El Mormonismo y los Templos/El bautismo por los muertos/Auténtica práctica cristiana

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El bautismo por los muertos como una auténtica práctica cristiana antigua

Saltar a subtema:

• Pregunta: ¿Qué es el bautismo por los muertos?
• Pregunta: ¿Están los muertos "bautizados en la fe mormona"?
• Pregunta: ¿La práctica del bautismo por los muertos tiene raíces antiguas?
• Pregunta: ¿La Biblia condena la investigación genealógica?
• Pregunta: ¿El templo funciona como una forma de "adoración a los antepasados"?
• Charles Penrose (1912): "Bautismo por los muertos: ¿cómo sabemos para cuál de nuestros parientes difuntos se debe bautizar?"
• D. Todd Christofferson (1998): "El principio del servicio vicario no debería parecerle extraño a ningún cristiano"

Pregunta: ¿Qué es el bautismo por los muertos?

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

Proxy baptism is a way to provide redemption for those who died without hearing the Gospel

Explained Elder G. Todd Christopherson:

Christian theologians have long wrestled with the question, What is the destiny of the countless billions who have lived and died with no knowledge of Jesus? There are several theories concerning the “unevangelized” dead, ranging from an inexplicable denial of salvation, to dreams or other divine intervention at the moment of death, to salvation for all, even without faith in Christ. A few believe that souls hear of Jesus after death. None explain how to satisfy Jesus’ requirement that a man must be born of water and spirit to enter the kingdom of God (see John 3:3-5). Lacking the knowledge once had in the early Church, these earnest seekers have been “forced to choose between a weak law that [allows] the unbaptized to enter heaven, and a cruel God who [damns] the innocent.”

With the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ has come the understanding of how the unbaptized dead are redeemed and how God can be “a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.”

While yet in life, Jesus prophesied that He would also preach to the dead [see John 5:25]. Peter tells us this happened in the interval between the Savior’s Crucifixion and Resurrection [see 1 Peter 3:18-19]...

Pregunta: ¿Están los muertos "bautizados en la fe mormona"?

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

The ordinance is provided but is only contingent upon the dead accepting it

Some have misunderstood and suppose that deceased souls “are being baptised into the Mormon faith without their knowledge” or that “people who once belonged to other faiths can have the Mormon faith retroactively imposed on them.” They assume that we somehow have power to force a soul in matters of faith. Of course, we do not. God gave man his agency from the beginning. (See fn11) “The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,” but only if they accept those ordinances. The Church does not list them on its rolls or count them in its membership.

Our anxiety to redeem the dead, and the time and resources we put behind that commitment, are, above all, an expression of our witness concerning Jesus Christ. It constitutes as powerful a statement as we can make concerning His divine character and mission. It testifies, first, of Christ’s Resurrection; second, of the infinite reach of His Atonement; third, that He is the sole source of salvation; fourth, that He has established the conditions for salvation; and, fifth, that He will come again.

Pregunta: ¿La práctica del bautismo por los muertos tiene raíces antiguas?

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

There is considerable evidence that some early Christians and some Jewish groups performed proxy ordinance work for the salvation of the dead

The most obvious of these is 1 Corinthians 15:29:

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?

Attempts to shrug this off as a reference by Paul to a practice he does not condone but only uses to support the doctrine of the resurrection are indefensible. Paul's statement makes no sense unless the practice was valid and the saints in Corinth knew it. This is easily demonstrated if we just imagine a young Protestant, who doubts the resurrection, who goes to his pastor with his problem. The pastor answers him, saying, "But what about the Mormons who baptize for the dead? If the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the dead?" You know what the young doubter would say. He would say, "Pastor, they're Mormons! What's your point?"

In fact, we know that baptism for the dead was practiced for a long time in the early church. As John A. Tvedtnes has noted:

... historical records are clear on the matter. Baptism for the dead was performed by the dominant church until forbidden by the sixth canon of the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397. Some of the smaller sects, however, continued the practice. Of the [Cerinthians] of the fourth century, Epiphanius wrote:

“In this country—I mean Asia—and even in Galatia, their school flourished eminently and a traditional fact concerning them has reached us, that when any of them had died without baptism, they used to baptize others in their name, lest in the resurrection they should suffer punishment as unbaptized.” (Heresies, 8:7.)

Thus, baptism for the dead was banned about four hundred years after Christ by the church councils. Latter-day Saints would see this as an excellent example of the apostasy—church councils altering doctrine and practice that was accepted at an earlier date.

Tvedtnes continues:

In early Judaism, too, there is an example of ordinances being performed in behalf of the dead. Following the battle of Marisa in 163 B.C., it was discovered that each of the Jewish soldiers killed in the fight had been guilty of concealing pagan idols beneath his clothing. In order to atone for their wrong, Judas Maccabaeus, the Jewish high priest and commander, collected money from the survivors to purchase sacrificial animals for their dead comrades:

“And when he had made a gathering throughout the company to the sum of two thousand drachmas of silver, he sent it to Jerusalem to offer a sin offering, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection: for if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly, it was an holy and good thought. Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.” (2 Maccabees 12:43–46.)

Pregunta: ¿La Biblia condena la investigación genealógica?

La biblia no condena todas la genealogias. pero, si rechaza el uso de ellas para "probar" su integridad, o la verdad de unas enseñanzas

Se afirma que la Biblia condena la Genealogia, y no obstante la practica de los santos de los Ultimos Dias de la recopilacion de historia familiar es anti biblica, a menudo citando 1 Timoteo 1:4 o Tito 3:9.

La biblia no condena todas la genealogias. pero, si rechaza el uso de ellas para "probar" su integridad, o la verdad de unas enseñanzas. Tambien rechaza el uso apostata el cual algunos cristianos ponen la genealogia. También rechaza los usos apóstatas a los cuales algunos cristianos ponen genealogía en algunas variedades de gnosticismo.

Los Santos de los Últimos Días participan en el trabajo de genealogía para que puedan continuar la práctica bíblica, también respaldada por Pablo

Los Santos de los Últimos Días participan en el trabajo de genealogía para que puedan continuar la práctica bíblica, también respaldada por Pablo, de proveer ordenanzas vicarias para los muertos, como el bautismo (ver 1 Corintios 15:29) para que la expiación de Cristo esté disponible A todos los que lo eligieran, vivos o muertos. Ver: Bautismo por los muertos

La Biblia claramente no rechaza el uso de la genealogia

Esto puede ser visto atravez de las muchas listas genealogicas, incluyendo dos listas para el mismo Jesucristo. (ver Mateo 1:1–24 y Lucas 3:23–38.)

La condenacion de las "genealogias" en Timoteo y tito se dieron porque:

• los cristianos persibieron una tendencia judia a estar pre-ocupado por "decendencia pura" como calificacion para poseer el sacerdocio. si solamente los desendientes puros de Levi podian poseer el sacerdocio, habian interminables preocupaciones acerca de los herederos desde pablo considerban que el Sacerdocio Aaronico habia sido superpuesto por Jesucristo, el gran sumo sacderdote como Melquisedec (ver Hebreos 5), esto posiblemente los llevo a estar desorientados.
• Algunos judios escribas y otros maestros clamaban que sus "tradiciones" decendian directamente de Moises, josue, o algun otro lider prominente, y eso era superior al evangelio crristiano.
• Algunas sectas gnosticas se han envuelto en registros de decendientes de los Aeons (superior a las 365 "generaciones" en un esquema) y otras variaciones misticas o paganas.

Ya que todas estas genealogias eran especulativas o fabricadas, ellas podian sser interminables, y crear debates desorientados. Pero Pablo tenia la Fe (en Cristo) el cual construyo ("edifico") testimonios y vidas.

Pregunta: ¿El templo funciona como una forma de "adoración a los antepasados"?

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

Baptism for the dead does not in any way represent "ancestor worship"

Critics Jerald and Sandra Tanner claim that Church members' "obsession with the dead approaches very close to ancestral worship." In support of this, they quote Elder Adney Y. Komatsu, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, Ensign May 1976, p.102. The critics wish to show that baptism for the dead is a form of "ancestor worship." In order to accomplish this, they extract phrases from a story told by Elder Komatsu about a couple that wished to be married, but were denied permission by the boy's parents. The use of genealogical research was the key that opened the door to allowing the couple to eventually be married. The authors carefully extract the phrases that they want to use, thereby making it impossible to see what Elder Komatsu was actually talking about. Baptism for the dead does not in any way represent "ancestor worship," and the authors had to search pretty hard to find a quote that they could butcher sufficiently to support this conclusion.

Reference	Original quote...	Mined quote...	Use of sources
The Changing World of Mormonism p. 517. "This obsession with the dead approaches very close to ancestral worship."	Elder Adney Y. Komatsu, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, Ensign May 1976, p.102

Charles Penrose (1912): "Bautismo por los muertos: ¿cómo sabemos para cuál de nuestros parientes difuntos se debe bautizar?"

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

Charles W. Penrose, "Peculiar Questions Briefly Answered," Improvement Era Vol. 15, Num. 11 (September 1912):

Question 12: Baptism for the dead—How do we know which of our deceased relatives are to be baptized for, and how do we know when we are to be baptized for them?
Answer: If instead of "we" the questioner had used the word "you," we would answer: Often by personal revelation, always by the law of kindred and genealogy, and the direction of those divinely appointed to administer the ordinances commanded.

D. Todd Christofferson (1998): "El principio del servicio vicario no debería parecerle extraño a ningún cristiano"

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

D. Todd Christofferson:

The principle of vicarious service should not seem strange to any Christian. In the baptism of a living person, the officiator acts, by proxy, in place of the Savior. And is it not the central tenet of our faith that Christ’s sacrifice atones for our sins by vicariously satisfying the demands of justice for us? As President Gordon B. Hinckley has expressed: “I think that vicarious work for the dead more nearly approaches the vicarious sacrifice of the Savior Himself than any other work of which I know. It is given with love, without hope of compensation, or repayment or anything of the kind. What a glorious principle.