Does the Apostle Paul contradict the Restoration, or does he preach baptism for the dead, degrees of glory, and a church of apostles and prophets?
The Bible answers
Baptized for the dead. We did not invent the verse. We obeyed it.
King James Version
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?
NRSVUE
Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?
Third heaven. Degrees are not a frontier dream.
King James Version
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
NRSVUE
I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows.
Also restored
Doctrine and Covenants 128:16–18
Paul’s verse is the springboard for the temple.
And now, in relation to this baptism for the dead, I will give you another quotation of Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:29: … And as are the records on the earth in relation to your dead, which are truly made out, so also are the records in heaven. This, therefore, is the sealing and binding power, and, in one sense of the word, the keys of the kingdom, which consist in the key of knowledge.
Ephesians 4:11–13 (received in Restoration teaching)
The Church reads Paul’s list—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers—as a living pattern ‘till we all come in the unity of the faith,’ not as a first-century temporary scaffold.
Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.
Early Christian memory of vicarious rites and multiple heavens
Paul assumes his Corinthian readers already know a baptism for the dead and does not pause to invent it; he uses it as evidence of the resurrection.
Whatever later commentators wish 1 Corinthians 15:29 meant, the plain sense is vicarious baptism. Jewish and Christian apocalypses also know multiple heavens. D&C 76 and D&C 128 are reading Paul, not hijacking him.
Scripture Central
Scripture Central
A Paul who forbids additional apostles is a Paul with Ephesians 4 cut out. A Paul who forbids temple-related work for the dead is a Paul with 1 Corinthians 15:29 cut out. A Paul who knows only one heaven is a Paul with 2 Corinthians 12 cut out. The Restoration is what happens when those verses are allowed to remain apostolic. Grace is still grace; ordinances are still ordinances; the body of Christ still needs living officers.
Joseph Smith did not discover baptism for the dead in a vacuum. He found it where it was, in Paul, and asked the Lord what to do with it.
The Interpreter Foundation
The Interpreter Foundation
The charge that Latter-day Saints ‘don’t believe Paul’ usually means they do not believe a sixteenth-century Paul. They do believe the Paul of Romans 6 (baptism into death), 1 Corinthians 11 (sacrament), 1 Corinthians 12 (gifts and body), and 1 Corinthians 15 (resurrection and vicarious baptism). That Paul is ours.
Sola-Paul-as-filtered-by-later-creeds is not the same as taking Paul for a prophet.
Be the first to tell us if this case is strong.
