Baptism Saves?

Several months ago my wife and I took a few children from our church to the zoo. The youngest of the bunch (3 years old) kept asking the same question for every animal we looked at: "what does it do?" When we saw the bears, he asked, "what does a bear do?" When we looked at the reptiles, he had to know, "what does an iguana do?" We often ask the same question regarding baptism: what does baptism do? Does it change my relationship with God?

There are many things said about Baptism in the Bible, but none are as explicit as this text from Romans:

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:3-4)

What? How does getting wet accomplish a spiritual transformation from death to life? This is not an easy question to answer, especially because most of us in the church today don't know the Old Testament as well as we should. Paul expects his hearers to recall the great Old Testament themes of creation and redemption upon hearing his words from Romans. To that end, let's look at one of those themes.

Noah and the Flood
There's a wonderful story about God's salvation in the book of Genesis. The Old Creation had become so corrupted that God was going to destroy it and re-create it under one righteous man, Noah. Water here acts as an instrument of destruction and judgement on a sinful world; simultaneously, it is a life-giving element into which a new creation is born, a new creation established under Noah and his family. Simply, on the one hand, water saves; on the other hand, it destroys. The Apostle Peter picks up this theme and gives it a new reality in Baptism. In his first epistle Peter writes,

[I]n the days of Noah, while 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 (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:20b-21).

What, baptism saves? Yes, it saves us by annihilating our old, sinful person bringing about an "answer of good conscience toward God." The person who comes out of the baptismal pool belongs to the New Creation, which began in Jesus' resurrection when he defeated death on the first Easter day. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Cor. 5:17).

The Romans Road

Paul teaches that the righteous are saved by faith in Romans 2:22 — It’s nothing that I do that saves me; I can never merit enough good works. You can imagine someone in Paul's audience might draw a false conclusion: "If nothing I do can save me, then perhaps I’m not condemned by what I do either. This is a great system — I like to sin... God likes to forgive sinners... I can continue sinning, and God will continue forgiving me."

But, Paul knows people, and he knows that people will justify their sin. He anticipates this when he writes in Romans 6:1, “Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase? By no means! Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death...." Paul understands our conversion as having happened in Baptism, where the theme of  water-as-annihilation-and-salvation is explicit. In Baptism we are born into the righteous life of faith. It is the door that we pass through in order to enter into the life of Christ. Once we have passed through this door into the new creation we should no longer visit the death out of which we came. The Old Creation of death is no longer at work in us because we belong to Jesus now.

Therefore, Paul gives us a warning: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Baptism is the beginning of our life of faith — baptism saves! Nevertheless, if we do not live out our faith in Christ alone by walking out our salvation with fear and trembling, we will not be saved on the last day. 

When you were baptized you were brought out of the Old Creation that fell with Adam, and you were made a new creation in Jesus Christ. When you were baptized you left the barren land of the Old Creation. You passed through the waters and entered into the New Creation begun in Jesus Christ. Do not forget who you are: a child of the most high God.