21 There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.
The Greek word antitypon originally referred to the impression left on a surface by the typos, or seal, and so describes the kind of correspondence that a stamp has to its die. The picture strikes Peter as a parallel to baptism, for here the water symbolized God’s judgment on sin, and the deliverance into a new life. Jesus spoke of His coming death, by which He underwent God’s judgment on sin, as a baptism (Mark 10:38-39; Luke 12:50), and this association of ideas is preserved in Romans 6:3ff., where baptism is seen as a mystical uniting of the believer with Christ in His death. So, paradoxically, the death which was the means of Christ’s enduring God’s judgment on sin is the means whereby the believer can enter into new life. — Guthrie, page 1245.
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The believers were sheltered in the refuge of the Ark, and were saved through the waters of the judgment in the baptism of the Ark. It suffered the judgment, passed through it, and rose out of it into a new earth. In the antitype baptism the believer is saved in the “baptism” of Christ at Golgotha, of which the baptism of the Ark was a type. Christ at Calvary was baptized into the wrath of God. All the waves and billows of that wrath passed over Him (Psalm 42:7 and Jonah 2:3) and on the third day He arose. In that baptism the believer is baptized and saved, and in that resurrection the believer is raised and brought into a new world. So the sinner is saved by the baptism and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is not saved by the washing away of bodily defilement with material water, but by a sincere inward acceptance before god of this “baptized” and risen Savior. — Williams, page 1002.
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We must never lose sight of the fact that there are 12 different baptisms taught in the Word of God. This baptism certainly could not be a water ceremony, otherwise we would have a symbol of a symbol. … The answer is found in Luke 12:50, “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.”
These words were spoken by our Lord well into His earthly ministry. When He spoke about having “a baptism to be baptized with,” He was teaching His disciples about His impending death at Calvary. If we understand that the term “baptism” means “full identification,” then we see that Christ was identified with death in order to be the Redeemer of mankind.
It is Christ’s identification with death that saves men in any dispensation, though this was not revealed until Paul (Romans 3:21, 25). As members of the Body of Christ, we share this in common with the nation of Israel. This is one of the connections between Prophecy and the Mystery….
It was on the grounds of Christ’s finished work that Peter’s hearers were able to have a good conscience toward God. Peter raises this issue because it was he who charged the chosen nation with the guilt of crucifying their Messiah. This dovetails perfectly with what the writer of Hebrews states: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).
Peter is careful to state that a man is not saved, nor can he ever expect to have a good conscience toward God, by the “putting away of the filth of the flesh.” As we already know, the “putting away of the filth of the flesh” is done by washing with water in order to cleanse. He is informing his hearers that it is Christ’s death baptism that saves them, not water baptism, which was merely a shadow of things to come. The divine seal of approval of this wonderful truth is Christ’s resurrection. While this was a further development in Israel’s redemption, it in no way diminished from the fact that water baptism was still required [for kingdom believers] as an expression of faith, on two accounts: First, Christ was made manifest as the Messiah of Israel through this water ceremony. Second, it was necessary for her induction into the priesthood (Exodus 19:5-6; 29:1-4; Isaiah 61:6; John 1:31). — Sadler, pages 127-128.
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answer (v.21) — Contemporary usage employed this word for the solemnly attested pledge made by any party undertaking a contract: in that case the phrase could mean “the pledge to God of a good conscience.” — Guthrie, page 1245
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