1 Peter 3:21

1 Peter 3:21. which also in the antitype now saves you, namely baptism. The rendering of the A. V., ‘the like figure whereunto,' follows a reading which is now given up. The best authorities also substitute ‘you' for ‘us.' Some interpreters regard both the Ark and the ‘few ' as having a typical force here. Consequently they seek for an antitype to the Ark in the Christ into whose name we are baptized, and without whom baptism can as little save us as the water of the Flood could save without the Ark. They also find an antitype for the ‘few' in the ‘you,' as if the idea were that the ‘proportion of those saved by baptism to the unbelieving is but small' (so even Huther). But the only things which Peter sets distinctly in the relation of type and antitype are water as preserving life in Noah's generation, and water as saving souls in Peter's own generation. The comparison, therefore, is not between the Flood and Baptism, but simply between water in one service and water in another. What antitypical water is intended, is at once made clear by the appended definition, ‘baptism.' Thus, as further explained, the comparison comes to be not between the saving efficacy of the water in which the Ark floated and the saving efficacy of Baptismal water in the Church of Christ, but between the saving efficacy of water in the former instance and the saving efficacy of Baptism itself now. The latter, like the former, has in a certain sense an instrumental relation to a saved state.

not the putting away of the filth of the flesh. This is thrown in to guard against any mistake which the comparison might provoke as to the kind of relation intended. The saving efficacy is not of a material kind like that exerted by water in the case of the Ark and its eight. For the baptism meant is something different from any merely physical cleansing, or any of those ceremonial washings with which both Jew and Gentile were sufficiently familiar. These two terms ‘putting off' and ‘filth' are peculiar to Peter. The former occurs again in 2 Peter 1:14. What is meant is generally understood to be the putting off of the filth which belongs to the flesh. The peculiar order of the words in the original, however, gives not a little plausibility to another rendering which is adopted by Bengel, Huther, etc., the flesh's putting off of uncleanness, i.e the laying aside of its own uncleanness by the flesh itself.

but the inquiry of a good conscience toward God. This sentence has greatly perplexed the commentators. The difficulty lies mainly in the use of the word rendered ‘answer' by the Ai V. This term occurs nowhere else in the N. T. The A. V. stands alone among the old English Versions in translating it ‘answer.' Wycliffe gives ‘the asking of a good conscience in God;' Tyndale and Cranmer have ‘in that a good conscience consenteth to God;' the Genevan has ‘in that a good conscience maketh request to God;' the Rhemish renders it ‘the examination of a good conscience toward God.' The only meanings of the word which can be verified are these two, viz. (1) an interrogation or question, which is the classical sense (e.g. Herod. vi. 67; Thucyd. iii. 53, 68), and (2) a petition, demand, or the thing asked by petition, in which sense it occurs once in one of the old Greek Versions of Daniel (1 Peter 4:14, i.e 1 Peter 4:17 of the English Bible). The question, therefore, is What results from this for the sentence as a whole? Among other renderings which have been proposed are these: (l) the request (i.e for salvation or grace) addressed to God by a good conscience; (2) the questioning, or examination, to which a good conscience is subjected before God; (3) the request made to God for a good con-science; (4) the inquiry made by a good conscience after God, or, the act of a good conscience in seeking after God; (5) the promise, or pledge, to keep a rood conscience toward God; (6) the contract, or relation, entered into with God by a good conscience. The last two interpretations find favour with many of the best exegetes (Grotius, de Wette, Huther, Plumptre, etc.), and are supported more or less by some of the old versions. The Syriac, e.g., takes the sense to be = when ye confess God with a pure conscience. The form mentioned last of all has the undoubted advantage of giving a clear and pertinent idea, viz., that ‘the person baptized, by the reception of baptism, enters into a relation as it were of contract with God, in which he submits in faith to God's promise of salvation' (so Huther, who now prefers this view). It does not make the phrase a ‘good conscience' a synonym here for a ‘reconciled conscience,' but retains for it the simpler sense which is more in harmony with similar expressions in Hebrews 13:18; Acts 23:1; 1 Timothy 1:5; 1 Timothy 1:19; 1 Timothy 3:9; 1 Peter 3:16, viz., that this is done with a pure intention. It also founds upon the primitive practice of addressing certain questions to the applicant for baptism and obtaining certain replies from him, such, e.g., as these: Dost thou renounce Satan?I do renounce him. Dost thou believe in Christ? I do believe in Him. So Neander (Ch. Hist., vol. i. pp. 424, 427, Bohn) regards this as the clearest trace within the New Testament itself of a confession of faith which had to be made from the first at baptism, and thinks that the passage according to the most natural interpretation ‘refers to the question proposed at baptism, the word “question” being used here by metonymy for the “pledge or answer to the question.”' This interpretation, however, is open to an objection that is almost fatal, namely, that the use of the word which is rendered ‘answer' in our A.V. in this sense of stipulation, contract, or covenant, is entirely foreign to the Bible, and indeed to early Ecclesiastical Greek, and belongs to the juristic terminology of a later period. More or less difficulty attaches to the other views. Thus (4), which is adopted by Alford, etc., and (3), which is preferred by Weiss, Hofmann, etc., are both sustained by the analogous use of the cognate verb in 2 Kings 11:7, where it is said that ‘David inquired after the peace of Joab.' They also yield good meanings. But they both do so at the cost of departing somewhat from the known sense of the noun, while the former further identifies the phrase ‘ good conscience' with the more definite, theological idea of a ‘ reconciled conscience.' Perhaps the meaning is simply this: the interrogation which is addressed to God by a good conscience. This resembles the interpretation numbered (1), which is that of Bengel, Steiger, etc. It adheres, however, to the strict sense of the noun, where that is modified by Bengel. It also gives effect to the peculiar order of the original, instituting a comparison between the flesh with the putting off of uncleanness which is ascribed to it, and the conscience with the interrogation which it is said to direct to God. Further, it retains for the phrase ‘good conscience' here the general sense which it has in the 16th verse of the same chapter. Hence what Peter intends seems to be to explain that, when he speaks of baptism as having a saving efficacy, he does not mean a mere ceremonial washing, but one which carries a moral value with it, a baptism which means that in all pureness of conscience and sincerity of desire the soul's interrogation about salvation itself is submitted to God, and God's response closed with.

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is connected by some (Fronmüller, etc.) with the ‘good conscience,' as if the resurrection of Christ were the basis of the good conscience. By others it is attached to the ‘question,' or to its clause as a whole, as if it were only on the ground of the resurrection of Christ that the soul's question can be addressed to God. Most, however, unite it with the ‘doth now save you,' regarding all that comes between as a parenthesis. In this case the sentence conveys an explanation of the saving efficacy which is ascribed to baptism, as the parenthesis gave an explanation of what the baptism itself was which Peter had in view. The relation in which baptism stands to salvation is, therefore, a relation which it has only in virtue of, or on the ground of (cf. ‘ by the mercies of God' in Romans 12:1), the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What has already been described as the ground or means of our regeneration (chap. 1 Peter 1:3), is now re-introduced as the ground of the spiritual value which belongs to the rite which is a sign and seal of that regeneration. Peter speaks of baptism here, only with more qualification in his terms, much in the same way as Paul does when he terms it the ‘washing (or, laver) of regeneration' (Titus 3:5), or when he describes those who have been ‘baptized into Christ' as having actually ‘put on Christ' (Galatians 3:27). ‘As Paul, in speaking of the Church, presupposes that the outward Church is the visible community of the redeemed; so he speaks of baptism on the supposition that it corresponded to its idea, that all that was inward, whatever belonged to the holy rite and its complete observance, accompanied the outward; hence he could assert of outward baptism whatever was involved in a believing appropriation of the Divine facts which it symbolized; whatever was realized when baptism corresponded to its original design' (Neander,. Planting of Christianity, vol i. pp. 495, 496, Bohn).