Pastor Skip Heitzig guides us through First and Second Peter in the series Rock Solid.

We've had the privilege over the last many, many weeks to look at this book written by one of the followers and close friends of Jesus himself, the words of Peter to a group of struggling believers in the early church. We believe it to be inspired of God as the rest of Scripture. And so we always give our attention to a portion of the Bible uncovering its truths, outlining it, seeking to illustrate it, and make it more understandable as we go through it.

Now, you probably are expecting me to say, "Turn to First Peter, chapter 4," because we have been in chapter 3 enough, and we have spent two weeks on the last paragraph of chapter 3 alone. But wouldn't you know it, I'm asking you to go back to chapter 3 and look at it yet again a third time, but we're going to hone in on one particular verse. And the reason being is I've had a number of questions about this text even though we have gone in depth so far. We're going to go and look at one particular portion, and that is verse 21 of chapter 3 of First Peter. Let's go before the Lord before we go any further.

Father, we always feel the need to expose our hearts to you, though you know them already, and you know us completely. But we find the need to ask for your dependence. You know the heart of every single human in this room. You know if we're even interested at all in being here. You know the depth of commitment we have or do not have to you, but would you please impress upon us the incredible depth of commitment you have toward us, people made in your image. And strengthen us, Lord, our minds, our emotions, our wills that they would be bent, inclined toward you and conformed to your purpose. So as an act of worship we give you this time, our minds, our hearts engaged and sitting here and listening and applying, so help us in in Jesus' name, amen.

I was flying on my way back here, I don't remember exactly where I was, but I remember distinctly pulling out of the seat pocket in front of me on the airplane a magazine I've looked at a number of times, and that is, the SkyMall magazine. You ever done that? I looked through the SkyMall magazine and honestly I find some things in there that I think are pretty cool. I think, "Oh, that's a great idea." But then there are other things that I look at in the SkyMall magazine and I really honestly have a question: is there anybody who would by that?

And I made a little list as I went through the magazine last time: the showerhead that lights up and changes color while you shower. [laughter] Really? I don't know, any of you have one? I won't judge you. [laughter] The zombie yard statue for $100---a zombie yard statue. We had one guy sitting in the front row last night, waved his hand, and goes, "I want one." [laughter] I had the ushers look after him. [laughter] One that caught my attention is the standing toilet paper holder that also holds an iPad." [laughter] Okay, you're in there way too long if you got that going on. [laughter] Or the toilet flush handle shaped like a dolphin.

But what takes the cake for me, and I wonder if there's anybody who's bought one of these, the life-sized garden yeti. [laughter] A yeti is an abominable snowman or a big foot. Life-size garden yeti seven and a half feet tall, it costs $2,250. And the good news, if you order today, it will be delivered curbside. That's what it says, it will be delivered to your house. Wonderful, wonderful. I'm perplexed by that. Now, I was looking through that and I was looking at these things wondering, "This is perplexing. Does anybody ever buy those things?"

But then I was thinking of this study, and I'm thinking of the unbeliever looking at believers baptizing one another, and how odd, how perplexing that must seem to somebody looking at us put people in water. I honestly was in Israel one time at the Jordan River with a group from our church, and we were baptizing. And after it was all done there was somebody on the other side of the fence and she was waving her hand. She wanted me to come over. And she said, "Excuse me, what are you doing?" And I said, "Well, we're baptizing." And she said, "Well, what is that? And why are people singing while other people are getting soaking wet?"

And it just dawned on me how perplexing this was to the uninitiated. It's like the zombie statue for a hundred bucks. Who does that? Who puts people down in the water and for what? Now, to make matters a little more complicated, not only do we baptize people, we don't even agree on how you should baptize people. We don't agree on who should be baptized. We don't even agree on how much water you ought to use to baptize. Christians that practice baptism select one of three methods: emersion, which puts somebody totally under the water; affusion, pour water on top of a person; or aspersion, where you sprinkle a person.

There was one little boy who wanted to turn his cat into a Southern Baptist by full emersion. [laughter] So he prepared the bathtub, got it all ready for that cat. Well, in holding the cat and filling the bathtub he inadvertently sprinkled some water on the cat. And you know what cats do with just a little bit of water, they run. And this cat just darted out of the bathroom, ran down the hall, and so the little kid could be heard saying, "Fine, be a Methodist, see if I care!" [laughter] See, that stuff actually goes on between denominations in terms of baptism. All right, in First Peter, chapter 3, the text we've been looking at is both encouraging and perplexing.

Encouraging because he writes to suffering people, real people going through difficult periods of time in their life. And he writes about Jesus Christ who suffered greatly, but great benefit came out of that suffering. And then right in the middle of that passage he writes verse 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." We have difficulties when we read that. Difficulty number one, he calls baptism "an antitype."

What is that? And what is Peter, a fisherman, doing saying "antitype"? How did he get all theological and stuff all of a sudden? Number two, he says there is a baptism that "saves us." Well, that's interesting, baptism saves us, and if so what type of baptism? And number three, he calls baptism "the answer of a good conscience toward God." So all of these things perplex the modern reader. So we want to bore down a little bit and find out what he's saying. Jesus said 2,000 years ago, "Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

Ever since he said those words, ever since those words were uttered, for the last 2,000 years people have been dunking people in rivers, streams, swimming pools, Jacuzzis, baptismal fonts, oceans, because Jesus said to do it. And there have been some notable baptisms throughout history. The most notable being on the Day of Pentecost, Acts, chapter 2, when 3,000 people were baptized in one day. Some years later in the year 404 AD, John Chrysostom baptized 3,000 soldiers on Easter in Constantinople. In 430 AD Patrick of Ireland--that's right, St. Patrick of Ireland.

The St. Patrick baptized the king, his son, and 12,000 men with them. In 597 AD Augustine baptized 10,000 men who in turn baptized their wives and their children. And then between 680 and 755 AD, that's 75 years, a guy by the name of Boniface, an English missionary to Germany, in that 75-year span it is told that he baptized 100,000 people all because Jesus said to do it. Now, quite honestly, I don't even remember my baptism, my first baptism. My first baptism I was just a little baby. I don't remember. They say it happened, I believe them.

But I was baptized as an infant because my parents believed in a teaching known as baptismal regeneration. Baptismal regeneration is that the waters of baptism themselves saves a person, regenerates a person. And some will even cite verse 21 for that belief system. So what I'd like to do by looking at this one verse, essentially, is to unravel this thing of baptism. And there are three separate threads we need to unravel in this rope. Number one: baptism relates to the past. That's the first thread: baptism relates to the past.

And the past event that Peter relates it to is the flood of Noah. Look at it. Scoot back to verse 20, notice he introduces: "The days of Noah, the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us---baptism." What is an antitype? An antitype is something formed after some pattern, a thing formed after some pattern, or that which corresponds to a type. So you have two things that correspond to or relate to each other: a type and an antitype.

The floodwaters of Noah are the type; the baptismal waters of the believer are the antitype. So baptism then corresponds to, resembles somehow the waters that Noah and his family sailed on. Now I say "correspond," that doesn't mean they correspond in all aspects. The quantity of water does not correspond. The application of the water does not correspond. Noah didn't even get wet, nor did his family. But just as Noah was placed in the ark, a safety capsule that kept him from the flood of judgment, so too we are immersed in Christ, and Jesus Christ is our ark of safety that enables us to sail over the sea of judgment.

Simply put then, Noah in the ark is a figure of believers that get baptized. I was reading the blog of a pastor in Elwood, Indiana. I don't even know where Elwood, Indiana, is; I know where Indiana is. Some of you know where Elwood is perhaps. And in his particular church denomination the formula they use for baptism--he's baptized hundreds of people--is "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and in the Holy Ghost." They use that old terminology, Holy Ghost. So one Sunday afternoon when the pastor was visiting friends, his whole family who was there visiting another family, adults were inside, the kids were outside playing.

And after a while the adults said, "So, I haven't heard from the kids, let's go find out what they're doing." They found the kids behind the barn playing "church." And the pastor's little six-year-old daughter was acting the part of the preacher. And she was holding a cat--I don't know what it is with kids and cats--but she had a cat over a barrel of water. And she was practicing her father's part, trying to remember that formula that she heard him say so many times before.

And as she held the cat over, she said, "I baptized you in the name of the Father, the Son, and in the hole you go." [laughter] Cute, huh? That's the way it is with Noah. "Noah, you want to be saved? In the hole you go." Or in the hull you go. How's that? Right in the ark you go. Right in that---there's only one hole, one doorway that led into the ark, one way of salvation. You gotta go through that hole, that door. And so it was with Jesus Christ as our ark of safety. He said, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the light." He and he alone is that door.

So baptism relates to the past, the flood of Noah. Here's the second thread to unravel: baptism recalls a principle. You see, it's a visual practice. You're doing something visually so people can see it and you can feel it, but it speaks of an invisible principle, so it recalls a principle. Now, look in verse 21, and I just want you with your own eyes to read that single word "baptism." Let your eyes fall on the page. "There is also an antitype which now saves us---baptism." When you read that word or you hear that word, what comes to your mind is some religious practice.

That's the only connotation you have of the word baptism. "Oh, yes, that's what Christians do." That's a religious word, baptism. The word baptism or baptized is the Greek word baptizó, and it means to dip, to dunk, or to drown. It simply means to be immersed in something and it could be anything. It was never a religious word at first; it was a secular Greek word. It meant to be just totally immersed in something. For instance, Aristotle writes about the Phoenicians that sailed beyond the Rocks of Gibraltar, and "came to the inhabited land, a seacoast full of seaweed, that when the tide comes in, it is wholly baptized," immersed.

So it just means to be dipped or immersed in anything. And the Bible uses it several different ways. Paul the apostle in First Corinthians 10 speaks of the nation of Israel, saying, "They were all baptized into Moses into the cloud and in the sea." They were totally immersed in the that experience out in the wilderness. Then Jesus speaks of his own suffering, his own crucifixion as being baptized, a total immersion in pain and death. Luke, chapter 12, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!" speaking of his suffering, his death.

Remember those two disciples that said, "Jesus, in your kingdom we want to sit one on your right hand, one on your left hand"? And Jesus said to them, "You don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" And it says that he was speaking about his own death. Then salvation is itself a baptism, First Corinthians 12, "We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body," one group, one community, the body of believers.

John the Baptist spoke of three baptisms when he said, "I baptize you with water, but somebody is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." So it means to be immersed. Next question: How did it come from then the secular world into the religious spiritual world? It wasn't the Christians, it was a Jewish people. If you wanted to become a Jewish person, you were a proselyte, a convert, there were three requirements: instruction by a scribe, a teacher; circumcision, if you were a male; and immersion in water or baptism.

J. B. Lightfoot a New Testament scholar describes a Gentile coming to be converted into Judaism, and he writes this: "As soon as he grows whole," or is healed, "of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to the baptism, and being in the water they again instruct him in some of the weightier and some of the lighter commands of the Law. Which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and, behold, he is an Israelite in all things." So it symbolized of Gentile leaving the pagan world and coming to a whole new life, whole new identity, whole new community, a covenant relationship with God.

Also, the Jews had these things they dug out of the rocks, pools. One was called a mikveh/mikvah, several were mikvaot. They were pools dug out of the rocks for baptism. So if you wanted to go up to the temple to worship, you would first immerse all the way in and out, dry off, and go up to the temple. If you had become defiled by touching somebody dead or touching someone with a bloody flow, you also had to be ritually cleansed before you could attend worship. So if you were a Gentile converting to Judaism, or you needed ritual purification, you were baptized.

So here's the next question: if it had a secular connotation that the Jews took and practiced, then how did it come to be a Christian thing? Well, we open up the New Testament, and one of the first characters we come to is a crazy hippy out in the desert eating bugs. And his name is John the Baptist. I think John the Baptizer would be a better term, because otherwise you'll just think he's a Southern Baptist or something. He's John the Baptizer. He was dunking people in the Jordan River. Why the Jordan River? Because rivers were considered living water.

They're not stagnant, they're moving, they're alive, they're going from one place to the other. So it was perfectly appropriate to baptize people in living water, flowing water. So there he is baptizing people, but get this, he's not baptizing Gentiles to make them Jews, he's baptizing Jews. And that's why the Jewish leaders said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's up with this? We're sons of Abraham." And John the Baptist said, "Don't think within yourselves, 'We're sons of Abraham,' God can make sons of Abraham out of rocks." He said, "The Messiah is coming and you need to repent and get ready for him, and this is a baptism unto repentance."

So, for a Jew to get baptized by John the Baptist, since baptism was for outsiders to become insiders, they had to essentially admit, "I'm an outsider. I may be religious, I may be sincere, but I'm an outsider who needs repentance, and my religion isn't enough." So baptism recalls a principle. Now, let's look at the third thread and then we will tie it all together. The third thread of this is that baptism reveals power. And the power that it reveals isn't your power, there's only one power to give you new life, and that's Jesus' power from his resurrection.

When he rose from the dead, he conquered death. And when he says, "I can give you new life," he proved it by his own resurrection. That's the power. That's also in verse 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." You see, Peter doesn't want his audience thinking that going down in the water itself is what saves you, because he said, "It's not the removal of the filth of the flesh."

He wants them to know he's referring to a spiritual reality when he says it's "the answer," or some translations say "the appeal of a good conscience toward God." So just like Noah and his family walked into that ark, you know what happened when they did? They said good-bye to the old life. What was left of the old life? Nothing. It was drowned. It was gone. They walked into the ark, said good-bye to their old life and hello to a new life wherever that boat is going to land. So when we come to Christ, we leave the old life, we enter Jesus Christ, and start a brand-new life.

And the new life we start is the life that we are enabled to live by his resurrection. When we believe that he died, we believe that he rose, we have "a good conscience," we have a clear conscience before God. So the only baptism that saves is a dry baptism, not a wet baptism. Being baptized in Christ, the wet symbolizes what we've done. Now, it brings up this question, or it really answers the question: Do you have to be baptized to be saved? Nope. You have to be saved to be baptized. Again: Do you have to be baptized to be saved? No. You have to be saved to be baptized.

In Acts, chapter 8, there was a guy from Ethiopia, remember him? The official, the Ethiopian eunuch, he's going back from Jerusalem, back home, and he's reading the Scriptures. And Philip joins himself to that chariot. And they happen to be reading, go figure, Isaiah, chapter 53, the messianic passage. Philip leads him to Christ. The Ethiopian eunuch sees water and he goes, "Look, there's water, what hinders me from being baptized?" Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you can be baptized." You gotta believe. And then he said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." At that they got up, went down, and Philip baptized him.

The Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 16 said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved." Notice what is first---believing. Baptism follows. "He who believes and is baptized will be saved." Now, you might be thinking, "Aha! See, you do have to be baptized to be saved." But let me finish out the sentence. Then he said, "He who does not believe will be condemned." How do you stay condemned? By not believing. He didn't say, "He who does not believe and is not baptized." So why does he even mention baptism? Because baptism follows faith.

See, there may be circumstances that would not allow a person to get baptized. If you're on your deathbed, you're on an oxygen tank, you're hooked up to monitors, and somebody comes in and says, "Wait! We have to fully immerse this person before he can get to heaven." Not gonna happen. It's like the thief on the cross who says, "Lord," he turns to him, "remember me when you come into your kingdom." It would be kind of silly if Jesus said, "Boy, I'd like to help you out, but, you know, there's just no water around here I can baptize you in. Sorry." [laughter]

He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." That faith, that faith did it. Now, there is a passage of Scripture I want to read to you, because those who believe in baptismal regeneration, you gotta be baptize to be saved, will often quote--in fact it is sort of like their, you know, their holy grail of quoting Scriptures when it comes to this, and that's Acts chapter 2 verse 38. Let me just whip that out. Let me read it to you. "Peter said, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins."

And they'll say, "Aha! See, you do have to be baptized to be saved, because he said, "Repent, be baptized for the remission of sins, which means," they say, "in order that your sins will be forgiven." Hold that thought. TiVo that thought. Push the pause button. That word "for," "for the remission of sins," is the Greek word eis, E-I-S, we would transliterate it. It can mean "for," it can mean, "in order that," and it can mean "because of." And that's what it means, "because of." Here's an example: let's say I have my arm around a soldier up here, an American soldier who's fought in several battles. He's highly decorated. And I say to you, "This soldier has been decorated for bravery."

Do I mean he has been decorated in order that he may become a brave soldier? No. I mean he is decorated because he is a brave soldier. So that's why most modern translations put it this way: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ as an expression of the remission of your sins." Your sins have been remitted, and baptism points to that or shows that. I've always loved that little text in the letter to the Corinthians. Paul writes them and he says, "You know, when I was with you, I didn't baptize any of you except for Crispus and Gaius. Oh, yeah, and the household of Stephanas. That was it. I didn't baptize anybody else."

And here's why, he said, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Whaaat? See, if you believe in baptismal regeneration, you would never separate the two, one means the other, baptism means the gospel. But he said, "Jesus didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Listen, if Paul believed in baptismal regeneration, he would have brought a hot tub with him wherever he went, some tub of water to---"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Gotta dunk you in this." So now we're forced with one final question to answer: Why then should I get baptized? What's the point of it all then? Why should I be baptized?

I'm going to give you two quick reasons: number one, instruction; number two, identification. First of all, instruction. Jesus instructed, taught, commanded, "Go into all the world, make disciples of all men, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." If Jesus said to do it, what do you do? You do it. "Well, I need to know why." You do? He said do it. Jesus said, "If you love me"---what will you do if you love Jesus?--"you'll keep my commandments." That ought to be good enough---instruction. He said to do it, you do it. But there's a second reason, not just instruction, identification. When you are baptized, you are identifying with Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

We take the person, we put the person down under the water--that's death and burial. We raise that person back up---that's resurrection. That's what it speaks of. That's the visual that speaks of the invisible. In Romans 6 Paul writes, "We were baptized into his death; buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead . . . we also should walk in newness of life." So you see, when you're baptized, you're making it personal. You're saying, "He died for my sins, he died in my place, and I'm dead to the old stuff." I was thinking this week of notable baptisms in my life, baptisms that I had done.

I started thinking back, and I suppose the first time I ever baptized a person was very memorable. I do remember it, because I did it all wrong. I had a home Bible study in Garden Grove, California, and people were coming and a few people were getting saved. And so they said, "Skip, let's have a baptism. Let's have a barbecue down at the beach and a baptism." I said, "I'm in." Okay, so we went down to the beach. And rule number one: if you ever baptize in the ocean, face the ocean when you do it. [laughter] That was my first mistake. I was holding on to this dear lady, and there was a guy on the other side, but we were not facing the sea.

We were facing the other direction, the shore, because that's where the people were, on the shore. And they were up there, and so we had our heads bowed and our eyes closed and getting all spiritual. And the reason that's a mistake is the ocean has what they call waves, [laughter] and swells, sets of waves come in. And we were just right in the middle of prayer, heads bowed, and a wave came in and put us all face forward on the sand. She got baptized, but very unexpectedly. [laughter] Another time I was in the Jordan River, living on a kibbutz, I was in Israel, and we were baptizing. And I didn't know anything about the topography of the land, what's a good spot, what's a bad spot.

I just picked a spot in the Jordan River, got out of this little truck were in, and we started baptizing. So I got in first. It was, like, the worst spot in Israel to baptize somebody. Because when I got in the river---I'm six-five---I sunk in the silt and the mud up to my waist. I was stuck in the Jordan River. [laughter] And so they were coming in, I go, "Don't come in! You gotta unstick me." So, I, the preacher had to get saved that day from the Jordan River. [laughter] Then there's times when we baptize people out here in our little courtyard and it's sort of humorous. We tell them, say, "Look, we're gonna---be careful, we're gonna put you all the way down under the water and bring you back up." "Okay, okay, okay."

But invariably there's always people who resist it. So they get down part way and they just go like---they're just like pushing up, you know. So it's just awkward. We gotta kind of go, "Oomph!" It's kind of fun to tell you the truth sometimes. [laughter] But the most memorable is a man who I believe got it more than anybody else. I was about to baptize him and he stopped and he smiled and he said, "You may want to hold me down a little longer. I've got a lot of junk in my past I need to wash away." I thought, "He really understands the symbolism of this." Dead to the old, buried with Christ, risen from the dead in newness of life.

That's why when we baptize people we often begin by saying, "Welcome to your funeral. The old you is gone, the new you has come." That's what it signifies. Now let me finish the story that I began with as we close. I mentioned in Israel this onlooker who was watching us baptize, asking what it meant. So she waved me down and I walked over to the fence. She introduce herself as, "My name is Olga." She said, "I am from South America. What are you doing?" I said, "We're baptizing people." "What is that?" "They're going in all dry, coming out wet, and people are singing about it."

And so I explained the gospel to her: "Jesus came from heaven, died for our sins in our place, rose from the dead, and this is a picture of that. And these are people who have believed that, and their lives are different. Their lives are changed. Jesus Christ has changed their lives and forgiven their sins." And I explained it to her in a few minutes, and she paused and she said, "Do you think I could get baptized?" Now, she was in her clothes on other side of the fence. She wasn't even in the baptismal site. She was just a tourist. And I said to her what Philip said to the Ethiopian, "If you believe with all your heart, you can." And she said, "I believe."

And I led her in a prayer right there through the fence, one side to the other, to receive Christ. And we got her over the fence, and we baptized her in the Jordan, and she went back to South America a new woman. [applause]. That's baptism. And what that gives you is "the answer of a good conscience toward God," verse 21, "a good conscience toward God." Think of it this way: He was immersed in suffering that you could be immersed in salvation. He was immersed in pain that you might be immersed in peace. He was immersed in death that you and I can be saturated, immersed in life. That's the exchange---life.

Do you have life? "Well, I've been baptized." You can get baptized fifty times a day and not be a saved man or woman. It's not the washing of the flesh, it's a clear, open conscience before God because you believe Jesus took your place, rose from the dead, and conquered death, and gave you life. Do you have that? Only you can answer that. Let's pray as you do that. Father, we thank you for yet another time to look at this text, to fully understand its import, and its meaning, its application to our lives. We carry this Book, this Bible around with us, and we need to know what it means. Thank you, Lord, that we have the opportunity to explore that.

Father, I pray for some who may be here right now, maybe they've never truly personally made a conscious decision in their life that they're going to follow Jesus. They now understand the gospel that God loved man to come out of heaven to earth to take their place, their punishment. And in so doing, that perfect sacrifice enables him to say, "I can forgive you completely and take you to my heaven, if you'll just believe in what happened at the cross was for you," receiving the merits of Christ on our behalf."

I pray for those who may have never personally done that, some that have come to church time and time again, but they've never made Jesus their Savior, their Lord. And I also pray for others who maybe they did something in the past, some prayer, some commitment of sorts, but they're not walking with you. They've walked in disobedience rather than obedience. They really don't even know where they stand. I pray they'd come back to you, fall in your arms, and be encompassed by your grace.

For more resources from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig visit calvaryabq.org.