1 Peter 3:21

Baptism, the Antitype

Through the water, Noah and his family were taken from a world full of wickedness to a newly cleansed world. They were saved from the destruction brought on by man's sin. They were separated from wicked men. Baptism in water is a figure, or "antitype," of that. Thayer says of the word translated "antitype", "a thing resembling another, its counterpart; something in the Messianic times which answers to the type...prefiguring it in the Old Testament."

How appropriate then that baptism should take one from his own sinful state to a new life (1 Peter 3:21; Romans 6:3-4; Acts 22:16). He is thus saved from the destruction his own sin has earned (Romans 6:23; Acts 2:38). He is also separated for God's service in that watery surrender to God's will (Romans 6:16-18).

Since Noah and his family were saved through water, with it being the instrument of God's saving power, it is important to recognize that the water of baptism is the instrument of God's saving power in the Christian age, too. Baptism is not a bath to take away filth from the body.

Having given the definitions of "an inquiry" and "a demand" for the word "answer", Thayer says, "As the terms of inquiry and demand often include the idea of desire, the word thus gets the signification of earnest seeking, i.e. a craving, an intense desire." Thus baptism is our calling out to God with an intense desire for a good conscience. This is accomplished "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ," which would stand for all involved in his sacrificial death, burial and resurrection. In baptism, man dies to sin, is buried and raised to walk in a new life (Colossians 2:12).