Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 15:29

"Else what shall they do that are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?" — 1 Corinthians 15:29 (ASV)

Else.—We can well imagine the Apostle pausing, as it were, to take breath after the splendid outburst of mingled rhetoric and logic which we find in 1 Corinthians 15:23–28; or perhaps even postponing until some other day the further dictation of his Epistle, when he could calmly resume his purely logical argument in favour of the doctrine of the Resurrection.

Then there will not appear such a startling or inexplicable abruptness in the words with which this new argument is begun. “Else”—i.e., if there is no resurrection—what shall they who are baptized for the dead do? If the dead are not raised at all, why are they then baptized for the dead? Such is the proper punctuation, and not as in the English version, which joins the clause, “if the dead do not rise,” with the preceding instead of with the following portion of the verse.

Also, the word translated “rise” is “are raised.” This is an argumentum ad hominem. The practice known as baptism for the dead was absurd if there is no resurrection. To practise it and to deny the doctrine of the resurrection was illogical. What shall they do?—i.e., what explanation shall they give for their conduct? asks the Apostle.

There have been numerous and ingenious conjectures as to the meaning of this passage. The only tenable interpretation is that there existed among some of the Christians at Corinth a practice of baptizing a living person instead of some convert who had died before that sacrament had been administered to him.

Such a practice existed among the Marcionites in the second century, and still earlier among a sect called the Corinthians. The idea evidently was that whatever benefit flowed from baptism might be thus vicariously secured for the deceased Christian.

St. Chrysostom gives the following description of it: “After a catechumen (i.e., one prepared for baptism, but not actually baptized) was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased; then coming to the bed of the dead man they spoke to him, and asked whether he would receive baptism, and he making no answer, the other replied in his place, and so they baptized the ‘living for the dead.’”

Does St. Paul then, by what he here says, sanction the superstitious practice? Certainly not. He carefully separates himself and the Corinthians, to whom he immediately addresses himself, from those who adopted this custom. He no longer uses the first or second person; it is “they” throughout this passage.

It is no proof to others; it is simply the argumentum ad hominem. Those who do that, and disbelieve a resurrection, refute themselves. This custom possibly sprang up among the Jewish converts, who had been accustomed to something similar in their own faith.

If a Jew died without having been purified from some ceremonial uncleanness, some living person underwent the necessary ablution, and the dead were thus considered clean.