#DailyDevotion Baptism Now Saves You Through Jesus Resurrection

1 Peter 3¹⁹In this spirit He also went and preached to the spirits kept in prison, ²⁰who disobeyed long ago in the days of Noah when God waited patiently while the ark was being built, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved by water. ²¹In the same way also, baptism now saves us, not by washing dirt from the body, but by guaranteeing us a good conscience before God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²²Who has gone to heaven and is at the right of God, where angels, rulers, and powers have been put under Him.

So what we have to remember here is that Noah, the ark and the flood are the type/antitype to which baptism is being compared to. So Noah and his family were saved by being in the ark. The ark carried them through the water. Noah preached to the people of his age while he built the ark. Everyone but eight rejected his preaching of repentance. But God waited patiently until the ark was built. Then the end came. The eight were saved by being on the ark through the water.

In the same way, or corresponding to that baptism now saves us. As the flood waters washed away and killed all that was wicked in the world, baptism kills the old man or as St. Paul says in Romans chapter six, baptism crucifies us, kills us, buries us and raises us to new life in Christ. We are place in baptism into the ark of the Church which will keep us safe when the world is destroyed and judged by fire. Also corresponding to this is the Israelites passing through the Red Sea. There they walked on dry ground with walls of water on either side but those same waters came crushing down upon the Egyptians and killed them thereby saving the Israelites.

Water is judgment and death from God. In the waters of baptism we are judged and killed by God. Like the wicked of Noah’s day, like the Egyptians of Moses’ day baptism has us experience the judgment of God against our sin and we are judged there in the water, pronounced guilty and drowned for our sins. But then there is verse twenty-one.

Baptism saves us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus died for our sins on the cross. He was buried in the tomb. St. Paul reminds us we are joined to Jesus’ judgment and punishment in baptism i.e. crucifixion, death and burial. So too we are joined to his resurrection through the water, through his death and the tomb and raised to newness of life. His resurrection, his conquering of death is our own. In baptism we are reborn, born from above, born of God. We given the life of Jesus. We are placed into the ark of the Church and come out on the other side of the fires of judgment raised from the dead into a new heavens and new earth. If Jesus is raised from the dead then the New Covenant is in effect. God forgives us our sins and remembers them no more. Baptism places us in this New Covenant. If we already suffered for our sins in baptism and have been given new life in Christ Jesus then we can appeal to our baptism before God having a clear and clean conscience. We stand in the death and resurrection of Jesus in our baptism. We cannot be judged again for our sins. They were judged and punished in baptism. In baptism we are no longer the person who committed those sins but the child of God we have been reborn as. So baptism now saves us. It gives us a clear conscience before God.

Heavenly Father, help us to remember our baptism when our sins, the flesh, or the devil try to accuse us so we may die to those sins and with a clear conscience live our lives for Christ until he returns from your right hand in judgment and salvation. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.