{77} A question now arises as to how it is possible for the dead to comply with the terms of the Gospel and do in the spirit what they had failed to do in the flesh. The exercise of faith and the manifestation of repentance by disembodied spirits may offer no great difficulty to human understanding; but that the dead shall obey the ordinances of the Gospel requiring water-baptism and the baptism of the Spirit by the authorized laying-on of hands, appears to many as truly impossible as seemed the new birth to Nicodemus. He listened in amazement to the Savior's words: "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God;" and asked: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" At last he learned that the new birth referred to was baptism by water and the baptism of the Spirit. With equal pertinency it may now be asked: How can a man be baptized when he is dead? Can he enter the second time into his body of flesh and be immersed in water by human agency? The answer is that the necessary ordinances may be performed for the dead by their living representatives, the mortal subject acting as proxy for the departed one. Thus, even as a man may be baptized in his own person for himself, he may be baptized as proxy for and in behalf of the dead. The validity of vicarious service, in which one person acts in behalf of another, is generally recognized as an element of human institutions; and that such service may be acceptable unto God is attested by the written word. Ancient and modern scripture, the record of {78} history other than sacred, the traditions of tribes and nations, the rites of bloody sacrifice, and even the sacrificial abominations of pagan idolatry, involve the essential conception of vicarious propitiation and of service rendered by proxy. The scape-goat[33] and the altar victim[34] in the Mosaic dispensation, when offered by constituted authority and with due accompaniment of acknowledgment and repentance, were accepted by the Lord as sacrifices in mitigation of the sins of His people. The most significant sacrifice of all, the greatest work ever wrought amongst mankind, the pivotal event in human history, the supreme achievement which was at once the most glorious consummation and the most blessed beginning, is the Atonement of Christ; and this was pre-eminently a vicarious offering. No one who believes that Jesus died for man can doubt the validity and efficacy of vicarious ministration. He gave His life as a fore-ordained sacrifice, voluntarily offered and duly accepted as a propitiation for broken law, and the means by which salvation was made possible unto man. That His death was literally an accepted offering in behalf of human kind is thus set forth in the words of the resurrected Christ, given through modern revelation: