by Richard Shin

Other than his sermon on the Day of Pentecost (which we looked at a couple weeks ago), there’s another passage in which we see Peter emphasizing the importance of baptism. The passage comes from Peter’s first epistle to the believers who were being persecuted throughout the ancient world:

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
1 Peter 3:21-22

At first glance, it seems rather odd, or even heretical, that Peter would teach that baptism saves the sinner from God’s wrath. We know today that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration (salvation through baptism) isn’t uncommon. Incidentally, the two verses most often used to support this heresy are from Peter (Acts 2:38 and 1 Peter 3:21). It definitely seems consistent in that Peter would teach the same doctrine in the beginning and towards the end of his ministry.

But is this really what he was teaching? To understand what Peter was instructing in 1 Peter 3:21, we have to first understand that there are a number of ways the Bible uses symbolic language to portray things which are mediated through for salvation. An example of this was looked at in the series of the Lord’s Supper. Specifically, in Matt. 26:27-28, when Jesus commands His disciples to “drink” His blood, he wasn’t literally telling them to drink His blood. Through a metaphor, Jesus called the wine His blood, which needed to be poured out in order for God to forgive us of our sins. When we eat the bread and drink the wine, we call to mind that He alone is the true bread and His blood is the true drink, and it is only by them that we have eternal life. Metaphorically, the cup and the bread procure eternal life. Likewise, Peter’s teaching in 1 Peter 3:21 metaphorically speaks the power of our salvation through the ordinance of baptism.

We also have to understand the context in which Peter wrote this epistle. As mentioned above, Peter was writing to those who were being persecuted for their faith (1 Peter 1:1-2). As such, the epistle is replete with references to suffering (e.g. 1 Peter 2:19-25; 3:14, 17-18; 4:13, 16, 19) and the hope we have in Christ (e.g. 1 Peter 1:3, 13, 21; 3:15). He even exhorts fellow brethren to rejoice in their suffering, that they ought to consider it a privilege to suffer for the sake of the gospel (1 Peter 4:16-19). Given this broader context, we can understand a little better why Peter wrote that baptism “saves.”

We have to first understand that Christ bore all our sins when He hung on that cross. The text in 1 Peter 3:21-22 says that the baptism did not remove “dirt,” or “sin.” Rather, we know that God has dropped His charges of condemnation against us because of Christ. Baptism represents the confident reliance on the judgment that Christ took for us, which judgment becomes our salvation. As a clear symbol of the saving reality, baptism stands as a perpetual witness to the historical substance of salvation and because of that connection is said to save us.