179 Washing Texts in the New Testament
In 1 Peter 3:21, Peter states, “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.” Without explaining baptism’s practice, Peter assumes that his readers understand it. By associating baptism with
salvation, Peter assumes that his readers understand baptism as belonging to the cluster of conversion events (cf. Acts 2:38).
100Peter compares the Christians to Noah and his family, a small group in the world, who nonetheless were preserved by God from judgment (v. 20).
101In fact, baptism is that which “corresponds to” ( antitypos ) Noah’s passing through the judgment waters of the flood to salvation on the other side. In the case of Peter’s audience, “The basis of their assurance [of salvation] is their baptism, for in baptism, they have appealed to God to give them a good conscience on the basis of the work of the crucified (v. 18) and risen (v. 21) Lord Jesus.”
102Just as new life came on the other side of the flood for Noah’s family, so resurrection comes on the other side of the believer’s submersion in water—corresponding to Jesus’ death, burial, and
resurrection.
103100 While Paul relates baptism to various aspects of salvation, he never claims that “baptism . . . saves.” However, the context helps distance Peter’s meaning from the notion that baptism itself is effectual for salvation. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 262. Addressing the issue of suffering among the exiles in several regions of Asia Minor (1:1-2), Peter’s purpose is to remind his readers not to fear suffering. Jesus suffered and gained victory over the enemy powers, and Peter assures his readers of their ultimate victory, because of Jesus’ work (vv. 18-22). First Pet 3:19 is difficult, but defending a particular view is beyond the scope of this study. The interpretation given above generally follows Thomas R. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, New American Commentary, vol. 37 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 184–90.
101 Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 180.
102 Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 180.While the water was not the instrument of Noah’s salvation, it was the form of judgment God used to destroy the wicked and from which God rescued his people (193). Because Peter so explicitly compares baptism to the flood, some have described baptism as a maledictory-oath sign. See Meredith G. Kline, By Oath Consigned: A Reinterpretation of the Signs of Circumcision and Baptism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 65–70. But see Garrett’s critique in “Meredith Kline on Suzerainty, Circumcision, and Baptism,” 275. If Peter viewed baptism as submersion under water, then the threat and picture of death reasonably carries over to baptism, which is the view taken here (Rom 6:3-5). See Allison, Sojourners and Strangers, 355–56.
103 Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 194. Given this context, two other brief points need to be made from Peter’s mention of baptism: (1) the relation of baptism to faith and (2) the nature of the appeal for or from a good conscience. Peter is not teaching that baptism saves in and of itself. First, Peter describes baptism as “not the removal of dirt from the body” (or flesh; sarx), but as an appeal to God. Therefore,
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Concerning baptism’s relationship to the new covenant and the kingdom in Peter, kingdom references abound in the immediate context. Peter speaks to those who, through appeal to Christ in baptism, look to Christ’s resurrection as the source of their own eventual resurrection. He tells them that Christ “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God” with all powers “subjected to him” (1 Pet 3:22). Schreiner notes the redemptive-historical sense of the phrase “baptism now saves you.” By contrast to Noah’s typological baptism, “‘now” refers to the present eschatological age of fulfillment.”
104Thus, these baptized exiles have entered into the saving reign of the resurrected king, David’s Lord (cf. Ps 110:1). Because ultimate victory is secured through the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, the baptized can endure trials “for a little while,”
with God’s guarding power, as they wait for the “revelation of Jesus’ Christ” at his return (1 Pet 1:5-7).
105baptism does not work to cleanse a sinner as a bath works to remove dirt, where the power of the cleansing lies in the water itself. See Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 195. So Grudem writes, “We could paraphrase,
‘Baptism now saves you–not the outward physical ceremony of baptism but the inward spiritual reality which baptism represents.’” Wayne Grudem, 1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentary, vol. 17 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 172. Instead of water saving, the power that saves is found “as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The power to save is found in the cross and resurrection. Thus, the connection of baptism to “saves” functions as a synecdoche of the sign of faith and conversion standing for the whole conversion process. Jamieson, Going Public, 43. As Caneday argues, “In this one verse Peter speaks of both the instrumental and efficient causes of salvation: ‘now baptism saves you . . . through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’” Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Cambell Restoration Movement,” 315. The meaning of the appeal (eperotema) to God is difficult to determine, because the word is used only here in the NT. The appeal may function as a request to God for cleansing at the deepest level based on Christ’s work (Heb 10:22; Acts 22:16), as a pledge and promise to God to maintain a good conscience as when one enters a contract, or as a pledge/confession of God from a good conscience. Schreiner opts for the first option, given the comparison to Hebrews. See Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 195. Beasley-Murray claims that
pledge/promise captures the sense best, but he does not decide between the latter two options above. See Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 261. Matthew Crawford surveys several key patristic sources (Didache, Cyril, etc.) and demonstrates that they viewed baptism as a pledge/confession from a good conscience, with ongoing obligations. See Matthew R. Crawford, “‘Confessing God from a Good Conscience': 1 Peter 3:21 and Early Christian Baptismal Theology,” The Journal of Theological Studies 67, no. 1 (2016): 36–37. Whatever the case, all three interpretations relate baptism to the baptizand’s trust of and commitment to Christ.
104 Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 194.
105 Kingdom references abound in 1 Peter, and baptism is the public sign of entry to Christ’s kingdom. Christians are exiles in hostile territory (1:1), because they already have an inheritance in heaven (v. 4) and believe in Jesus who “was manifest in the last times for the sake of you” (vv. 20-21).
Corporately, Christians are “royal priesthood” (2:9) who have “now . . . received mercy” (v. 10), and, as a result, become “God’s people.” If one asks when and how one moves out of the darkness and into this kingdom of Spirit-gifted priests (cf. 4:9-11), the answer has to be that sinners are “born again . . . by the
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That baptism functions as a sign of entry into the new covenant is evident in the phrase, “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” If Schreiner and Grudem are correct that appeal refers to a request to God for cleansing, then baptism signifies the new covenant by virtue of the promise of forgiveness through the Servant (1 Pet 1:19-20;
2:22-25; cf. Jer 31:34; Isa 53:3-5).
106If however, appeal is best understood as a pledge either from a good conscience or for a good conscience, baptism would serve as the public oath to depend upon Christ for entry into the new covenant and then walk according to its terms (cf. 1 Pet 2:9-12; 4:1-11).
107Baptism as a Kingdom and Covenant Sign
Summarizing baptism’s relationship to the inaugurated kingdom of Christ and the new covenant serves the thesis of this dissertation by specifying some of the
redemptive-historical data that will be used to compare baptism to circumcision in chapter 5. Thus, this section views baptism along both axes in turn.
Throughout the New Testament, baptism consistently functions as the new covenant sign of entry, or, as Jamieson describes it, baptism is an “initiating-oath sign”
and act of covenant ratification.
108Through baptism, the believer is reminded of God’s promises to her in Christ, publicly owns the covenant, and assents to personal faith in Christ. God’s action to affirm his promises to the believer comes through the responsible
living and abiding word of God” (1:23), “believed” in God “through [Jesus]” (v. 20-21), and appealed to God with respect to the cleansing of conscience publicly at baptism (3:21).
106 Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 195; Grudem, 1 Peter, 172. Similar to Peter’s call to “repent and be baptized . . . for the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 2:38) and Ananias’ urging of Paul to rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name,” the request for cleansing given through Christ and made formal and visible in baptism would function as a sign of entering the new covenant.
107 Beasley-Murray compares baptism to “an oath or pledge of service to join the military” and defines an oath as “a yes answer to the resurrected Lord.” Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 261.
108 Jamieson, Going Public, 61.
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participation and administration of the local new covenant community, as they call out the name of the triune God over the new disciple (Matt 28:19).
110Because the new disciple also personally affirms her trust in Christ in baptism, baptism bears resemblance to the covenant ratification ceremony of Exodus 24:1-11.
111Indeed, baptism formally seals the agreement between God and the believer and binds each to uphold their obligations.
112The believer enters the new covenant in two (logical) “moments” as it were.
113The first moment occurs when, by the Holy Spirit’s initiative through the instrumentality of gospel proclamation, a sinner believes in Jesus, the new covenant head and is justified (Rom 10:14; 2 Cor 4:6).
114The second moment occurs when the believer publicly enters the new covenant community of the local church through the act of baptism. By baptism, the new covenant community of the local church becomes visible and the universal body of Christ is manifested in space and time.
115The combination of faith and baptism in the formation of the covenant community comes as no surprise. “In a covenantal context,
110 This is the sense in which it is appropriate to speak of baptism as a seal. God acts through the administering church to affirm his promise to save through the death and burial of Christ. As Horton explains, “the concern of the sacraments . . . is God’s means of action: ratifying, assuring, attesting, confirming, and sealing the covenant promise not only to all people in general [as a public offer before a congregation that may contain unbelievers] . . . but to each recipient in particular.” Michael S. Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 109.
However, when Horton speaks of baptism having a “perlocutionary effect of the gospel promise” as a sign of “our inclusion in the covenant of grace,” this dissertation demurs. Instead of the covenant of grace, baptism in the NT is related to the new covenant specifically, which is the culmination of the one plan of God to redeem sinners (116). What Horton claims for adults who are new believers and their children, I am applying only to believers.
111 There, the people affirmed, “All the words the Lord has spoken we will do” (vv. 3, 7).
112 See Peter John Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical- Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 350; Saucy, The Church in God’s Program, 198; Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 376.
113 Jonathan Leeman, Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ’s Rule, Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016), 362.
114 The logical distinction between these moments provides a crucial part of the grounds for distinguishing the universal and local church. Leeman, Political Church, 316–28.
115 Leeman, Political Church, 362.
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signs do not merely represent or bring to mind an absent thing signified. . . . [Instead,]
words and signs together create a covenant.”
116The Lord’s intention has always been to purchase a people for himself, who operate in community under his lordship, rather than merely making a covenant with individuals (Tit 2:14; cf. Gen 17:1-11).
In the New Testament generally and most clearly in Acts 2:38-42, these two logical moments occur contemporaneously. Thus, whether a group of people become disciples and plant a church on the same day as in Acts 2, or a pre-existing church adds a new disciple to its fellowship, baptism is a constitutive act, an effective sign.
117As the entry sign of the new covenant, baptism is one of the divinely-appointed human actions (along with the Lord’s Supper) that creates the new covenant community of the local church. In this sense, baptism is the door to both the universal and local church. Normally speaking, baptism “confers membership.”
118Furthermore, it is an “obligation creating act,” whereby the new disciple becomes responsible for and to the other members of the local body of Christ.
119The obligation is entailed in that (1) baptism is the external means of appropriating union with Christ (Rom 6:3-4; Gal 3:26-27); union with Christ is
shorthand for all the blessings of the new covenant (Rom 6:3-4; Col 2:11-14); and all those who by faith in Christ are baptized are derivatively united with each other (Gal 3:26-28), with responsibilities for others who are united to Christ entailed by that union (1 Cor 11:17-34; Eph 4; Rom 12).
Leeman describes baptism provocatively as an official change from “subject”
of the kingdom to “citizen” of the kingdom.
120While all people on earth are rightly under
116 Horton, People and Place, 101.
117 Baptism is an effective sign “of church membership,” in the sense that it “creates the ecclesial reality to which it points.” Jamieson, Going Public, 100.
118 Jamieson, Going Public, 101.
119 Horton, People and Place, 102. This source is cited in Jamieson, Going Public, 72.
120 Leeman, Political Church, 215.