 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at nakedbiblepodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 221, Baptism for the Dead. I'm the layman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hey, Mike, how you doing? Well, I'm feeling better than the dead in this passage. I hope so. No, I'm pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sick or anything. I was just trying to be funny and failed miserably. That's okay. That's okay. I fail miserably all the time. I'm surprised if anybody ever laughs at half the stuff I say. My wife gets mad at me. Me too. I tell her, you've got to throw things out there. You never know what's going to stick. So that's the motto. So a lot about jokes. And does she roll? Do you get the eye roll then? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I get it a lot, but what are you going to do? Yeah, I've seen that too. Or the head shake. Yeah, you've been a head shake in the eye roll. Yeah, so much fun. So much fun. Yeah. Well, Mike, what are we talking about today? Baptism for the dead. We're dead, I mean. Yeah, baptism for the dead. The passage for this is 1 Corinthians 15, 22 through 32. So this is probably on everybody's list of really strange passages that just make you scratch your head. Be comforted if that's you. Because I'm going to give a statistic in a moment here that will tell you very clearly that you're not alone. Scholars have really wrestled very hard, very frequently with this passage. You're not going to believe the statistic I give you, but I'm actually going to get you access to the materials that will show you that, no, it's not an exaggeration as to how many views there are of this passage, but let's just jump in. I'm going to read the passage again, 1 Corinthians 15, 22 through 32. And we'll go from there. So again, this is Paul writing about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. So the resurrection is a component of how we want to answer what in the world is he talking about here, what's being alluded to. I'll actually back up to verse 20 just to not make the entry in here sound too awkward. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. Here we go in verse 22. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order Christ, the first fruits, then it is coming those who belong to Christ. Then he then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God, the father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. Now here's the verse. Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day. What do I gain if humanly speaking I fought with beasts at the cross? If the dead are not raised, then let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. So that's 1 Corinthians 15-20 through 32. Let me read the key verse again that we're going to be focusing on. Otherwise, in view of all this resurrection talk, otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Now, I'm going to put a resource in the protected folder for newsletter subscribers. This is a journal article. And I'm going to be referencing this journal article because I think it's probably the best thing I've ever read on this passage. So here it is. It's an article by James E. Patrick called Living Rewards for Dead Apostles, Baptized for the Dead in 1 Corinthians 15 29. That's from the Journal New Testament Studies, volume 52, which was published in 2006, pages 71 through 85. Now, again, I'm going to be interacting with this article. I'm going to summarize the issues. This is a lengthy article, but it is nothing in comparison to what has gone before it. Now, Patrick himself notes in this article that there are over 40 views as to what this verse means. And he cites articles that add to that number. The 40 are the ones that he has counted himself. Those 40 are documented in a series of five articles that again pushed the number beyond 40. But the 40 that Patrick is thinking of are documented in a series of five articles by Bernard Fushini in Catholic Biblical Quarterly beginning in 1950 and extending into 1951. So Fushini wrote a series of five articles that totaled well over 100 pages just on this verse and how it has been understood historically. It's interpretive history. So the challenge for us isn't that there's nothing to say. The challenge is winnowing the wheat from the chaff as far as plausibility. And Patrick, in his article, I think does a really good job of that, but he alerts you up front. Look, there's over 40 that I've counted. But if you read Fushini's series of five articles, it's probably going to be even more. There's no shortage of guesses or speculation as to what in the world is going on here. Now, to be fair, in part, the diversity of views arises from several hermeneutical questions and the interpretive options that result from those questions. Some of these questions, I'm sure if you're listening to this, you're going to think, well, I don't even really need to ask that one because we can sort of cross that one off. I'll grant that, and I would agree. But just to give you an idea, here are the interpretive questions that in the history of scholarship, scholars of all theological persuasions have asked, and that produces this proliferation of views. So here's the sample. Is the baptism spoken of literal baptism? In other words, is this water baptism, or is this metaphorical? Well, you've got to think about both. You've got to ask that. Second, who are the dead? Are the dead baptism for the dead? Are the dead martyrs from the church at Corinth? Are they martyrs from elsewhere outside the church? Are the dead literally dead people, or is this some kind of metaphorical death that's being referred to? Third, if this is actual water baptism, and if it's really dead people in view that living people are being baptized on behalf of, why are they doing this? That's probably the most obvious question. But here are, again, just a short list of kind of sub-questions that have accrued to that. So why are they doing this? Is this penance for the purgatorial relief of the dead? In other words, are people being baptized for the benefit of the dead, like to get the dead out of purgatory, or so that the dead can still be saved, or whatever? Or is it purely memorial? It doesn't really do anything for the dead. It's just a memorial. What about that option? Does the phrase merely refer to ritual washing of dead bodies? I mean, people have proposed that, and therefore it has nothing to do with a sacramental view of baptism or even believers' baptism. Fourth, if we have water baptism that isn't for the benefit of the dead, then the benefit must be for the person being baptized, right? That would seem reasonable. So what is that? Is it some kind of symbolic identification with the persecuted dead person to hasten the second coming maybe or for some other purpose? Do they just want to identify with some martyr, some dead person that has gone on before? Does it refer to ritual washing after coming into contact with the dead body? Is this sort of some Jewish crossover or hangover from ritual purity? Again, that's just a smattering, a really short list of things that scholars have had to think about in long treatments. And again, Foshini's series of five articles, it's well over a hundred pages. Again, I've put those in the protected folder as well. The only way you're going to get access to this material is if you're a newsletter subscriber. Again, I can't post these online just willy-nilly because it's peer-reviewed stuff. Now moving forward for our episode, I'm going to give a brief overview of issues that give us an idea of what I think are the most necessary components that need to really be thought about when it comes to this because obviously we're not going to go through all 40 views in an episode of the podcast. So let's just start with defining some terms. All right. First term to define is baptism. What are we talking about here? Now Patrick in his article notes that Foshini divided the options on this term to three alternative explanations. Metaphorical baptism, literal baptism that had nothing to do with some sacramental effect and then sacramental baptism. The sacramental baptism for those who might not be familiar with that kind of terminology is that it has something to do with the dispensing of grace, whether it's saving grace or something else. So there are those who connect those ideas with baptism and those who don't, but it's water baptism in either respect. So you got two sort of brands of water baptism and then the metaphorical. So that's what Foshini did. He sort of went over the options down to those three and then he discussed them. Now Foshini, I mean he's writing in Catholic biblical quarterly, so where do you think he's going to land? You know Foshini landed on the sacramental view, reasoning that in every other passage where Paul speaks of baptism it is in reference to sacramental baptism. I don't agree with that every other passage idea. I would say 1 Corinthians 12, 13 for instance is not water baptism. It says, for in one spirit we are all baptized into one body. Jews or Greek slaves are free and all were made to drink of one spirit. You know, that's what most theologians call spirit baptism, a reference to being put into the body of Christ. And you're not in the body of Christ unless you have expressed belief in the gospel. Again if you're baptizing an infant or whatever, they're not making a profession of faith. You want to know my take on baptism. Listen to the early episodes of this podcast, probably the first three episodes or something like that. But there are other passages that I think really very pretty clearly refer to spirit baptism being placed into the body of Christ and whatnot. And you know there are other passages that we could talk about as well where in the Greek the same terminology is used and it's not referring to what we would think of as baptism associated with the body of Christ. In any respect, so it seems a little dubious to me what Fushini says. Nevertheless, I would fall on the side that 1 Corinthians 15-29 is referencing a water baptism practice. So I'm buying that part of it. That seems to me the most natural reading and Patrick, you know, follows the same trajectory. He writes, in my proposed explanation, the baptism being carried out is the standard Christian sacramental baptism of new believers consistent with Paul's use of the word elsewhere. So Patrick is connecting it to believers baptism. He uses the sacramental terminology but he's not talking about what Fushini was talking about. And I tend to not use sacramental terminology because I think it's confusing and honestly I think it adds to what baptism is. Again, if you want to know what my take is, I can give a T in one sentence. You can listen to the early episodes of the podcast to find out. But in view of Colossians 2-10-12 where we've got a connection between circumcision and baptism, my view is that we shouldn't be saying anything about baptism that we can't say about circumcision. Circumcision didn't guarantee anybody's salvation. It didn't put them on the road to salvation like it was some sort of spiritual awakening. It had a different purpose that I think coincides really well with baptism in the New Testament. So I buy the connection between the two because Paul says there's some kind of connection here. But I don't think it has anything to do with salvation or kickstarting someone on the road to salvation or anything like that. Again, if you want to know what that is, what I think, listen to the early episodes. So I don't have a problem here affirming that this is water baptism because it fits well within my view which derives out of this link with circumcision. So Patrick and I would agree there that we're talking about water baptism here and that's probably the majority view. As many views as there are of this, if you read through Fushini's stuff, most, I think it's really fair to say most people are going to say they were actually baptizing people here with water. Next term, the dead. Okay, who are the dead? Now, this seems to clearly point to people who are actually dead. Okay, they've literally died. Again, that just seems to me the most natural reading of the passage. Patrick, again, looks at this the same way. He says, while Paul does use the word dead metaphorically elsewhere, for instance, Romans 8.10, if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. Obviously, he's talking to people who are actually living and breathing. So Paul does use reference death and dead metaphorically elsewhere. But despite that, he's using the literal meaning not only through chapter 15, here in 1 Corinthians 15, but even in the second half of verse 29. It's linked directly to the first half because of the language. If the dead aren't raised at all, why are they baptized for them? So it's pretty obvious that the dead there in connection with the talk of resurrection, which in 1 Corinthians 15 is quite bodily, he's talking about dead people. That doesn't seem too difficult. Now, again, that immediate context undermines the metaphorical interpretations that other scholars have offered. And some of those go all the way back into early church fathers. They tried to argue for a metaphorical view. I'm not buying it, lots of people don't buy it. So I'd agree that Paul is talking about people who are actually dead. Third, what about the identity of the dead? Well, who are they then? This is an issue that requires a little bit of thought and that we'll come back to a little bit later on as well. This is an issue that might not be as obvious as the first two, but it's still important. If we establish that the dead are really dead people, and again, that's where I'm at, who are they and does asking the question matter? I think it does. And so does Patrick. Again, we're referencing his article here, which I highly recommend. So he wants to know who they are, and we're going to hit that at some point. But this question, who are the dead, gives rise to a couple of sub-questions. Were the dead, whoever they were, previously baptized? That's a sub-question because you might be thinking, wow, maybe the living people are being baptized in view of this dead person that wasn't baptized before they died. And maybe the Corinthians are thinking that baptism helps them in some way in the afterlife. So maybe that's why they're doing it. So that's a sub- question. Related to that sub-question is these dead, whoever they were, were they believers or unbelievers when they died? You can see where this is going, where this would sort of drift into a sacramental idea of baptism. If you held that view of baptism and you knew somebody, whether they had professed faith in Christ or not, and they die and you're thinking, oh well I better go get baptized for them to help them out on the other side. You could see what the concatenation of ideas would be. So all of these are things that need thought. They need attention. Patrick directs our attention on these questions, both the question who are they and then these sub-questions to the work of Jeremiah, a very famous New Testament scholar and second double Jewish scholar who noticed that in this chapter there is a consistent distinction between necroy, which is the Greek term, it's a plural term, for dead. There's a distinction between necroy and ha, necroy. That would be the same word with the definite article in front of it. So Jeremiah said, you know, it's kind of interesting that in this chapter the word necroy, dead with or without the definite article, the word the, that seems to matter. Now Patrick quotes Jeremiah's conclusion that necroy without an article denoted dead people in general, whereas with the article ha, necroy denoted deceased Christians. So Patrick writes in response to that. Again, I'm not going to give you the whole Jeremiah's quote, but Patrick writes in response thus the context again undermines interpretations such as that of Richteris who included the preceding phrase what will they do to arrive at the meaning, what will those being baptized gain beyond the unbaptized believer. Likewise, the practice of the Mormons who are baptized vicariously for dead ancestors, not of the Mormon religion, unquote. Now, what what Patrick is saying is there is that those kind of views really don't work well. They don't really work because there's a distinction of dead and the dead and the dead are deceased Christians. Again, he's depending on the scholarship or Jeremiah's there who noticed this pattern. So this seems like a good text driven position that the dead are in fact deceased Christians. So they don't need somebody living to be baptized for them to get them into heaven or do anything else. So the baptism if you're again if this pattern is what it is and it it is okay. If this pattern is meaningful then that sort of wipes off the table the notion that a living person can be baptized to spiritually benefit a dead person because according to this verse and this pattern the dead people that they're being the living are being baptized for are already believers. So that just sort of wipes that out. So if you follow that you follow Jeremiah's data and the conclusion that the dead are deceased Christian believers. The next question is well you know if they're already believers if the dead are already believers then why are people at Corinth being baptized for those dead believers? Was it because those believers died before they were actually baptized themselves? In this context it's like okay somebody believes in Christ and they die before they can be baptized. Well was there like some compelling need to do that? Is that what's going on here even though they believed? It doesn't really answer the question does it because then you have to ask yourself well what does it matter? So back to the question if we're looking at dead Christian believers then why were the people at Corinth being baptized for those dead believers? Was it because those believers died before being baptized? If so what would the point be if they were already believers? What would baptism do for them? If they had been baptized for death or before death or in light of the death what's the point? It just seems like this is nonsensical to do this. Now the normal practice of the early church and I'm sure this isn't going to surprise anybody. The normal practice was to baptize someone immediately after conversion. That was the norm. That would mean that dying before baptism if you had professed your faith in Christ would be pretty unusual. Now it's not impossible obviously but it would be uncommon. And you could go that direction maybe 1st Corinthians 1529 is sort of aimed at the exception here. So you could go that way presuming that the practice in that verse was rarely performed. The question that remains then is how the practice connects to Paul's rhetoric. So even if you want to be in the camp that says, well I think the Corinthians, the believers were being baptized for Christians, people who had accepted Christ but they died before baptism. So the Christians at Corinth are being baptized for those people even though they were already believers it was pretty rare but that's what they were doing. Again, not only doesn't that really answer why, because like what does it do for them, but if you go that direction then you know you still have to you know you still have to not only ask the why question but it might be helpful you might get clarity if we could sort of identify those people the ones who were dead more specifically. And Patrick mentions this because again I'm not going to get ahead here and sort of give you his view which again I think is probably the best way to understand it. And he didn't come up with this. It's this is not a new view to add to the 40 it's some nuance of stuff that's already been said here but that being able to identify the dead a little bit more actually sort of helps connect this verse to Paul's overall discussion not only of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 but some other things in 1 Corinthians 15 we'll get there in a moment. Now we've defined a few terms and some of that we'll come back to. So the next thing we need to do, the next issue we need to tackle is what is the meaning of the Greek preposition who pair in verse 29 there are mainly two translation choices you'll see in English translations so you could have this what do people mean by being baptized for who pair the dead or what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of who pair the dead. Now the second option there is the one that's in the ESV on behalf of think about those two options for a moment the Greek preposition who pair is being translated as for baptized for the dead and then the other option is baptized on behalf of the dead. Now the first option sort of creates the impression that the dead benefit from the baptism baptized for the dead like the dead are getting something out of it again this is where you get the idea of getting the dead out of purgatory or some sort of sacramental benefit that's in your head then you might prefer to translate who pair as for because it's sort of in English conveys that there's some benefit going on. The second option can do that too on behalf of the dead in other words the dead gets something out of it but it includes the nuance of sort of taking responsibility for or doing something in the place of or because of the dead so the second one adds a few interpretive options. Both of those translation choices are possible but the intended semantic still needs articulation. Let me just stop here you realize I hope that a translation of a Bible verse or a biblical word does not tell you what that means in context. Meaning is semantics. Semantics and translation are two related but different things. What a translation really is we like if you took a Greek or Hebrew class in a seminar you're going to hear the word gloss English gloss an English gloss is an English equivalent sort of a utilitarian equivalent something you could find in a quick dictionary look up for a Greek or Hebrew word but that doesn't answer the question of well are there other possible glosses and how do we know which of the possible glosses which are the possible English equivalents is best here we have to be thinking about how our particular word is used in the immediate and the wider context and of course there are other context literary context world view context all this kind of stuff that's where semantics operates in semantics is trying to determine not just provide an English equivalent those are two different but related things so back to our discussion here they're both possible but really the semantics of the whole thing still needs articulation we still haven't figured that out we still haven't decided anything a survey of Hooper followed by a genitive noun and again in Greek grammar grammatical case the case of a noun noun cases here which are typically not this is a short list non-native accusative dative and genitive grammatical case is sort of something that helps you pair a noun with an adjective or even prepositions in this case it's a grammatical thing so in Greek the case of a noun is going to influence the semantics of prepositions just the way the grammar works so if you surveyed Hooper followed by a genitive noun that's what we have here in 1 Corinthians 15-29 you can go a couple different directions with the semantics with what things mean for instance let's just give you some other examples of Hooper with a genitive noun and you'll see what I'm talking about here in Philemon 13 Paul writes to Philemon that Onesimus quote serve me Hooper you serve me on behalf of you in other words instead of looking at something that's sort of like getting a benefit that Philemon is getting some benefit the idea was taking responsibility Onesimus was taking responsibility for or doing something in the place of so we can look at this example and say Hooper rather than just picking an English gloss like 4 or a phrase like on behalf of what does it actually mean well in Philemon 13 Hooper means to take responsibility for or do something in the place of it gives you a little bit more grist for the mill a little bit more in the way you would talk about what's going on with the preposition in Acts 9 16 Jesus says that he will show Paul that Paul must suffer Hooper his name on behalf of or for the sake of his name the sense is that the name which is the noun of the genitive received some benefit in other words the name is glorified or exalted but the verse could also be read sort of because of Paul would have to suffer because of the name of Jesus now those are two different things think about it why is Paul suffering is he suffering so that the name would be exalted suffering for the sake of the name or is he suffering because of the name like the name gets him in trouble and it could be a little bit of both but when you're talking about semantics as opposed to just choosing English glosses this is the exercise of exegesis one of them anyway I mean you have to look at examples where you have the preposition Hooper in this case followed by a genitive and what are the semantic nuances that that combination preposition plus genitive noun could events you know could could lead you to here's a third one the combination might lead you to think of a goal and you'd like to you'd likely use for the sake of in English meaning with the goal of universe like second Corinthians one six Paul's sufferings have the goal of the comfort and salvation of the Corinthians he writes if we are afflicted it is Hooper it is for your comfort and salvation other words if we're afflicted it's with the goal of your comfort and salvation that's an example of an exegesis of the mind those three examples give us four semantic nuances four of them so we're going beyond which English word do I like that's a good substitute for this Greek one that's translation in its most basic sense its most basic form but exegesis is not translation is thinking about semantics. In this case, semantics is this particular preposition followed by a noun in a particular grammatical case. We essentially, just in a few minutes there, we went through three examples and got four nuances. This is how exegesis is done and what should be done. You've got to think. I've said in my little 60-second scholar books, one of the best things I can tell people is, look, good Bible study is not following a rote method. It's not jumping through hoops. It's not following a list of 10 steps and then spitting out something. There's no substitute for thinking about the text and hopefully you get into resources or you take classes or you listen to a podcast like this one or something. It just helps you think. There's no substitute for thinking in Bible study. I'll get off my little soapbox there. What I'm trying to say with this whole little section of the podcast is that translation choices don't resolve the issues. Translations are just words. Behind translation choices are the semantics of those translation choices. That's really what matters. The semantic options of this preposition, which is really important, baptized, who pair the dead. What might that mean? The semantic options can be summarized this way. One, could mean for the benefit of. What is that benefit? That's a question that still needs to be answered. Question has to be answered coherently, which is difficult if one cares about faith in the gospel message being the loan requirement for salvation. I do. I think this one can be ruled out if what we're talking about is that the act of baptism somehow gets somebody over the hump in the afterlife. We're not talking about that benefit. We want to be careful about using benefit terminology here, even though it's on the table. It's one of the semantic options, but we still have to. We can't just go with that and say, oh, problem solved. No, then you got to answer the question, well, what's the benefit? There you got to be careful. Second, it could mean something like vicariously in the place of. Same problem as that last one. Well, why do they need a substitute? If Christ is the death of Christ was what takes care of their sin or gives them eternal life in heaven, we want to vocalize that, verbalize it. What does that mean in place of? Again, this is where I fall back on the wider context of the connection to circumcision. I would say we need to be really careful with these two semantic options because if you go with them, then you have to still answer questions. What's the benefit? Why do we need a substitute here when we have Jesus? There's two other semantic options. We had four and I'm just summarizing them here for the sake of. In other words, with a goal in mind, it gets you away from the problems we just talked about, but what the goal is still needs answering too. Lastly, on account of. Now, does this mean because of or in honor of? I like the phrase in honor of because it gets away from the benefit of. It gets away from that benefit language. This is another way in English we can express this idea of on account of or some having a relationship to the dead. You could say in English, I'm just making up a sentence here, but I donated to that organization on account of you. In other words, I like you so much or I respect you so much that it prompted me to donate to this organization that you're connected with. It's kind of an honorific thing. Now, it doesn't benefit you directly. Who's benefited is the organization, but I just want you to know that this act in my mind honors you. Now, we're going to come back to that because I actually think that's the trajectory we need to track on when it comes to 1 Corinthians 1529. Again, the semantic option is really an important thing. Those last two for the sake of and on account of or because of or in honor of those have the dead in view, not the one being baptized. And that's important again, because we're dealing with real dead people. And if we're going to have people living people baptized for dead people, it either benefits the dead in some way. See, there's the benefit language and that that becomes tricky. Well, okay, maybe we don't want to use the word benefit. It may honor the dead in a certain way. There's some connection to the dead or there's some connection to the person being baptized. Again, this is the only place in the New Testament you have this alluded to. So there's nothing you can build on about something the person who's getting baptized that they get some benefit out of this because this is the only verse you have. And it can't be that about the resurrection because the resurrection is based on being in Christ, which is faith in Christ and all that kind of stuff. So it doesn't work there. So I'm hoping that you're seeing why I'm angling toward this honorific idea. Because that's actually where I land on this passage. And Patrick lands there too. And one of the reasons, I think his article I read it years ago helped sort this out for me, which is why I'm recommending it. I think it's an excellent article to go through all the different issues. Ultimately, what we have here is I think this, Patrick lands in a place that I think is the most coherent option. I'm just going to read you a bit of what he says here. He says, the verse can be translated either baptism on behalf of the dead. That's kind of what he prefers or baptism for the dead meaning. Here's the meaning. We're not just worried about English words here. We're worried about meaning. Meaning that people were being baptized in honor of the dead. And you could also say because of the dead, because of something that the dead did that makes you want to honor them. So you could go either way with English, but I'm just going to stick with in honor of here. People were being baptized in honor of the dead. That is, people were being baptized in honor of dead apostles. And this is where Patrick goes with this. This is where he tries to be more specific as to who the dead are. If you remember way back at the beginning of this episode, I've read his article title and he actually has the word apostles in it. He believes that what's going on in 1 Corinthians 1529, and I do think this covers all the bases in the chapter. In the context, in other words, the immediate context is that people were being baptized in honor of dead apostles. Specifically, the quote, more than 500 witnesses, unquote, mentioned in the same chapter. This becomes part of Paul's defense of the resurrection. People were getting baptized to honor these witnesses to the resurrected Jesus. It would make no sense to do that if there was no resurrection. Patrick says in his conclusion, new believers were receiving baptism after conversion through the testimony of these dead apostles. And in doing so, were baptized into their name an expression of allegiance in order to bring them greater honor. Thus, they effectively became living rewards for dead apostles. Put another way, the idea is this. You have people running around in Corinth, their Corinthians there, and they hear, at some point in their life, they heard some of these 500 witnesses testify that they saw the resurrected Christ. And it's because of that testimony that people believe. They believe. And some of those 500 witnesses, they were martyred or they just died by natural causes. And so, what we're trying to say here is that there were people in Corinth who, that guy that died, he was one of the witnesses of the resurrection Jesus. And that guy, I heard the gospel through him. I heard his story. And I came to know the Lord and I want to be baptized to honor him. So, when I get baptized in my little baptismal formula, we're going to recognize him. I'm going to be baptized in honor of this dead guy so that I can become essentially the notion of a living reward for this guy in heaven. I become a living fruit, a living reward of his ministry. So, I think that is probably the most coherent way to look at the passage. It keeps it in the context of 1 Corinthians 15. It keeps the resurrection in view. In other words, it makes Paul's rhetoric coherent because if you don't believe in the resurrection, why would you do this? It's because you do believe in the resurrection. You do believe that that guy who's dead is still alive in the resurrection. And you're becoming a living testimony to his legacy, to honor him because it was through his testimony you came to the Lord. So, if you don't believe any of that's going on, why would you do this? Again, it doesn't make any sense. So, it keeps the discussion, you know, orbited around the issue of the resurrection. It's semantically, you know, certainly in line with other possibilities the way the preposition is used elsewhere. You know, it gets the dead as really dead people to cease Christians. Again, I think Jeremiah's pattern recognition here is important. It's an actual baptism going on. Again, all of the pieces can come together in this and not get a sidetracked into some alternative gospel about, well, I need to get baptized so that that dead person that I'm going to invoke my baptism so that they have eternal life. That's not the gospel. It's an alternative gospel. You know, so I think it's internally consistent and I think it's externally consistent. Again, just in the wider picture. Now, there's two sidebar issues here that I thought, I debated a little while, you know, do I want to attack these on in the episode or a while, but I'm going to do this because I think people might be interested and they do attach, you know, to what's going on here. One sidebar issue is that you're going to, if you get into this subject, you're going to see some commentators suggest that Paul didn't believe in the practice of baptism for the dead, but he used it as a reference point only in defense of his resurrection. Like Paul's just referring to something that Corinthians did and just thought it was utter nonsense and said, ah, you know, well, I'll use it in an argument. They'll know what I'm talking about, even though I think it's just craziness. All right. Now, Patrick comments that Ambrose Yaster, who lived in the 4th century AD, believed that verse 29 referred to vicarious baptism for the dead, but that Paul didn't approve of that. And in support, he appealed to the contrast between they of verse 29 and we of verses 30 to 32. Foshini instead induced the also of verse 30 as evidence of Paul's agreement with baptism in verses 29 through 33 or N33, but even the lack of any explicit condemnation of the practice by Paul is significant. So Patrick objects to this. He's like, look, if Paul was opposed to this, he would have said something directly explicitly in opposition, but he doesn't do that. He doesn't do it. And he certainly would have done it here because it's so fundamental to what he's trying to teach about the resurrection and what he has taught elsewhere about the gospel. I mean, he would have said something here if he really objected to the practice. So back to Patrick, he says, if Paul were to cite a practice he did not agree with to support his argument for the resurrection, his opponents in Corinth and elsewhere could justly accuse him of theological inconsistency, unquote, and I agree. I think Patrick's right. I think this whole notion that Paul used this, but assigned no value to it or no validity to it. I don't think that's the right trajectory, so I would reject that. That's one sidebar. But the other sidebar is a little bit longer, and I think it will be interesting to people in this audience is that, and that has to do with the word apostle here, but you'll notice in the title of Patrick's article and his conclusion that I read, it refers to the dead as being dead apostles, right? And he gets that from earlier in 1 Corinthians 15. So I think this is as good a place as any to comment on the term apostle, because it does show up in 1 Corinthians 15 earlier in the chapter in a pretty interesting way. So this is a bit of a sidebar on the term apostle. Let me just go read that, the reference here. This is where you get into the 500 language. So 1 Corinthians 15-3, Paul says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, Peter, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep, some are dead, then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all as one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. That's verses three through nine. Now, let's think about the word apostle a little bit. There are actually a variety of apostles in the New Testament. I'm going to put them in tiers. First tier is the original 12. Okay, the term just means sent one, we know that, that's the simple stuff, but you have a first tier group, the original 12. Now, it's generally agreed that the 12 are a special group because of the New Testament phrase, the 12. It shows up in a number of places. And when the number fell to 11, because of what happened with Judas, the original apostles felt compelled to restore the number to 12. This is Acts chapter 1, 15 through 26. Now, this is likely new to the parallelism with the 12 tribes. You go to Revelation 21, 12 and 14. Again, you get the 12 going there. But Paul, again, he's beyond the 12, is an interesting addition. 13, I would bring the total to, Paul clearly is not one of the 12, but he's still called an apostle. So we have to ask, what are the criteria for inclusion in the 12? Well, Acts 1, when they go to replace Judas, Acts 1, verses 21 and 22, tell us that the candidates for replacement, you know, the ones that they were going to cast lots over. Here were the criteria. You had to have accompanied the other 11 since the time of Jesus' baptism, and you had to have been a witness to the resurrected Christ before his ascension. And obviously, Paul doesn't qualify there, and Paul knew it, as we're going to see in a moment. But that's essentially what they were thinking in Acts 1, when they go to replace Judas. Now, the function of the 12, we don't need to go too far in the rabbit trail here, but they had authority over other churches. They were the ones that the Comforter would come to, all that sort of stuff. They validated the teaching of others. You know, even Paul, he had to spend time with the 12 in Jerusalem to have them check him out and all that kind of stuff. So they're the first here. There's also a second here, which includes Paul and, quote, the other apostles, like in the phrase in the passage we just read, who were not among the 12, but who had seen the risen Christ and apparently been commissioned by him. Again, look at the words in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, you know, Paul, I delivered you the first importance. Christ died for our sins in accordance to the Scripture. He was buried, raised on the third day. And now look at the list. He appeared to Cephas, Peter, then to the 12. Okay, so you have to think that he gets the rest of the original ones. Jesus appears to. He had Peter first and then the rest of them. So now you got the 12 covered. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James. Okay, James was going to be the head of the church in Jerusalem, but he wasn't one of the 12. This is James the Lord's brother, Jesus' brother, who wasn't a believer until at some point, you know. But he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, Paul says, and I'm the least of the apostles. Now it would seem from this description that Paul was the last person to whom Jesus made an appearance for commissioning in the New Testament era. Can I do take the passage that way? A lot of people do. I think Paul actually means something. Last of all, I'm it. And why would he be? Because he's selected to go to the Gentiles. We got the Jews covered. Got the 12. You know, we got that going on. We got James in the Jerusalem church. Because some of these people are going to be called apostles as well. They're not the 12, but they're still apostles. But we got the Jews covered. And then now we got to get the Gentiles. Jew first, then the Gentile. Paul is the one appointed to preach the Gentiles. And so this is the rationale for Paul saying, I'm the last one. I get the mop up job. I go to the Gentile. Paul was selected to go to the Gentiles, something that had an eschatological role. The fullness of the Gentiles revealing the mystery. The Gentiles were heirs of the promises in the seed of Abraham. It's Ephesians 3, 3, through 6. Galatians 3. You can go read that. We've mentioned it before on the podcast. Now, what's interesting here, as far as the Old Testament goes, you should always ask, does the Old Testament play a role in any of this? Here's the question. Are Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15-10 an allusion to Isaiah 49-4? Both passages have Gentile inclusion in view. Now here's Isaiah 49-4. Listen to this. Let me read 1 Corinthians 15-10 first. Paul says in verse 9, I'm the least of the apostles. Unworthy to be called apostles because I persecute the church of God, but by the grace of God I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Now read Isaiah 49-4. But I said I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity. Yet surely my right is with the Lord and my recompense with my God. Now the question is, was that floating around in Paul's head when he writes, By the grace of God I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is within me. I'm the least of the apostles. I'm the last one. If so, it seems Paul was further alluding to Isaiah 49-6 and that he saw a sequence unfolding in Old Testament prophecy about the incarnate servant in the Messiah, the restoration of the 12 tribes, Israel and Judah, all 12, and the salvation of the Gentiles. And he saw his own place in that sequence. Now I'm going to read Isaiah 49, not just verse four, but verses one through six. Just listen to this. Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb. From the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand he hid me. He made me a polished arrow. In his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, you are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Now if you know a little bit about servant theology in Isaiah, servant most often is the nation Israel, but it's also an individual who represents Israel. So those first three verses could very well be talking about Jesus. The Lord called me from the womb. From the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand he hid me. He hid me. He made me a polished arrow. In his quiver he hid me away. He said to me, you are my servant, you are Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Verse four, But I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing in vanity. Yet surely my right hand is with the Lord and my recompense with my God. Again, there would be scholars who sort of connect that to the suffering on the cross and whatnot. Verse five, And now the Lord says, He who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him. And that Israel might be gathered to him. For I am honored in the eyes of the Lord. And my God has become my strength. He says, Is it too light a thing that you should be my servant who raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel? I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. There you have the Gentiles included. Now, Paul, here's the argument, Paul looking at this passage and knowing it well, thinking about the life and the ministry of Jesus, the suffering of Jesus and what it was all about. Of course it's about the regathering of the tribes. Okay, we've had Pentecost. Of course it's about that, but it's also about the Gentiles. It's about the Gentiles. And Paul mentally placing himself in this passage as the apostle to the Gentiles, thinking about verse four, I have spent my strength. All this talk about laboring in vain. And then in 1 Corinthians 15-10, I'm the least of all the apostles, for the grace of God I am what I am. I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me. Is this, could this be what Paul's thinking about? Again, scholars go back and forth on this, but it's really interesting, because if you look at Paul's terminology, last of all, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me. And we know Paul thought a lot about the fullness of the Gentiles. We know Paul wanted to get the Spain to finish the job, to reclaim the disinherited nations. If this is really what's floating around in Paul's head, he is the last of the secondary apostles. He's the last one commissioned. Now, there are other secondary references. James gets singled out. Look at Galatians 1-19. I saw Paul says, I saw none of the other apostles, except James, the Lord's brother. So James gets called an apostle, even though he's not one of the 12. He had great authority, of course, in Jerusalem. 1 Corinthians 9, Paul talks about other apostles. So there's this second tier right underneath the 12. Paul is part of that, but he's the last one, again, apparently in his thinking, because he's connected with the salvation of the Gentiles. And the end of the mission in Isaiah 49, the mission of the servant, the end of that mission is ultimately to bring the nations back, along with the tribes of Israel. There's a third group. There are other apostles mentioned by name in the New Testament, who were not of the 12, and there's no evidence that they saw the resurrected Christ in the flesh, okay? Third tier. Give you some examples. Other apostles are mentioned by name, Barnabas. Acts 13-2-3. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them. And after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. They are sent ones. They were, it's the verbal form of apostle Apostelo. They're sent in Acts 14-4. The people of the city were divided, some with the Jews and some with the apostles. Well, who are the apostles in this scene in Acts 14? It's Paul and Barnabas. Can you have Andronicus in Junior, Romans 16-7, again being prominent among the apostles? You have Silas, Acts 15-40. Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. Again, you read further on in 1 Thessalonians 2-6, we did seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. Again, if you look at the circumstances historically, Silas is the one with Paul in his journey to the Thessalonians. He would have been included in that comment about apostles plural. And there's no proof that these people were like the 500 or at Paul's level. Ephesians 4-11 refers to apostles. Again, this is written after the ascension. So the apostles, again, that are mentioned there, he gave them apostles, prophets, evangelists, so on and so forth. They're not at the level of the 12 or even at the level of the 2nd tier. They were probably commissioned by somebody else. Again, not Jesus himself. It can't be assumed that this office, therefore, necessarily means authority over other churches. Since apostles in this group, the 3rd tier didn't have regional authority. And there are churches in the New Testament, like in Revelation 1-3, that are never said to have been started by an apostle. So I mentioned this. Again, it is connected to our discussion. And what Patrick, and again, where I'm landing as well with him, is that what's happening in Corinth is that people are being baptized to honor dead sent ones. People who saw the resurrected Christ, again, that Paul alludes to in the same chapter in 1 Corinthians 15, and it was through their testimony that these people have come to the faith. Some of them have died, Paul says. Some of them are still alive, but some of them have died. And so to honor them and honor their faithfulness, honor their work, you had Corinthians being baptized, connecting their name to their baptism, to honor them, not to help them get to heaven, not to help them have everlasting life, not so that they get time off in purgatory. They're honoring them because of their testimony, because it's linked to their own salvation. And that's why they're submitting to baptism in the first place. So to wrap it up, if new believers at Corinth were being baptized in honor of dead sent ones, dead people who went out and spread the gospel, and there were people at Corinth who heard their testimony and were saved, if they're being baptized in honor of dead apostles, who had been among the 500 who saw the Lord, then it would make sense, it'd make a lot of sense to see the 500 as well-known witnesses for Jesus. And again, in the context of 1 Corinthians 15, it would make no sense to do this at all if you didn't believe in the resurrection. And that's why Paul's using the example. He knows it's happening. He doesn't poo-poo it. He doesn't rail against it. He doesn't correct it. He doesn't say anything about it, but he uses it to say, look, why would you do this if there is no resurrection from the dead? It's an effective argument. So again, I think there's a clear coherent way to navigate the passage, to understand what's going on at Corinth, and to interpret the verse. All right, Mike. We appreciate it. That's very interesting. Oh, that's perfect. All right, Mike. Well, next week, we're going to have a special guest. We're going to have Rusty Osborn on, who's actually going to be at the Naked Bible Conference. Any idea what you and Rusty are going to talk about next week? Oh, we're going to talk about a couple things in his book. I mean, he's going to be landing at a specific place. His book is on tree imagery and kingship in the ancient Near East. So we're going to cherry pick a few items from that book, but then it's sort of to give people a little taste a little warm-up of something that he's going to get into specifically at the conference or what he's going to do at the conference is related again to the stuff that we'll talk about in broad terms next week. All right, I'm looking forward to that. And again, I just want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. Time for us. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.nakedbibleblog.com To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.brmsh.com.