“God Is Not the Author of Confusion, but of Peace”
Paul testified that Jesus Christ was resurrected, for he had seen Christ himself. Paul envisioned the resurrection of all people and the glory that awaits those who come unto Christ. His teaching that death has lost its sting has comforted people for two millennia.
Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: New Rendition, 1 Cor. chapters 14 to 16
Read these three chapters in a modern English version, as rendered by Michael D. Rhodes and Richard D. Draper from the Greek.
Baptism in Behalf of the Dead among the Early Christians (1 Corinthians 15:29), by Richard D. Draper and Michael D. Rhodes, at BYU New Testament Commentary
Paul suggests that baptism for the dead was among accepted Christian practice. Truman Madsen writes, “Proxy and representational ideas are not at the periphery of early Jewish and Christian practice; they are at the core.”
“Theological Underpinnings of Baptism for the Dead,” by David L. Paulsen, Roger D. Cook, and Brock M. Mason, BYU Studies Quarterly 55, no. 3
“Paul argues for the reality and centrality of the resurrection to the Christian faith. In the course of his argument, he introduces this verse [1 Cor. 15:29]. There is evidence that baptism for the dead existed for hundreds of years among various Christian groups, including the Corinthians, Marcionties, Cerinithians or Gnostics, and Montanists.”
“Paul the Apostle: Champion of the Doctrine of the Resurrection,” by J. Peter Hansen, in Go Ye into All the World: Messages of the New Testament Apostles,
“If Jesus was not resurrected, then what is Christianity? In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul reminds us that there were many who saw, with their own eyes, the gloriously embodied, resurrected Jesus.”
“The Glorious Message about Resurrection and Escape from Sin in 1 Corinthians 15,“ by Richard D. Draper and Michael D. Rhodes, at BYU New Testament Commentary
The sting of death and sin holds no fear for the repentant person precisely because Christ himself absorbed that sting.
