The Like Figure Whereunto …
by Terry Wane Benton
The flood water is the figure, the type, and baptism is the antitype, the real thing prefigured (I Peter 3:20-21) by the flood water. So, how was the flood water the figure? It was the chosen means to wash away a sinful world and deliver Noah and his family to a new beginning. A similar but more real thing happens in baptism. God chose that when we are baptized in the name of Jesus, He will wash away the sins of our past (Acts 2:38; 22:16) and bring us into a newness of life (Romans 6:3-6).
“There is an antitype that now saves us, namely baptism” (I Peter 3:21). Get this! Baptism is not mere dunking in water, as if I am cleansed of sins each time I jump in the water. But “through the resurrection of Jesus” and His authority to tell the dead in sin to die to sin, be buried with Him (baptism in His name), and rise to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-6), I have His power and authority to leave my sinful world behind and come into a new life in baptism. The text does not say baptism is a figure. The flood is “the like figure whereunto (pointing forward to the antitype or real) baptism does also now saves us."
So, the figure is the flood water he mentioned in I Peter 3:20, and the KJV says that flood water has a likeness that prefigures what now saves us, namely, baptism. The only way baptism now saves us is “through the resurrection of Jesus.” Without the resurrection of Jesus and His evident power over death, baptism is merely a dunking in water that, at best, could only wash dirt off the body. However, through the resurrection of Jesus, baptism is given the sanction of Jesus to be the point in faith that He will clean sin from our record and our conscience. Thus water was involved in saving Noah and His family from an evil world and bringing him to a new, cleansed world, and that was a like figure whereunto baptism also now saves us “through the resurrection of Jesus.”
In baptism, we die to sin, burying our old sinful self into union with Jesus and rising with Him to walk in the newness of life. Uniting with Jesus in baptism is how baptism now saves us.
