WEDNESDAY October 4th
1 Peter 3:20–21
‘. . . because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 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 . . .’
These verses are not the easiest to understand, especially as they seem to indicate that baptism is the means of our salvation ‘Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you’. In fact in the preparing of this devotion, I had to turn to a number of different commentaries and various study Bibles for help, and discovered that there were so many differing interpretations I just had to seek to explain it the best way I possibly could. I hope my explanation will help in some way!
Peter is looking back into history to the time when God was going to destroy the world with the flood, and save from out of it, Noah and his family, thus eight were saved to enable a new start to take place once the flood had subsided.
Peter looks back to that time and considers all those who would have witnessed Noah building the ark and would have heard him warn of what God was about to do and yet they refused to believe, thus just Noah and his family were brought safely through the water. The same water that destroyed also saved, it destroyed those who failed to believe and saved those who were in the ark because it floated on the same water until it eventually came to rest on Ararat.
Peter links into this the resurrection of Jesus, and this when compared to the water in Noah’s time reminds us that the resurrection will also lead to some being destroyed, and others being saved. On the one side, those who are destroyed because many will fail to listen to and respond to the hope of salvation and the only message of salvation that comes as result of Christ’s death and resurrection and those on the other side who will be saved because they will have heeded and been saved for eternity.
Thus the message of the Cross and the resurrection is likened to the water of the flood, and we are saved as we come by faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if I can put it this way Jesus is the ark into which we have taken refuge, but once saved, this should then lead to the water of baptism, for just as God commands all men to repent (Acts 17:30) he also commands us through the appeal of the apostles to be baptised, for example in Acts 2:38 ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ and Mark 16:16 ‘Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned’, baptism is not meant to be an optional extra but an essential aspect of our salvation and faith and it is the means by which we affirm our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and by which we are making a statement, declaring that we are now living a new life, showing that we have been cleansed and we seek to live with a good conscience before God.