Baptism is to the Flood as the Cross is to the Ark
“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, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
1 Peter 3:20b-22
Inflection matters. The inflection of words, much like punctuation, can completely change the meaning of a sentence. There is the story of a man whose wife went on a trip and happened upon a jewelry store. It was in the days of communicating by telegraph. She wired back to her husband, “Have found wonderful bracelet. Price seventy-five thousand dollars. May I buy it?” Her husband responded with the message: “No, price too high.” However, the telegraph operator missed one little detail in this transmission — the comma after the word “No.” And so she received the message with great joy: “No price too high.”
So it is about the much-twisted passage we have before us today. A provocative title to sermons on this passage would be simply Baptism now saves, and many have called it exactly that. It is true, of course, in the way that Peter means it. But how does he mean it? Lots of people want to merely recite Baptism now saves, but are slower to recite Baptism corresponds to this—which are the more immediate words. In fact, when the whole of verses 20 through 22 are read together, in order, it becomes plain that Peter is making an analogy. He is making a comparison—one that we call a typology—between the waters of the flood and the waters of baptism. Hence the words Baptism corresponds to this. And when we see this, we are forced to use our inflection differently than “Baptism now saves” to “Baptism now saves.” These waters are now the waters that the saved come out of safely. What difference this makes, we shall have to examine.
Doctrine. Baptism tells the good news of God’s salvation through judgment.
We will see this by asking three questions on both sides of the typology—and by “both sides” I mean back then, in the Genesis account, and then forward to the New Covenant era beginning when Peter writes. Those three questions are:
(i.) What was in the waters?
(ii.) What sailed through the waters?
(iii.) Who went to the depths and heights of the waters?
What was in the waters?
What is the context? Peter was finishing his thought about how Jesus proclaimed something in the spirit to those in prison, who in some way were related to Noah’s day. And then he says about the judgment event that ended that era: ‘eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this’ (v. 20c-21a). What about baptism corresponds to that in any obvious way? It certainly is not any of the human beings involved. Now there is one very obvious similarity between what was back there and up here. It is the substance of water.
Once we decide on that same substance, there is another thing that prevents us from moving on too fast to the incantation that “baptism saves.” If baptism corresponds to this—if these waters correspond to those waters, then those waters immediately through us for a loop. There is something just as obviously dissimilar about these two waters. Those waters back there did not save. Those waters judged! They had to be ‘brought safely through water’ (v. 20c), Peter says. The Greek adds emphasis. The ordinary preposition for “through” (διά) is used, but it is joined to the word with the prefix already on it—διασῴζω, meaning “saved through”—so it is διεσώθησαν δι' ὕδατος, or, non-repetitively, it would be saved out of, and through, the waters. Think of these waters, in a sense, like the earth’s atmosphere that those astronauts had to pass through just a couple of weeks ago to get back home.
The key word in verse 21 is really ἀντίτυπον, which is the nominative adjective here, and the only noun it can modify is baptism. This antitype comes from the smaller word “type.” So, how do types function in the Bible? A beginner’s view is that you have a type back there and a fulfillment called an antitype. But though the Greek word τύποι is used for characters, patterns, or examples, the later word is not actually ultimate. For example, antitype is used by the author of Hebrews in this way,
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies (ἀντίτυπα) of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf (Heb. 9:24).
In other words, even the antitype is not the ultimate essence of what is accomplished. Yes, Christ accomplishes it “in history,” but its effect is from and in heaven. Now what about these two waters—the type of the flood and the antitype of baptism? Remember that ἀντίτυπον is the adjective coupled with baptism, so its basically saying “antitype-baptism” or these “anti-typological waters” as compared to those “typological waters” back there in Genesis.
God saved those people through those rough waters, but now God saves His people through these gentle waters. They came through those waters for salvation, but you now come through these waters for salvation. You see the inflection when they are treated as types, as Peter does. The truth is that the waters didn’t save essentially in either case, but only typologically. Think of where Paul says, about the people passing through the Red Sea, “and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2). He said that about his people—but who got wet in that case? It was Pharaoh and his armies, wasn’t it? To be baptized in this sense was a “dry baptism,” and so the waters are used figuratively as a type of salvation, not the essence of it.
If the waters of baptism were the ultimate essence of what is being talked about, then a much simpler question will clear things up. What does the water dimension of baptism most obviously represent? It cannot be judgment. Remember, that was the surprise about the comparison. But suppose that surprise wasn’t there. What would your first thought be about the water? A bath! Water cleanses. And it is supposed to have that simple association. God makes His signs fitting to what they signify. Now, before you even read Peter’s qualification here in verse 21, what is the obvious problem with literal baths and salvation? It is that a regular bath cannot wash away the problem that we are dealing with, which is sin. But let us hear Peter say it: ‘not as a removal of dirt from the body’ (v. 21b).
Does literal water wash away sin? No—of course not! What does? The blood of Jesus does: “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:7). So the water symbolizes the activity that the blood of Jesus actually performs. So are there “salvations” in those waters? Absolutely! Typologically—not essentially. As a sign—not as the substance. Augustine said, “He is a slave to a sign who uses or worships a significant thing without knowing what it signifies.” While those in the Roman Catholic Church, who take the grace of baptism ex opere operata may not want to think of this as a worship, it is a general principle that worship is transferred to what saves.
What sailed through the waters?
After Peter qualified what these waters of baptism are not—‘not as a removal of dirt from the body’ (v. 21b)—he then turns to what is involved: ‘but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ’ (v. 21). Do any verses go beyond the blood doing the cleansing, but also something to do with our guilty conscience? Yes: “how much more will the blood of Christ... purify our conscience” (Heb. 9:14). Of course if the blood deals with our sins, it also deals with our guilt—the guilt is because of the sin: “since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:1). What then sailed through the waters? Through those old waters the ark was provided; through the ultimate sea of God’s wrath, the cross was provided. The waters of judgment turn into the waters of cleansing. Just as in the other sacrament, the cup of God’s wrath turns into the cup of His blessing. How? Because Jesus drank up the whole sea of God’s wrath in our place.
On the surface of these waters, baptism corresponds to the flood. As we travel to the doctrinal depths, we can round out our picture by saying that, Baptism is to the Flood as the Cross is to the Ark. If the blood of Christ is what is under the surface of the cleansing waters—the waters being the sign, the blood being the substance—then when the Bible says “the cross” or even sometimes “the tree” (e.g., Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24), there is a literary device being employed. It is called a synecdoche. This is a device where a word stands for a thing—especially when the thing might seem more abstract—and there are several different kinds of synecdoches. There is a part-for-whole—e.g., “boots on the ground” means soldiers will be deployed—or a whole-for-part—e.g., “Seattle won the Super Bowl.” Really? All of them? There is the material object for an abstract thing—e.g., “the new chair of the department, Dr. Jones.” There are others, but hopefully we get the idea. And if “the cross” can be used this way, and “the blood” can be used this way, then even more surely “baptism” can be used this way.
The ark is not only a type of Christ’s work, but also of Christ’s body, since all the chosen enter in to find cover. Not only does Augustine see this double-typology, but the seventeenth century covenant theologian, Francis Roberts, makes this comparison:
The material ark was a long time in building by Noah, namely: from God’s first establishing his Covenant with Noah, until the end of the old world, which was 120 years. The spiritual ark the church is a longer time in building by Christ, even from God’s first promise established on the seed of the woman, until the end of the world that now is, and Christ’s second coming; for till then the gospel ordinances, and officers are to continue for the gathering and building of his church.
Thus baptism is also an entry-point, like that door of the ark, so that it makes who is identified in this ark, just as those eight souls were identified as those in that more ancient ark.
Who went to the depths and heights of the waters?
We can put the final piece of last week’s puzzle together if we notice how the whole passage ends.
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him (vv. 21c-22).
Notice how the chapter ends with the whole exhalation of Christ—resurrection, ascension, and session—so that things come full circle. This is why the hybrid view of where, and to whom, Jesus proclaimed makes so much sense. If we start back and draw a circle around verses 18 through 22 as a unity, we see Christ, alive in the spirit, making a circuit through time, from the days of Noah to His throne on high, and telling a whole story of God’s salvation through judgment, in both the type of what He would do and the antitype in which He did it.
Practical Use of the Doctrine
Use 1. Instruction. If (as our Big Idea says) baptism tells the good news of God’s salvation through judgment, then, it may be asked, “How does immersion not tell that story more clearly than pouring or sprinkling?” That is a great question and I have what I think is a great answer. When God is said to have poured down His wrath on His Son, and when Christ’s blood sprinkled the hearts of the worshipers clean, that wrath and that blood were as much aspects of divine judgment as was the sea of wrath. The difference between all three modes of the waters of baptism is that they are cleansing and gracious, whereas the waters of the flood, as we have seen, were the judgment itself. So in one more way, the New Covenant is founded upon better promises. So its sacraments move—from circumcision and Passover to baptism and the Lord’s Supper—from the bloody and the bitter to the cleansing and the refreshing.
Use 2. Consolation. Baptism is a sign of God’s promise guaranteed by Christ’s saving act. The promise is realized in the heart by faith. So when Peter contrasts what he does not mean with what he does—that ‘appeal to God for a good conscience’ (v. 21), we are actually looking through the sign—through the water—to the God who saves through judgment. The appeal is not to the water as an end in itself. Then, we would see in that water nothing but our own reflection.
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