known reality: Christians keep getting baptized precisely because they believe death is not the end. If the dead are not raised at all Here Paul repeats the objection so no one misses the force of the argument. • The entire Old Testament expectation—Daniel 12:2; Job 19:25-27—is at stake. • Jesus Himself said, “A time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come out” (John 5:28-29). • The church’s comfort over departed believers rests on this promise: “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so with Him God will bring those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). Denying resurrection tears the heart out of biblical revelation from Genesis to Revelation. why are people baptized for them? Paul drives the nail home: if corpses stay corpses, baptism in hope of reunion is irrational. Yet people continue to line up to confess Christ—often immediately after attending Christian funerals. • Their baptism says, “I believe I will meet my loved ones again when Christ returns” (John 11:25-26). • 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 shows that Christ’s death “for all” compels the living to live—and be baptized—for Him. • 1 Peter 3:21 reminds us that baptism “now saves you” because it appeals to God for a good conscience “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Remove the resurrection and the appeal is empty. So Paul’s rhetorical question boxes the skeptic into a corner: your own actions betray that you really do believe in life after death. summary Paul uses the Corinthians’ ongoing practice—people being baptized because of the testimony of deceased believers—to prove the bodily resurrection. If there is no future raising of the dead, baptism is pointless, preaching is worthless, faith is futile, and the witness of those who died in Christ is a sham. But because Christ truly rose, believers keep declaring that reality in the waters of baptism, confident that the dead in Christ will rise first and we will all be “swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). |
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