[Footnote B: John 5: 8.]
[Footnote C: I Peter 3: 19, 20, 21.]
[Footnote D: I Peter 4: 6.]
[Footnote E: Mal. 4: 5, 6.]
This baptism for the dead was an old doctrine taught in the primitive church, and it is evident that St. Paul spoke of a baptism which a living person receives in place of a dead one.[F] This vicarious baptism for the dead was practiced among the early Christians for some two or three centuries after Christ, and Epiphanius, a writer of the fourth century, speaks of this ordinance when referring to the Marcionites, a sect of Christians to whom he was opposed.[G] The view that St. Paul spoke of a baptism that a living man receives in place of a dead one, is upheld by many respectable authorities, among them Erasmus, Scaliger, Grotius, Calixtus, Meyer, and De Wette.[A] Then again if we look at the proceeding of the Council of Carthage held A. D. 379, it will be seen that baptism for the dead was being practiced among some at least of the Christians as late as that year, for the council's sixth canon forbids any longer the administration of baptism and holy communion for the dead.[B]
[Footnote F: Biblical Literature (Kitto).]
[Footnote G: Heresies 23: 7.]
[Footnote A: Roberts' Outlines of Eccle. Hist. Note 3 to sec. 10 of part 4.]
[Footnote B: Roberts' Gospel (1893) p. 290.]
The beauty of this doctrine is that it very clearly indicates that there cannot be a never-ending punishment for those who die unconverted, as taught in the churches of Christendom. On the contrary, after they have been judged according to their works in the body, and have undergone such punishment as the perfectly righteous God adjudges, there will be a salvation for all, except the sons of perdition; and eventually Jesus Christ will present to His Father His completed work of redemption. Else what are the meanings of such texts as the following? "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of God: and they that hear shall live."[C] "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house."[D] Isaiah also, after he had described the judgments that would attend the coming in glory of Jesus Christ, and the punishments that should overtake the ungodly, wrote as follows: "And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited."[E]