which figure also now saves you, [even] baptism, not a putting away of [the] filth of flesh, but [the] demand as before God of a good conscience, by [the] resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Peter has just spoken of the flood. Then he says something that has troubled readers ever since: baptism "now saves you." Two questions follow — saved from what, and how can water do anything at all?
Baptism as the answering figure
Peter links the flood to baptism with a word often translated "antitype." One writer says that word does not make baptism the reality itself.
The word plainly means, as in Hebrews, "figure," or, more fully, "answering figure." Older versions give it as "like figure." Its simple force seems to be a figure that answers to the facts. So we can understand why the apostle says that baptism, as such a figure, "saves." Baptism expresses the thing that does save — a matching reality in the soul.
What the water saved Noah from
The flood carried Noah out of a doomed world into a new one. Commentators read baptism the same way for Peter's first readers.
The flood cut off that little remnant of the age before it. Through the waters of death they left the old world behind and entered the new. The converted Jews to whom Peter wrote were in exactly that position. They too were only a small remnant. Their baptism separated them from the mass of their nation, which lay under wrath and judgment, so that they might come under the authority of their risen and glorified Messiah. Baptism is, in figure, separation by means of death, and in that sense it saves.
The same picture reaches past those first readers:
The baptism of the flood cut all Noah's links with the old world. For us Gentiles baptism has the same meaning. It separates us — if we understand it and are true to it in practice — from the world which is rushing on to judgment. Are we true to what baptism means?
The clause that guards the meaning
Peter blocks the misuse of his own sentence. He adds that this is not about washing dirt off the body.
Peter is careful here, to guard against a superstitious twisting of his words. He says "not the putting away the filth of the flesh" — washing dirt away was all that water could do. What a good conscience asks God for is salvation by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For He was given up for our sins and raised again for our justification. So we have acceptance in Him.
Whatever baptism pictures, it does not give new life.
Baptism has its place of deep interest and importance. But Scripture never credits it with giving life. That is a very old and stubborn error in the Christian world.
A request, not a reply
Older versions read "answer of a good conscience." Writers here take the word the other way round: the conscience asks God for something, rather than answering Him.
The word is a little difficult, but I believe its force is this: it is what the conscience wants and asks God for. Now, when the Holy Spirit touches a conscience, what satisfies it? Nothing less than acceptance in righteousness before God. And that is the very position baptism sets out.
Another writer keeps the distinction practical. Baptism voices the demand; it does not supply the answer.
It expressed the desire or demand of a good conscience — it does not itself give a good conscience, but since baptism is "unto Christ," it points to Him who does give a good conscience.
Why resurrection ends the verse
The verse does not stop at conscience. It ends with the resurrection of Jesus.
We never see salvation stated in its real force apart from resurrection. You may find in death what meets guilt, but salvation is never less than the power of resurrection, and never separable from it. Peter did not mean the mere outward act of baptism. That could save nobody. But what baptism represents does save. It declares that the Christian has a new place and standing — not in the first Adam at all, but in the Second, in the presence of God — as man without sin, accepted according to the acceptance of Christ before God.
Who the "you" are
Notice too whom Peter is addressing.
Salvation does not work apart from faith. Peter may tell us that baptism "now saves you" (1 Peter 3:21), but note the word "you" — and the "you" are believers.
Summary
- Figure — the word behind "corresponds to this" means an answering figure, not the reality. Baptism pictures what saves.
- Separation — the flood cut Noah's every link with the old world. Baptism marks a person off from a world under judgment.
- Not water — Peter's own words rule out any power in the washing. Scripture never traces new life to baptism.
- Request — baptism asks God for a good conscience; it does not produce one. It points to the One who gives it.
- Resurrection — salvation is never stated apart from the risen Christ. That is where the verse lands.