Baptism Saves

The phrase “Baptism Saves” got one of my friends into trouble. He attended a church where the pastor’s wife didn’t believe in baptism and wasn’t baptized. My friend started a fight over that, and he had to leave the church eventually.

Peter’s emphasis was on God’s patience.

“The patience of God waited in the days of Noah by preparing an ark in which only a few – eight souls – entered and were rescued during the flood.” (1 Pet 3:20)

Scholars say that it took Noah roughly 120 years to build that ark. It was a human lifetime then (Gen 6:3), now an impossible age. The entire time, people had the chance to repent and escape dying in the flood. But they chose not to believe, repent, and escape. God’s patience waited 120 years while Christ preached to them through the Spirit (1 Pet 3:19).

Peter used a preposition, dia, that translations translate as “by water” (KJV), “through water” (ESV, NIV), “by means of water” (CJB), or “in water” (GNV). But the water didn’t save the eight people; the ark did during the flood. On rare occasions, dia meant during (e.g., during sleep, διά ύπνος, Dan 4:33). God’s patience saved the eight that trusted his word and entered the ark during the disastrous flood.

As such, Noah’s flood became an anti-type (an opposite, not a type) to baptism. Unlike the flood’s destruction, baptism rescued people,

“Not by removing the dirt from the flesh but by giving a good conscience, a defense before God, because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet 3:21)

A regular wash or bath could remove dirt from one’s body, but the baptism that apostles taught wasn’t a washing or bathing but a symbolic act of pouring or immersing that testified the receiver had a good conscience, a defense before God because of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Just as Peter began by emphasizing God’s patience, he concluded by emphasizing God’s peace because of Jesus Christ’s resurrection that gave a defense for the people – a law court imagery.

Symbols were physical and visible representations of spiritual and invisible truths. Circumcision, for example, was the removal of a small skin from men that symbolized their obedience to YHWH God. But a person could have circumcision and the pride of being a Hebrew and not obey YHWH God. That was why Paul said, “A person is a hidden Hebrew when the Spirit circumcises his/her heart” (Rom 2:29).

Similarly, a person could take baptism in pretense, i.e., continue to live as a person who hadn’t trusted in Christ’s resurrection and doesn’t have a good conscience or defense before God. Baptism doesn’t save a person any more than circumcision by itself didn’t make a Hebrew unaccountable before God.

In India, baptism often alienates new converts from their Hindu or Muslim families. Sometimes, they even lose their jobs or properties. Some teachers and pastors say that’s the cost of discipleship. Others are flexible and don’t demand converts to take water baptism. Since baptism doesn’t save someone, perhaps we can be flexible to allow baptism where it doesn’t harm the recipient or his/her testimony within the family and not demand when it does. What matters is not the removal of the dirt on the body but the cleansing of one’s inner conscience and defense before God, both of which come from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.