Baptism: Part 2 Saved in Baptism

This is Part 2 of my series on Baptism. If you have not read Part 1 , I urge you to read it.

The Catholic asks the Protestant, “Does Baptism save us?” The Protestant replies, “No.” The Catholic then turns to the only authority that the Protestant yields to, which is Holy Scripture, and that says yes (1 Peter 3:21). Instead of yielding to Holy Scripture as they claim, they instead are yielding to man-made traditions, those that are actually condemned by Jesus, instead of the Word of God as they claim.

The Protestant’s argument is:
Premise 1: The thief on the cross was not baptized yet Jesus promised he would join Him in heaven.
Premise 2: Peter is connecting Baptism with belief not salvation.
Conclusion: Therefore, Baptism does not save us.

The argument about the thief is actually a poor one. This is what Catholics would refer to as “extraordinary” circumstances. Protestants agree with this since if one cannot have faith due to extraordinary circumstances, such as in the case of a mentally handicapped person or infant, they may still be saved (some believe they will be saved regardless in this situation). In order for one to believe that the thief would not be saved, since he was not baptized, would be to believe that God cannot do as He chooses if He lays down parameters for salvation. This is quite untrue as evidenced above with Elijah and Enoch. God can subvert the rules He put in place for us in order to fulfil His desires. In this case the thief did not have Baptism available to Him yet would still be saved.

It may be a good idea then to explain how then Baptism regenerates a person. Like Paul, Peter connects Baptism to the death of Jesus but, in addition, he makes an analogy as well in 1 Peter 3:18-20:

“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.”

The connection here with the death of Jesus and Baptism is when Peter says “death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” We see this repeated several times in Scripture, such as the above quoted passage, Colossians 2:12 and Galatians 3:27.

The analogy is quite clear but some people find it easy to be confused with the thought that the ark actually saved Noah and his family and not the water. However, we need to look at the context of what Peter is trying to convey. In order to understand that, we have to go all the way back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Here we have Noah who is called a righteous man in Genesis 6: 9 while the others, Nephilim, were called wicked just four verses before and the earth corrupt just two verses after. With that context we can see that the water saved Noah and his family from the wickedness of man and corruption of the earth, in other words the sinful. As Hebrews 10:1-4 says:

“For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.”

If Ezekiel’s sprinkling is a prefigurement in the Old Testament of what is to come in the New Testament, and the old is a shadow of the new, then it follows that Baptism is all of what is said in Old Testament plus more. If we accept the Protestant argument that it is merely a symbol then we are betraying the context of the texts. In early Christianity, so strong was the belief in the efficacy of Baptism that many converts would wait until they were on their deathbed before getting baptized in order to have their sins to be washed away. Textually, the Protestant belief in Baptism comes up short.

The concluding argument is as follows:
Premise 1: Being baptized is to be born again in Christ.
Premise 2: Baptism saves us.
Conclusion: Baptism is efficacious and not merely symbolic.

If you have a suggestion for an apologetic article please leave me a comment and I will do my best to get to it or a similar topic. I will also credit you with the question.