Q — (1) Cor. 15:29—Will you kindly explain? (2) Also, when do the O.T saints rise?
A. C. W.
A-(1) “Baptized for the dead” means, in my judgment, simply those that entered (“that are being baptized”) taking the place and filling up the ranks of the deceased saints. For grace in the face of all dangers keeps up God's standing army here below. It refers to ver. 18, as 30 to ver. 19 (20-28 being an evident parenthesis of great value and positive), which resume the apostle's interrupted argument. The resurrection is the key to suffering and deaf itself for Christ's name. Without such a hope it were folly to join such a devoted band; but with it, His name will never lack recruits in faith even for a death or life of suffering. To suppose (like Dean; Stanley and Alford) a superstition alluded to, and the apostle dealing gently with such folly as “survivors getting baptized on behalf of friends deceased without baptism,” seems as contrary to his character as in itself strange. In all probability what Bishop Hall calls “the usual but ungrounded practice” was a conceit grafted on this verse misunderstood. Again, Luther's idea of “over the dead”—i.e., over their graves, is another imaginary superstition, worthy of the middle ages. Nor is it a tolerable interpretation that the plural is used for the singular and refers to the Lord. Sir R. Ellys seems to have first suggested the true thought in his “Fortuita, Sacra” (1728), adopted and popularized by Doddridge in the “Family Expositor.”
(2) The O. T. saints as well as those dead of the New rise at Christ's coming (ver. 23) (the living being then changed, 51, 52). “They that are Christ's” is surely comprehensive enough to embrace both. Rev. 20:4 adds the rising of the Apocalyptic martyrs, too late for the rapture but just in time to he raised and reign with the previously risen saints, before the kingdom of Christ and of His saints over the earth begins. For in that verse we have, in the first class already seated on thrones, the saints of the Old and New Testament, whom the Lord translates to heaven at His coming (the twenty-four elders of Rev. 4. & 5.); then the souls of those beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God (Rev. 6.); and lastly those who worshipped not the beast or his image (Rev. 13.): which two classes, having been killed, needed to live, in order to reign with Christ, like the enthroned ones. “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?"—(1 Cor. 6:2)—not the church merely, but “the saints.” The reason why these two classes of sufferers are carefully shown to have part in the First Resurrection is because Christ had come and received to Himself the first and general company. Otherwise, being slain afterward, they might seem to have been too late for that blessed part. Here they are assured of it.
Q.-A Christian writes from Guernsey as to Isa. 63:19 variously rendered, and asks D. Martin's authority for “long temps” in that verse; and the reason for “maison” instead of “moisson” in Isa. 8. last verse (or 9:2 or 3 as in others). So it is in Bagster's reprint of Martin's version.
A.-Our correspondent is correct; and Martin, though far closer than Ostervald, is wrong in the first text, and misrepresented as to the second in the London reprint, which seems an erratum. But the former is quite mistranslated in the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, and consequently in the R. C. versions such as that by le M. de Saci. As the A. V., the French Bible of Jean Diodati (Geneve, 1644) gives “jamais.” The first clause in the A. V. is unwarranted; it interpolates “all thine” and severs the connection. “We are from of old [looking back from the future tribulation before deliverance] over whom thou ruledst not, those not called by thy name.” Alexander comes to the result of the English Bible in supposing Israel to be contrasted with their adversaries— “We are of old: thou hast not ruled over them, thy name has not been called upon them.” Isaac Loeser represents the Jewish preference of “We are become as though we are those over whom thou hast never ruled, over whom thy name hath not been called;” rather paraphrastic but right substantially. Benisch gives more concisely, “We are like those over whom” &c.
Q.-Does scripture determine the serpent in Gen. 3?
A.-Surely Rev. 12:9, 20:1, with 2 Cor. 11:3, are ample to decide this question. Satan availed himself of that subtle animal, not yet reduced to its humiliating condition.
Q.-Why should it be “all the house of Israel” in Acts 2:36, as there is no article in the Greek? Does not πᾶς οἷκος mean “every house”?
ENQUIRER.
A. -Without “of Israel” connected it would be “every house “; but with it the case is altered. “House of Israel” is in thought a compound term and is sufficiently defined without the article, like “all Jerusalem” which dispenses with it. So it is with “building” in Eph. 2:21, a composite whole in sense, which makes “every” improper and false. The Revisers seem to have been quite astray in all this, though right of course in Eph. 3:15, as “family” has no such reason to plead. “Each several building” is gravely false, at issue with the context even, as with all scripture, which insists on unity.