Divine services for the departed: for New Apostolic Christians this is generally a very personal and emotional affair. And there is a good reason for this. Here are questions and answers relating to our doctrine.
Divine services for the departed take place on the first Sunday of March, July, and November. This includes commemoration, prayer, intercession, and the dispensation of the sacraments. In those services conducted by the Chief Apostle and the District Apostles, two ministers receive Holy Baptism, Holy Sealing, and Holy Communion on behalf of the dead.
But is there really life after death?
The belief in the immortality of the soul only exists in rudimentary form in the Bible. It developed from the Old Testament to the New Testament, including its later writings (Apocrypha). It was only after the writings of the New Testament had been written that Greek and Jewish ideas merged into a Christian coexistence: a human being retains his or her personality after death. The condition of the souls depends on their proximity or distance from God.
Can the condition of souls still change?
This is what the majority of Christians profess: both Catholicism and Orthodoxy teach that there can be a development in the afterlife. Protestantism takes a different view: the Church Father Luther speaks of the “soul sleep”. The current theory of total death assumes the annihilation of the individual and its new creation in the resurrection.
Can our concept of the departed be justified from a biblical point of view?
The imparting of salvation to the dead is echoed by Scripture in three ways:
- God’s universal will to save. God wants all human beings to be saved. And Jesus Christ is Lord both over the living and the dead.
- the descent of Jesus into the realm of the dead to impart salvation. This notion can also be found in the Apostles’ Creed, one of the most important interdenominational creeds.
- baptism by or proxy in Corinth. Christians in Corinth were baptised on behalf of their departed relatives. Apostle Paul mentions this practice without criticising it, as he does in other cases.
Why does this have to happen in this world?
Jesus Christ set the example: He came to this earth to bring salvation. This has universal validity and therefore applies both in this world and the next. The Catechism states: “Just as Jesus Christ brought His sacrifice on earth, salvation is also imparted through the Apostles on earth. Since sacraments always have a visible component, they can also only be performed in the visible realm” (CNAC 9.6.3.)
Why are proxies necessary for this?
The principle of proxy is also referred to as the structural law of biblical salvation history. The song of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah—in which a righteous individual intercedes for guilty parties by bearing the consequences of their sins—constitutes the acme of this way of thinking. The principle is practised very differently depending on the denomination: in one case, an ordained pastor might slip into the role of Jesus Christ at the Lord’s Supper. In another, parents or godparents might profess belief in the Redeemer on behalf of the child being baptised. And New Apostolic Christians profess their belief that the principle of proxy serves both the dead and the living.
Is this not a somewhat isolated practice among Christians?
Other denominations also commemorate the dead and intercede for them in the sacramental context of Communion celebrations. Thus “Eucharistic celebrations with remembrance of the dead” have a fixed place in the calendar of Catholic parishes. And the Orthodox Church ascribes a special power to intercessions when they take place in the context of the Divine Liturgy (the Eucharist). During the cutting of the communion bread, a few particles are taken out to commemorate the dead.
And the famous German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer discussed proxy baptism in his 1942 essay on the question of baptism (“Zur Tauffrage”): “Why should such a conception of baptism not also give rise to such a custom as an extreme […] expression of the power of the sacrament?”
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