[Sidenote: The thief on the cross.]
[Sidenote: John 20: 11-17.]
Some have supposed that the thief who was crucified beside the Lord
went to heaven, and it is believed that he was not baptized; therefore,
it is argued, if one can be saved without baptism, others can. But the
supposition is incorrect: Jesus said to the thief, "to-day shalt thou
be with me in paradise," and three days afterwards said to Mary, "Touch
me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father." By this we learn that
paradise and heaven are two distinct places, and as Jesus did not go
to heaven on the day He was crucified, neither did the thief; for they
were both together in paradise.
[Sidenote: The dead preached to.]
[Sidenote: I Peter 4: 6.]
Here the seeker after truth may properly inquire. "If it is necessary
for all men and women to be baptized, what will become of the good
people who have died without having that privilege?" To this the reply
of the Scriptures is that the dead who died without hearing the Gospel
will have it preached to them. They who obey it will be saved, but they
who reject it will be condemned, as though they were in the flesh. "For
this cause was the Gospel preached" [by Christ] "to them that are dead,
that they might be judged according to men in the flesh."
[Sidenote: The dead baptized for.]
[Sidenote: I Cor. 15: 29.]
[Sidenote: The Spirits in prison.]
[Sidenote: I Peter 3: 18-20.]
"But a dead person cannot be baptized," says one. Very true; but God
is just. He has provided a way in which the dead can be baptized for,
by the living, as shown by the Apostle Paul in his questions: "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?" Paul referred to
baptism for the dead, as a proof of the resurrection, his questions
showing plainly that "baptism for the dead" was both believed in and
practiced by the early Christians. Peter says: "For Christ also hath
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us
to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which
sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited
in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that
is, eight souls, were saved by water." That is: Those who rejected the
Gospel in the days of Noah were kept in the prison of the spirit world
until the Gospel was {151} again offered to them; and the same fate
awaits all those who in this life reject this glad message.