“The Religion of the Apostles”–A Book Analysis Series (Part 5): Human Beings on the Divine Council? Mary the Theotokos? And What’s Up with Getting Baptized for the Dead?

It’s the weekend, October 16^th to be exact, and if you’ve been following my blog lately, you know what that means! Another installment in my book analysis series on Stephen De Young’s The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century. Here in Part 5, I’m going to be covering De Young’s Chapter 5, a topic that, quite frankly, often gets overlooked by most Protestants, and certainly Evangelicals. Having grown up in Evangelicalism, I’ll be the first to say that much of the stuff in Chapter 5 was pretty new to me…not entirely, though (after all, I have been Orthodox for the past 17 years, so I have picked up a few things!).

The title of the chapter is “The Saints in Glory,” and it talks about the Orthodox Christian understanding of the ultimate destiny of Christians. Now, if you’ve grown up Evangelical, chances are you’re understanding of this topic pretty much boils down to this: I’m going to go to heaven when I die, I’ll have a mansion of gold, and I’ll get to see all my loved ones again…and possibly my beloved dog from when I was a kid! Such view is, quite frankly, pretty self-centered, when you come to think about it, and it reflects no real understanding of the fundamental first century Christian worldview regarding…well, anything!

All About Connections to the Divine Council
To understand the Christian view regarding the destiny of Christians, one has to get nailed down what De Young talked about in the previous couple chapters, namely, that God has a divine council, and both Satan and the fallen angels who are responsible for bringing in sin to God’s creation were at one time part of that divine council. Because they tried to essentially usurp God’s power, they lost their “seat on the board,” so to speak.

Now, De Young goes into more deal with all this in chapters 3-4, as does Michael Heiser’s book, The Unseen Realm. Essentially, Genesis 1-11 doesn’t just tell of the corruption of God’s creation, but it also highlights the fall of some of the divine beings (angels): Genesis 3 tells of the fall of Satan; Genesis 6:1-4 tells of some the fall of some of the angels who further corrupted humanity; and Deuteronomy 32:8 (talking about Genesis 11) tells of the corruption of the angels whom God put in charge of the nations who rejected Him at Babel.

What that means, according to the Old Testament view as well as the first century Christian view, is that this current world in this old age—the one that has been corrupted by both the fallen angels as well as fallen mankind—has been subjected to those fallen angels (see Deuteronomy 32:8). Yet the new creation in the age to come will be subjected not only the Christ, but to Christians who put their faith in Him.

Simply put, redeemed Christians will fill the “seats on the board” that were vacated by the fallen angels. And the way they are able to do that is because they have become united to Christ and thus have become sharers and partakers of the divine nature. That is what the early Church Father Athanasius meant when he said, “God became man so that men could become like God.” To have a seat on the divine council means you have to share in the divine life, and through Christ, that divine life has been bestowed upon redeemed humanity.

But, as De Young points out, Christians aren’t just filling those seats on the divine council. By being united to Christ, Christians become “sons of God” themselves, through Christ. And since Christ will rule in the new creation in the age to come, Christians will rule with Him. This is why, De Young says, we see that there are 24 elders seated around God’s throne in in the Book of Revelation. Not only does 24 represent two groups of 12 (one group representing the 12 patriarchs and the other group representing the 12 apostles), but the very number of 24 constitutes 1/3 of the divine council…72. Obviously, these are symbolic numbers, but the point should be clear: the redeemed in Christ replace the 1/3 of the angels who joined Satan in his rebellion (as mentioned in Revelation 12:4).

I have long known about how the “24” represents the 12 patriarchs and 12 apostles, but until reading this book, I had not made the connection regarding 24 being 1/3 of the divine council that corresponds to the 1/3 of the angels who rebelled with Satan. I find that pretty interesting.

Mary the Theotokos: Queen and Mother
Another interesting thing De Young talks about is something that I, having grown up in Evangelicalism, never really “got” when it came to the Orthodox view of Mary as the Theotokos. If you know anything about Church history, you know that Catholic dogma elevates Mary, quite frankly, to a pretty insane height that Orthodoxy does not endorse. Because of that, Protestantism, which was a reaction to Catholicism, went in the polar opposite direction regarding Mary, downplaying her to simply peasant girl, albeit a very godly one.

Yet, as De Young points out, seeing Mary as having a special role has been a part of Christianity from the very beginning. Now, for clarification’s sake, the title Theotokos (which means “God-bearer”) was given to Mary to emphasize the fact that Christ was not a mere human being. Yes, He was fully human, but He was also divine—and therefore, Mary didn’t give birth to a mere man, but to God Himself. That is why in much of Orthodox iconography of Mary with the baby Jesus, Mary is always portrayed as having her hands out, as if to say, “Hey, this child isn’t just a mere human being! He is God, and I am bearing witness to him!”

That much I already knew. What I didn’t know is what De Young shared about the connection between the role of Mary and the role of the queen mother within the David line during the Kingdom of Judah. Simply put, beginning with Bathsheba sitting at Solomon’s right hand, the queen mother always held a special role in the administration and rule of the Davidic king. Thus, the regarding of Mary as both queen and the mother has its roots in the Old Testament, specifically the Davidic line of kings.

Heavenly Patronage
The final thing from Chapter 5 I want to highlight is De Young’s discussion on “heavenly patronage,” which is something very much tied to the Christian declaration of the resurrection of the dead. Since Christ died and rose again, the Christian “good news” and declaration is that Christians, even though they will die, will one day rise again in the future resurrection and rule with Christ in the age to come in the new creation. This is something Paul talks about in I Corinthians 15.

…but then there is that odd verse of 15:29 and that talk about some Christians “being baptized for the dead.”

This is a verse that has puzzled scholars, seemingly forever. Although people have ventured guesses, I was always taught (and taught myself) that we simply don’t really know what Paul was talking about. Well, De Young gives an explanation of I Corinthians 15:29 that makes a whole lot of sense to me. If nothing else, it’s the best explanation I’ve come across. And no, his explanation is nothing like the Mormon interpretation that justifies baptizing Mormons today for past loved ones who’ve died, so that those dead loved ones can get saved though another person’s baptism for them!

To be clear, here is the verse in question: “Otherwise, what will they do, those who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then were they baptized for them?” De Young takes 4-5 pages to explain this…I’ll give a short summary in no more than a paragraph.

The part that says, “If the dead are not raised at all,” is a reference to dead people in general. He’s saying, “If there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead…”

In the part before that, where he asks, “What will they do, those who are baptized for the dead?” the definite article “the” is a specific reference to Christians who have died, and would best be translated as “these dead,” meaning Christians.

So the natural question now is, “What practice is Paul referring to? What does it mean to be ‘baptized for the dead’?” De Young argues that this is a reference to a practice still done in the Orthodox Church today, namely when someone is baptized in the Orthodox Church, that person essentially takes on the name of a departed saint who is thus seen as that Christian’s patron saint. Christians who have died are still part of the living body of Christ. Therefore, to take on the name of a patron saint is to establish a relationship with that departed saint in a mysterious way. Thus, “being baptized for the dead” isn’t to get baptized for the sake of an unbaptized person, but rather establishing a relationship with a particular deceased saint within the living body of Christ.

Therefore, what Paul is saying (and asking) in I Corinthians 15:29 is something like this: “If there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead, then what they heck are we Christians doing when we get baptized and take on the name of a departed saint? If there’s no resurrection, then the dead are just dead and we’re idiots for thinking we can be in relationship with past Christians in Christ!”

I have to say, it’s the best explanation of that difficult verse I’ve ever come across.

Next time, I’ll get into Part 3 of De Young’s book—all about Creation and Salvation. Should be fun!