BAPTISM AND NOAH'S FLOOD

I have given myself the daunting task of preaching from 1 Peter 3 this coming Sunday in preparation for two baptisms at the end of the service:

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, 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, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, 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. 21 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, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Even without the weirdness of Jesus "proclaiming" something to "spirits in prison" (which has all the theologians positing different theories), there's a lot to unpack here.

Among the most controversial outside of the prison spirits is verse 21 saying, literally, "baptism ... now saves you". 

What does Peter mean? We obviously are not to take this at face value. (Although some believers have done so in the past.) The rite of baptism in itself has never saved a soul.

So then what?

The people of Noah's day had the same three problems that humanity has had since Adam and Eve:

1. The Sin Problem
2. The Death Problem
3. The Satan Problem

These are the same three that we all struggle with to this day.

The flood of Noah's day was God's response to a rapid multiplication of these problems. You had the rogue angels spreading harm among humans, the human tendency to judge good and evil for themselves, and the ruin of death that reigned outside the Garden. 

So God sped up the ruin which was already in progress even though it grieved Him. He unleashed the chaos that humanity chose over walking with Him. It was both judgment and mercy. A quick death rather than a lingering death. 

When Peter brings up the waters of baptism, he makes it clear that it isn't some bath to make you physically clean. 

No, in baptism you are plunged into the waters of chaos and death - with Christ - and emerge alive on the other side. With Christ. Death Problem solved.

Peter also describes baptism as "an appeal to God for a good conscience". This phrasing deserves some more chewing, but this is where I am so far: It seems to me that our "conscience" is that part of our spirit that (sometimes reluctantly) agrees with God on HIS definition of what is good and what is evil - instead of judging for ourselves. 

We might read "good conscience", then, a bit differently than the normal sense of "I've done nothing wrong". A GOOD conscience might just be one which is truly functioning in tune with God's will. 

The "appeal" that Peter equates with the core of baptism would then be an "earnest seeking after" a fully functional conscience. A genuine desire to do good. (Which the Holy Spirit will give the power to do.) 

Anyway, all of that is meant, I believe, as the answer to the Sin Problem. 

Notice that the Satan Problem is addressed at the end of verse 22 where "angels, authorities, and powers" are subjected to the authority of Christ - an authority He shares with His disciples.

All three problems are tackled and solved in Christ and that reality is reenacted in the rite of baptism.