Reason 10 of 10
Now is the day of salvation
Latter-day Saints perform baptisms for the dead so that people who have died can accept the gospel in the spirit world. The Bible says it is appointed to die once and after that the judgment, and even the Book of Mormon says this life is the time to prepare to meet God.
What Latter-day Saints are taught
The Church teaches that people who die without the gospel will hear it in the spirit world, and that living members can be baptised on their behalf in temples. Joseph Smith taught that the salvation of the living and the dead is linked. Much of the Church's family history work serves this purpose.
15And now, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters, let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation. For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect.
Doctrine and Covenants 128:15 · read it at ChurchofJesusChrist.org
33These were taught faith in God, repentance from sin, vicarious baptism for the remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands,
Doctrine and Covenants 138:33 · read it at ChurchofJesusChrist.org
What the Bible says
Hebrews says it is appointed for people to die once, and after this, judgment. In Jesus' account of the rich man and Lazarus a great gulf is fixed after death that no one can cross. Paul says now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.
Paul mentions people being baptised for the dead once, in 1 Corinthians 15:29, describing what some others were doing, as part of an argument for the resurrection. He never commands it, and no other passage mentions it.
27Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment,
Hebrews 9:27 (WEB) · context
26Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’
Luke 16:26 (WEB) · context
2For he says, “At an acceptable time I listened to you. In a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
2 Corinthians 6:2 (WEB) · context
29Or else what will they do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead aren’t raised at all, why then are they baptized for the dead?
1 Corinthians 15:29 (WEB) · context
The Book of Mormon says the same
Amulek in the Book of Mormon teaches that this life is the time for people to prepare to meet God, and warns against procrastinating repentance until death. That is the Bible's urgency, and it is the honest reason to come to Jesus today.
32For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors. 33And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed. 34Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
Alma 34:32-34 · read it at ChurchofJesusChrist.org
What Latter-day Saints answer
Latter-day Saints cite 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6, where Christ preached to the spirits in prison and the gospel was preached to the dead.
6For to this end the Good News was preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in the spirit.
1 Peter 4:6 (WEB) · context
Why that answer falls short
Peter says the gospel was preached to people who are now dead; he does not say anyone is offered salvation after death, and Hebrews 9:27 rules that out. Neither passage mentions baptism by proxy.
Sources
- Doctrine and Covenants 128:15; 138:33; Alma 34:32-34 (churchofjesuschrist.org).