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. 20:44And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 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. 44And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. (Revelation 4:4). & 5.); then the souls of those beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God (Rev. 64And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. (Revelation 6:4).); and lastly those who worshipped not the beast or his image (Rev. 134And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? (Revelation 13:4).): 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. 6:22Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? (1 Corinthians 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.
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?
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. 2:2121In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: (Ephesians 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. 3:1515Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, (Ephesians 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.