You fishermen know that the best way to catch fish is to use some sort of bait or other enticement. The enemies of Truth – those who are trying to catch souls – usually use a little bit of bait as well. And like the lure which resembles a fish or some other food, heretics often take the scripture and dress it up to look really enticing, before they hide their hook inside. This morning, I’d like to examine one of those spiritual fishing lures.
After speaking of the Saviour’s death on the cross “that He might bring us to God,” Peter refers to Christ’s preaching to the people during the days when Noah’s ark was under construction. As we have seen in an earlier message, some of those enemies of Truth, have taken Peter’s words and used them to teach Purgatory or a second chance for salvation from sin. Why would they do that? As they say in criminal investigations: “Follow the money.” Purgatory has been financially profitable to those who teach it. And those churches which offer second chance salvation can also hook people into financial obligations. In addition to these two, there is another false doctrine taken from the last few verses of this chapter.
It takes two twists of logic and a denial of other scriptures, but some people say that Peter teaches that people are saved from their sins through water baptism. I am here to tell you that this is not true, and it is not what Peter is telling us. Let’s consider this subject by addressing three points: the baptism of Noah, the salvation of Noah and the illustration of Noah.
We’ll start with the SALVATION of Noah.
This Noah was the grandson of Methuselah, the great grandson of godly Enoch. He was in the ninth generation after Adam. He was in the lineage of the man God first created. Noah was a middle-aged man when Enoch died, so you can be reasonably sure that after four hundred years of opportunity he knew his great grandfather quite well. Also, I have no doubt that Enoch described to Noah the personal conversations he had with elderly Adam. Those people lived incredibly long lives back then, while the curse for sin was intensifying.
As a descendent of Adam, Noah was a sinner like all the rest of us. The Apostle Paul tells us, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” – Romans 5:12. Adam died at the age of 930 because he chose to become a sinner. And his son, Seth, died because he was born a sinner. So did all the others in Noah’s lineage, including Enoch and eventually Methuselah.
During the ages in which God graciously blessed and protected the line of Adam to Noah, other members of the human race were not so blessed, following their sinful flesh and becoming more and more wicked. Eventually, “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Indeed, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” because we are all the children of Adam. And, “It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth… for it repenteth me that I have made them.” As Romans 6:23 tells us, “The wages of sin is death.”
Then Genesis 6:9 reveals, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Noah was a redeemed man, a chosen and saved man of God; a saint of the Lord. That was a chapter before, and decades before, he entered the ark which saved him from the flood. Noah was not saved from his sin nature, and he was not washed of the effects of his sins, by the ark or by the washing of the water of the flood. He was saved by grace through faith, something not of himself, because it was the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Water didn’t put Noah into the ark, saving him from God’s judgment. God put him into the ark. And not a drop of rain or a swirl of the flood waters touched him, so it is safe to say that Noah’s baptism did not literally save him from his sin.
Noah was saved the same way that every other saint of God has been saved: by grace through faith. Paul asked, “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? What saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, to whom God imputeth righteousness without works… Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. It is of faith, that it might be by grace” – Romans 4. Noah was saved by God’s grace just like everyone who has ever been saved.
But Peter mentions that the BAPTISM of Noah? What about that?
First of all, it needs to be pointed out that Noah was not physically baptized; unlike his neighbors. It is quite likely that not a single drop of water touched him, except for what he threw on to his body to wash now and then. However, the rest of the people of earth were immersed in water – thoroughly dipped in the flood waters. You could logically say that their baptism killed them. Like the doctrine of baptismal salvation, their immersion sent them condemned into eternity.
I have already pointed out that God the Father commented on the condition of the people of the world. The Lord Jesus later added another comment or two. God said “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Then Jesus added, “They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all” – Luke 17:27. In other words, they were probably religious – at least when it came to the “sacrament” of marriage. They were horribly wicked in other ways, but that wickedness, as it is today, was so common in their society that it had become as casual as getting out of bed in the morning. God, the righteous judge, resolved to destroy humanity, because of the people’s sin.
But Jehovah came to Noah, giving to him the blue prints and the commission to build a huge barge – the ark. He said, “and this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of…” The deliverance of God’s chosen people was not left to chance or to their fickle minds. I’m sure that we have only the Readers’ Digest version of those plans; there was much, much more. Noah took the details directly from the heart of God, and he believed God with all his own heart. “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith” – Hebrews 11:7. “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” “And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth” – (Gen. 7:1, 10).
Now correct me if I am wrong here. Noah was saved from the flood and not actually by the flood. Isn’t that correct? He was saved from the water, not by the water. Is that true or not? Forget for a moment what Peter may or may not have meant in writing to the brethren in Asia. Noah was NOT actually saved by the water. As the judgment of God fell on the wicked people of the world, Noah, the sinner whom God had already declared to be righteous, was sequestered inside the means of salvation which God designed for him. Noah was saved by the ark, but it wasn’t a deliverance from his sins. It was deliverance from God’s physical judgment on those whom the Lord had not saved.
Furthermore, am I correct in repeating that not a drop of water touched Noah or his family? And yet Peter says, “Eight souls were saved by water,” and then he refers to “baptism.” Of course, Peter’s use of the word “baptism” refers to an immersion; not sprinkling or scooping up water to pour out onto someone’s head. “Immersion” is the only definition and explanation of word “baptism.” When the rains began and the fountains of the great deep were broken up, the ark floated in the water, but the water didn’t enter the ark. And as the rains continued for forty days, the roof of the ark constantly shed that water into the sea. So there was a sense in which Noah was surrounded by the waters of the flood. He was immersed in water although he was protected from the water by the ark. He was baptized metaphorically, not actually. And without a doubt, as Peter says, that water did not wash away the filth of his flesh. The smell of all those animals may have covered Noah and his family each and every day, and he may have washed it off with water, but it was not the baptismal waters which cleansed them.
There are people who think that when they are baptized, either by immersion, sprinkling or pouring, they become new creatures in Christ. They believe that they are somehow spiritually changed or at the very least improved. But unless I am mistaken, Noah was not in any spiritual way changed during his cruise aboard the ark. Yes, he was somewhat older once he disembarked, and he probably needed to get rid of his sea legs once he stepped out onto dry land, but he was the same man. If you want to call his months in the ark his baptism, then that baptism didn’t produce very much personally.
Was Noah baptized during his cruise? Yes, he was, but only as a metaphor or ILLUSTRATION.
Theologian T.P. Simmons wrote, “This passage is truly a boomerang in the hands of those who believe that baptism has something to do with accomplishing salvation. Because it says that baptism saves us, these (Baptismal Regeneration) people hasten to invoke this passage; but it says too much to be of any real service to them. The passage truly says that baptism saves, but it tells just how and in what sense it saves.” It saves, “only in the same sense that the water of the flood saved the occupants of the ark.”
The word “figure” in verse 21 is “antitupon” (an-teet’-oo-pon). It is an anti-type. By definition that means: baptism represents or pictures something else. In this case it is salvation. Baptism doesn’t actually save the person being baptized, but it represents baptism and how that person has been saved. It is a figure; only a figure or representation.
Again, let’s not forget the context of Peter’s words. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” The cleansing agent for sin is not water, not even holy water or baptismal water, but rather it is the blood of the Lord Jesus which He shed at Calvary. Following His death, the body of Christ was placed in a tomb for a short while, and after that He was resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, before ascending into heaven. Baptism is an “antitupon” (an-teet’-oo-pon) by which the person who has been saved from his sin, testifies to the world that Christ died, was buried and then rose again. Baptism, in essence, declares, “I died in Christ, and my old life has been buried, but now I have a new life.” I am “a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” – II Cor. 5:17.
It took a very long time for Noah and his sons to build their life-saving ark. Any time someone from outside the family came by and saw the construction their eyes told them that judgment is coming, but salvation is available. Sadly, their minds didn’t believe their eyes, and their hearts rejected the message. The ark was of God’s design, but it became the sinner’s scorn. The people laughed at foolish Noah. Whenever a person is scripturally baptized, he testifies to the world that judgment is coming, but there is salvation in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. The preaching of that message, the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But the truth is: Christ… “hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”
Conclusion:
Now, having said that baptism doesn’t wash away sin, Peter still tells us that “baptism doth also save us.” But in the same breath he tells us it has nothing to do with the putting away of the filth of the flesh. Rather it supplies the “answer of a good conscience toward God.” This is the only time in the Greek New Testament where this word “answer” is used, so we can’t compare this verse with others. We are limited to the definitions of the lexicons and other experts. And W.E. Vine, for example, tells us that the word was used by the Greeks in a legal sense. He says that baptism is the “ground of an appeal” by a good conscience against wrong doing. Baptism is a statement to the world that a person’s conscience is clear in the sight of the all-knowing God. Peter lets us know that baptism is extremely important – as an expression of our salvation through Christ.
When people are born again, their lives are turned 180 degrees. And in the early days of Christianity, the Jews, for example, hated those converts to Christ, and we see in the Bible that they tried to kill Christ’s people. Later the unbelieving heathens picked up their swords, persecuting God’s children. Under those circumstances, it became a demand by the already suffering saints that new believers be baptized as an illustration and explanation of their good conscience toward God. There are other reasons to be baptized, such as the command of God, but this was one reason Peter and the other early saints demanded it.
So, often in the Word of God, baptism is clearly mentioned – almost in the same breath as faith in Christ. For example, in Mark’s version of the great commission we read, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” The Baptismal regenerists take that verse, adding it to Peter and others, to say that there is no salvation without baptism. But the idea is destroyed in the last part of that verse – Mark 16:16. “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Only unbelief condemns the disobedient soul. The disobedience of refusing to be baptized does not condemn a soul to hell. But again, every believer needs to be baptized as an “answer of a good conscience toward God.” And that is a part of the believer’s testimony of salvation.
On the day of Pentecost, the people under conviction of their sin cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do? Peter replied, “repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins…” Why did the Ethiopian Eunuch want to be baptized after he put his faith in Christ? It was to declare to his queen, Candace, and everyone else, that he had a clear conscience before God, because he was now a believer in, and a servant of, Christ Jesus. The same can be said of the Philippian jailor.
Today, for the most part, the baptismal pendulum has swung to the position where it is considered unimportant. But Peter informs us that it is very important. It is linked to salvation in such a way that to deny baptism is an attack on redemption in Christ.
Baptism is not salvation, and it isn’t the means of salvation. It is only a figure, as the baptism of Noah is only a figure. But if you are a believer in Christ; if you have been cleansed through the blood of the Lamb of God, then you need to be properly baptized to complete your testimony and to express your clear conscience before God.