Does 1 Peter 3:21 teach that baptism is necessary for salvation?

"Scripture speaks of baptism as a 'figure,'" says J. J. "'The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us' (1 Peter 3:20). A figure is not efficacious in itself. It is a figure of something else which is efficacious." This is simple enough, surely. It is a figure of salvation; and a figure cannot really save.

Water, which was the very thing that was the death of the world, saved Noah. "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us." Not baptism but that of which baptism is the figure.

It is not the answer of a good conscience here, but the request of a good conscience, because the moment a soul is quickened it wants to know how it can stand before God in righteousness. Well, Peter says, this is how you get it. It is not the purgation of any evil by ourselves, but Christ died and put our sins away. In baptism death is accepted. Like Noah, the believer is on the other side of death and judgment.

Baptists whilst making so much of baptism for believers only, generally say "of course baptism does not save". How does this stand in the light of the Lord's own words already referred to in Mark 16, "He that believes and is baptised shall be saved". Note also Acts 2:38, 40-41, "Save yourselves ... they that gladly received his word were baptised". See also 1 Peter 3:21 "The like figure whereunto baptism doth now save us". So there is salvation by baptism!

Baptism is Christ's institution representing dying - in a figure, and is the appointed way for a Jew or a Gentile to get out of his native sphere of Judaism or Paganism and to enter into the faith - Christianity, that divine system, set up of God, on earth. The salvation for the Jew, by baptism, was to be brought out of his place over which the governmental judgment of God was hanging. The salvation is governmental and not eternal and heavenly as I have before said. When the testimony of Peter had been heard on the day of Pentecost, the hearers said. "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter's answer was, "Repent and be baptised everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord your God shall call". Notice this "... unto your children" and then, "And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation". The outcome was that they that "gladly received his word were baptised".

On the day of Pentecost Peter exhorted the anxious enquirers saying, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation;" and those who received his word were baptized. In his first Epistle he again speaks of baptism as saving us. What is this salvation which baptism effects?

[2] In this context, baptism saves us from a corrupt generation and places us (our physical bodies) under the leadership and authority of Christ who died and who left this condition of things, Acts 2:38, 40; 1 Pet. 3:21.

Verse 40 assures us that Peter spoke much more than is recorded here, but specially stressing that they save themselves from this perverse generation. By being baptized they saved themselves from identification with the generation that was guilty of the rejection of Christ. In this way baptism saves: it does not save souls.

It is salvation from "this untoward generation," as Peter said. Another translation puts it, "Be saved from this perverse generation." Now baptism is, in one word, dissociation. It is only an outward ordinance, yet it has a meaning: and that is its meaning. It is based upon the death and resurrection of Christ, for we are "baptized into His death," (Rom. 6:3), and so we are "buried with Him" (Col. 2:12). Nothing more effectively dissociates us from the present order of things, cutting our links with the world, than death and burial.

The particular point that Peter makes, both in his sermon and his epistle, is that baptism cut the link between the repentant and believing Jews and the unrepentant and unbelieving mass of that nation. That lies upon the surface of Acts 2, and is involved, we believe, in 1 Peter 3:21; for his epistle was addressed to believing Jews. He tells them that baptism is a "like figure" to the waters of the flood that of old cut the link between believing Noah with his house and the world of the ungodly. Noah and his house had been saved "by" or "through" the water from the ruin and death that came in upon the godless earth. Those to whom Peter wrote had been saved through baptism from the godless mass of their nation. They suffered much from the ungodly mass but they were saved from their fate, whether in this life, at the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the world to come.

When a big ship is sinking, it is not enough to let down small boats by ropes and then get into them. Unless the ropes are cut there will be no salvation. Baptism cuts the ropes, and in that sense saves.

As a result of this ante-diluvian testimony of the Spirit of Christ only eight souls were saved through the waters of the flood; a tiny handful that, the merest remnant of the former age. Now baptism, which is but a figure, has just that force. The flood cut off that little remnant of the antediluvian age that through the waters of death they might be disassociated from the old world and enter the new. The converted Jews to whom Peter wrote were exactly in that position. They, too, were but a small remnant, and in their baptism they were dissociated from the mass of their nation that was under wrath and judgment, that they might come under the authority of their risen and glorified Messiah. Baptism is in figure dissociation by means of death and in that sense it saves. The Jews as a nation were like a foundering ship, and to be baptized was to formally cut one's last link with them which meant salvation from their national doom. Hence Peter's words in Acts 2:40. "Save yourself from this untoward generation." What followed? "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized."

How thankful we should be that judgment fell, not upon us but upon our gracious Saviour, just as the death-waters fell, not upon Noah but upon the ark. The whole episode is likened to baptism in 1 Peter 3:21, or rather, baptism is likened to it. The first mention of Christian baptism being administered is in Acts 2, where it is connected with the word, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation." The passing through death in a figure, and thus cutting all links with old associations is, we believe, the main thought in baptism. All Noah's links with the old world were cut by the baptism of the flood. Peter wrote to converted Jews, who had been severed by baptism from the mass of their nation, and thus saved from the governmental judgments about to fall on it. For us Gentiles baptism has the same significance, severing us — if we understand it and are practically true to it — from the world which is rushing on to judgment. Are we true to what baptism means?

Therefore at Pentecost in the initial proclamation of the Gospel, the Apostle Peter abjured his hearers in the words, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation." (Acts 2:40). The outward symbol of that process would be that they would submit themselves to the rite of baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Hence the salvation symbolised by the act could not relate to heaven, since it was antecedent to the reception of the Holy Ghost. Of necessity it must have applied to earth.