The Power of Life and Death

In Genesis it says that Abraham was instructed to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God.  In Hebrews, we are told that Abraham was willing to do this because he knew that God had promised that in Isaac would Abraham’s seed be called, and that Abraham had faith that, if he killed Isaac, that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead.

            In John 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, after he had been in the grave for four days.  In Luke 8, Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead.  In Luke 7, Jesus raised a man from the dead who was the only son of a poor widow woman.  Later on in that same chapter, two of John the Baptist’s disciples came to Him, and asked if He were the one.  Jesus told them to go back to John and tell John what they had seen, and He included raising the dead among the things that they should tell John that they had seen.

            In Job, Satan comes before the Lord and asks permission to torment Job.  The Lord, willing to show off Job’s integrity, grants that permission, but orders Satan to save Job’s life.  Think about that for a minute: Satan had to get permission before he could touch Job, and even then, God wouldn’t allow Job’s death.

            There are some churches that teach something called, “baptism for the dead.”  Now, I am by no means an expert in this doctrine, but, from what I understand, it basically comes down to this:  If a close friend of yours, or a relative expressed a desire to be baptized, but died before they were able to, then you can get baptized by proxy for them.  This idea comes from 1 Corinthians 15:29, which asks, “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?”  Reading the chapter in context, though, we see that the subject at hand was the resurrection of the dead.  Some of the Corinthians had a faulty understanding of the resurrection, and Paul was trying to make a point.  If there is no resurrection, the Christ is not raised.  If Christ is dead, then all that are ‘asleep’ in Christ have perished.  What is the point of being a Christian, if in this life only we have hope?  What would be the point of being baptized in the likeness of His death, burial, and resurrection if—not wait, scratch that, His death and burial if there is no resurrection.

            I, personally, don’t believe in baptism for the dead; I don’t believe that it would ever be necessary.  I think it’s safe to say that I am in the majority with this opinion (which could be a problem, since many are called, but few are chosen), but there are different reasons for believing that this is not necessary.  Many people do not believe that baptism is necessary, so who cares if a friend or relative wanted to get baptized, but couldn’t?  Others believe that baptism is necessary, but that if one has a sincere desire to do the will of God, that God, having the power of life and death, will not allow that person to die until they have fulfilled God’s will.  Remember Jonah?  God had something for him to do, and he tried to go the other way, but God prepared a ‘great fish’ to swallow him and keep him alive until he was ready to what God told him to do.  I will grant you, God doesn’t usually do that for people who are just being stubborn, but, if He did that for Jonah, wouldn’t He take care of someone who sincerely wishes to serve God?

            The Catch-22 here is that people who don’t believe baptism is essential don’t believe that God will protect someone who wants to get baptized simply because they don’t believe that baptism is essential.  Taking that logic one step further, obviously, baptism isn’t essential, because there is always the possibility that someone could die waiting to get baptized.  It’s circular logic, and, quite frankly, it expresses a lack of faith; who do you think is killing people behind God’s back?  I have not heard of anyone in modern times dying while waiting to get baptized, even in churches that don’t do a baptismal ceremony until they have a sufficiently impressive number of people that want to get baptized (which makes no sense to me; if there is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, shouldn’t there be joy in the church over one new Christian that wants to gets baptized?).  I did know a man who by all rights should have died before his baptism, but didn’t.  We had a young man in our church that was hospitalized because of problems with his blood pressure.  He was placed in a semi-private room with an older gentleman with terminal cancer.  Between this young man sharing his faith with his roommate, and people from the church coming to visit him, the dying man and his wife both decided they wanted to get baptized.  The doctors forbad it, though, on the grounds that the physical trauma would likely be fatal.  When asked how long he would live without baptism, they answered in days, rather than weeks or months; which raises the question, why not allow the baptism, then?  In any case, we were at an impasse.  He couldn’t leave the hospital without being released by the medical staff, which they, understandably, wouldn’t do with his health being so precarious.  They also would not allow us to bring in a portable baptismal tank and baptize him in his room.  After some prayer, the cancer disappeared.  Personally, I would have been happy if it had simply gone into remission, although I suppose the doctors could have still refused to release him from the hospital.  He did not go into remission, though, he experienced a complete healing, and the doctors had no choice but to release him.  He came out to church and got baptized, and has since died.

            My basic point is this: God loves you, and He wants you to do what is right.  God also has the final say as far as who lives and who dies, and when.  I’m not saying that you should tempt God by going out and doing stupid things because you ‘know’ that He’ll protect you, but don’t think that God is going to let you die when you’re in the process of performing His will.