The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Monday, October 3, 2016

1st Corinthians

Baptism for the dead?

People who died unbaptized can be saved if someone is baptized on their behalf?

15:29

Paul insists that resurrection is absolutely central to the faith, writing

Otherwise, what will people accomplish by having themselves baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they having themselves baptized for them?

People think they can make Christians of the dead and thus save them, and Paul does not dispute the point, or describe this as something heretical or silly that nevertheless supposes resurrection.

Rather, his argument seems to be that without resurrection this laudable and sensible practice would not make sense.

Remember the flap about Polish Catholic nuns making posthumous Catholics of the Jews of the Holocaust?

The resurrection body is spiritual and better than the natural, ordinary, living body.

15:51, Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed,

52 in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

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