“He lives, and I shall conquer death” (Samuel Medley, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”). One of the most challenging set of seeming contradictions to try and reconcile is the fact that a) God loves all of His children; b) all who enter the Kingdom of Heaven must repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ; and c) the overwhelming majority of all of the people who have ever lived will have neither heard of nor been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. How can God love all of His children yet save such a tiny portion of them from the clutches of death and hell merely because all of the rest had the bad luck to be born in a time and place without any opportunity to be baptized by one having authority of God? Paul says “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26). But then Paul goes on to expand, “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?” (1 Corinthians 15:29). When we perform vicarious ordinances for the dead, then we are conquering death. We are balancing the scales of justice and helping at least one more person have an equal chance to enter the Kingdom of Heaven who might not have gotten the opportunity while they were alive. We cannot stand idly by and let death win. Billions and billions may have died before they had the chance to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and take the necessary steps to be saved, but we can join in the good fight against death to save as many of them as we can. “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:54-58). Our labor is not in vain. Death will not have the final victory. Not if each of us do our part to conquer death.
