I. The first and chief puzzle of this passage is in the twenty-ninth verse. What is meant by being baptized for the dead? The meaning which most commends itself at least to the fancy and the heart is the one which, retaining the idea of substitution, makes it not a vicarious representation of the persons of the dead, but as it were the vicarious occupancy of the position which till death they filled. The vacancies left in the ranks of the Christian army when saints and martyrs fall asleep in Jesus are supplied by fresh recruits, eager to be baptized as they were and pledged by baptism to fall as they fell, at the post of duty and danger.
II. The Apostle points to the dangers which always and everywhere beset believers as thus baptized for the dead, and most emphatically describes his own condition as being one not merely of continual exposure to death, but of the continual endurance of death. It is singularly strong language that he uses. Where, he says, if the dead rise not, is that rejoicing of yours which I have, which is my joy in our Lord Jesus Christ? Wherefore, if the dead rise not, should I for so vain a dream of bliss be doomed to die daily?
III. And if, says Paul, your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus and which reconciles me to my dying daily if that does not move you, what do you say to my actual, outward estate here in Ephesus, whence I am now writing to you? Speaking to you as men are wont to speak to one another of their trials, I tell you that here in Ephesus it has seemed to me as if it were rather with wild beasts than with human beings that I had to contend. Why provoke the resentment of wild beasts at Ephesus, if, after all, there is no resurrection of the dead?
R. S. Candlish, Life in a Risen Saviour,p. 91.
References: 1 Corinthians 15:31. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiv., No. 828; H. J. Wilmot Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,p. 174; Homilist,3rd series, vol. ix., p. 334. 1 Corinthians 15:32. Ibid.,3rd series, vol. vii., p. 339; C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts,p. 268 1 Corinthians 15:33. G. Litting, Thirty Children's Sermons,p. 85; W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 52.