A Beautiful, Just, and Early Christian Doctrine: Baptism for the Dead
by Jeff Lindsay
In
my opinion, the doctrine of "baptism for the dead" is one
of the most wonderful issues in the restored Church of Jesus Christ
for two reasons:
1)
it resolves one of the thorniest of theological issues in a wonderful
way that shows the power of God's grace and love, and
2)
it provides powerful evidence that Joseph Smith really was a tool
through whom Christ restored the fullness of His original Church.
Both
of these issues are worthy of pages and pages of discourse, but I'll
be brief.
Issue
#1). The
thorny issue: if salvation is only through Christ, what happens to
all the billions of people who lived and died without ever even
hearing of Christ?
And
if we must be baptized to enter into a covenant with Christ (as
Christ plainly teaches in John 3:3-5 and as I discuss more fully on
my LDSFAQ
page about baptism),
what of those that never had a chance?
For
centuries, the mainstream theological answer has been that those
souls are lost. Some ministers are not so crass today, but many still
insist that they go to hell.
I
just saw a discussion of that issue on an email list of scientists
who are Christians. Most views expressed there on the topic said they
go to hell — and it is fair, since we are all depraved —
but God in his grace elects to allow some of us to be saved, so why
complain?
That
really bothers me. The truth is that God loves all his children and
wants all to have the opportunity to hear and accept the Gospel of
Christ.
On
this topic, let me show you a posting to that email group and I'll
follow it with my response to them, them some more just for you:
It
is a stunning, and somewhat depressing, fact that if our
understanding of demographics and history are correct, the vast
majority of human beings who are living or who have lived are not
Christian.
Furthermore,
among those who are living, a majority will die not being a
Christian. This implies that the destiny of most of the human race is
Hell. Consider the Chinese rice farmer, the Indian beggar, the
Russian mobster, the Pakistani Moslem priest, or the French
intellectual: each will go through life in a different way —
some in misery, others in luxury — but each with their own
unique loves, joys, aspirations, fears, desires, triumphs and
failures.
And
yet their future is the same: an eternity of unimaginable terror. All
of human history with its complexity, texture, drama, mystery, and
vice is to be sent through a sieve to produce an elegant, bipolar
universe of rapture and horror that defies comprehension.
Why?
Now
my reply to that Christian email group follows:
I
wish to proclaim that God is just and will not send a Chinese peasant
or an Indian beggar to hell simply because he or she had the
misfortune of never hearing about Christ. Yet we know that salvation
is only through Christ. The resolution is this: deceased beings,
dwelling as spirits and awaiting the time of resurrection and
judgment, will be given the opportunity to hear and accept the
message of the Gospel. Indeed, God "will [desires to] have all
men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."
(1 Tim. 2:4)
We
get some insights into the work of salvation among those who have
already died in 1 Peter 3:18-20, which reports that Christ, while
dead, "went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which
sometime were disobedient."
The
passage then indicates that people from the time of Noah were
included among those that Christ preached to. The preaching to
deceased beings is also mentioned again in 1 Peter 4:6: "For for
this cause was the gospel preached to them that are dead, that they
might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to
God in the spirit."
This
suggests that there is still accountability for the acts in the flesh
(our mortal existence), and that they will be judged, but they can
still gain access to the grace of Christ and repent and come unto
Him.
This
concept is consistent with Paul's writing about the judgment in
Romans 2. In verse 4, he indicates that the goodness of God leads us
to repentance, helping us (in verse 5) to avoid wrath on the day of
the righteous judgment of God (not arbitrary and unfair!).
Verse
6 reminds us that every man will receive according to his deeds, with
"glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good"
(v. 10), "for there is no respect of persons with God."
Respect of persons (partiality) is what God would have if he damned
some just because they never had the chance to learn of Christ.
Verses
12 through 15 continue this theme, indicating that when men are
judged for their mortal lives, it will be according to what they knew
of God's ways — and according to their conscience (a gift of
God to all people, in my view).
Verse
16 states that the Gentiles who knew not God's law "shew the
work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also
bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else
excusing one another."
Without
getting into the theology of my particular denomination, let me
simply say that I have good reason to believe that God is just, loves
all his children, and will be fair in providing an opportunity for
all that truly desire His righteousness to gain access to the grace
of Christ, if they will accept Him and covenant with Him.
Many
will not accept Him, as we see in great evidence today. But God
reaches out to each of His children and implores them to follow Him.
Toward
that end, I believe that Christ established a tremendous program of
missionary work on the other side of the veil — in the spirit
world — so that the Gospel message will go forth to His
children of every nation and every era.
(I
know this sounds wild to many. There are numerous questions that
arise, of course, and there are some good answers among many unknown.
Happy to discuss — and to take flames as well.)
Some
were curious, but not nearly enough, IMHO. There needs to be more
Christian curiosity about this most remarkable manifestation of God's
grace.
While
souls in the spirit world are being taught the Gospel (read Doctrine
and Covenants 138 — so beautiful!), they are faced with a
dilemma: they need baptism to enter into a covenant with Christ and
receive a washing away of their sins, but they lack physical bodies
in which to be baptized. This is why the early Christians and the
restored Church have the practice of baptism for the dead, referred
to but not explained by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:29.
This
passage alludes to (see discussion below) a practice of at least some
early Christians who performed vicarious baptism on behalf of
deceased ancestors. This practice in the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is not derived from 1 Cor. 15:29, but from
modern revelation, which restored that practice and the understanding
and authority necessary for it to be done.
The
revelations that give information on this practice are found in the
Doctrine and Covenants, primarily Section 128. It is also mentioned
in Doctrine and Covenants 124:29, 33; 127: 5-10; and 138: 33.
As
a result of modern revelation, we now can go to the temple and be
baptized by immersion in the name of specific deceased ancestors and
others, one at a time, name by name, offering our vicarious service
as a proxy for the deceased. Having done it many times, I can affirm
that it is a marvelous and spiritual experience.
Bottom
line: God has provided a wonderful means for all his children to hear
the Gospel and to accept all the blessings and ordinances of the
Gospel, including baptism. The temple is the place where this act of
service is done, an act that turns the hearts of the children to the
fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children.
Completing
this work will be one of the major tasks of the millennium (Rev.
7:15).
The
Washington Post
once published an article that may help readers better understand the
significance of this ordinance for those of our faith. See Michael R.
Otterson's 2012 article, "What
Baptism for the Dead Means to Mormons."
Issue
#2: Baptism for the dead, in my opinion, is evidence that Joseph
Smith was a prophet and the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored.
The LDS practice has long been derided as absolute fiction and an
abomination, and based on a terrible misinterpretation of 1
Cor.15:29.
However,
long after Joseph Smith restored the practice through revelation,
dozens of ancient documents have turned up showing that early
Christians (at least some) indeed believed in and practiced baptism
for the dead much as we do today.
Hugh
Nibley has an excellent article, "Baptism
for the Dead in Ancient Times,"
with numerous references showing that this was a real practice in the
early Church that was one of the first to be lost in the great
apostasy when priesthood and temple ordinances perished.
If
you have Lost
Books of the Bible,
you can read in the Pastor of Hermas a wonderful description of the
practice, though somewhat metaphorical. (See Similitude Nine of III
Hermas online;
also read the
Pastor of Hermas in the Early Church Fathers section of ccel.org.)
This reference did exist during Joseph Smith's time, but was not
widely known.
Note: The Pastor of
Hermas may seem like an obscure work to us, but that doesn't mean
Joseph did not know about it. In fact, it now appears that he did
have access to it, at least by 1844, since we know he donated a copy
of William Hone's Apocryphal
New Testament
to the Nauvoo Library in 1844, and that book contained the Pastor of
Hermas and some other early Christian writings. See "Baptism
for the Dead and William Hone's Apocryphal New Testament."
The list of books that Joseph donated in 1844 to the Nauvoo Library
is given in Kenneth Godfrey's note, "A
Note on the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute"
in BYU
Studies,
1974. So, it is possible that some of the cool parallels to early
Christian writings in the Restoration may have been triggered or
inspired by encounters with early Christian literature in Hone's book
or in other sources. Sometimes we Latter-day Saints are too quick to
assume that Joseph couldn't have known about something in early
Christian literature. Be careful about that assumption. On the other
hand, as a young man, Joseph was not a bookworm, and assuming that he
combed through vast libraries of information to sieve out nuggets for
the Book of Mormon or many other aspects of the Restoration may be an
even greater blunder.
Baptism
for the dead (and the whole concept of God's grace being extended to
all his children who will accept and follow Christ) is one of my
favorite things about the Church and is evidence to me not only that
the Church has been restored, but that God is a just and loving God.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.