Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 Corinthians 15:29 - 15:29
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
What shall they do (τί ποιήσουσιν)
What will they effect or accomplish. Not, What will they have recourse to? nor, How will it profit them? The reference is to the living who are baptized for the dead.
Baptized for the dead (βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν)
Concerning this expression, of which some thirty different explanations are given, it is best to admit frankly that we lack the facts for a decisive interpretation. None of the explanations proposed are free from objection. Paul is evidently alluding to a usage familiar to his readers; and the term employed was, as Godet remarks, in their vocabulary, a sort of technical phrase. A large number of both ancient and modern commentators adopt the view that a living Christian was baptized for an unbaptized dead Christian. The Greek expositors regarded the words the dead as equivalent to the resurrection of the dead, and the baptism as a manifestation of belief in the doctrine of the resurrection. Godet adopts the explanation which refers baptism to martyrdom - the baptism of blood - and cites Luk 12:50, and Mar 10:38. In the absence of anything more satisfactory I adopt the explanation given above.