OK, When you were baptized what did you pledge or promise? That you would be a good boy? What was the promise? There is no example of anyone promising anything at any baptism in the Bible, and I have never seen that kind of practice anywhere else either. If what you say were true, there would be some evidence of it.As for you saying water baptism is not a pledge, it is a pledge, a promise, or if you would like the ESV translation, water baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience. No matter what translation you use, it is what it is, it is a pledge to God.
Your understanding of the verse is lacking. Therefore you have hastily jumped to wrong conclusions. There is no pledge being spoken of here. What saves is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The verse cannot be taken out of its context.New International Version (©1984)
and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
I could not care less what you think about the NIV.
English Standard Version(©2001)
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,
What actually does the verse mean. Look at the context.
1 Peter 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
--The word baptized, "baptidzo," or more precisely, βαπτισμα, means "to immerse. Who was immersed and for what purpose? Everyone but Noah and his family was immersed, and they were destroyed. They were all "baptized" in the destructive waters of the Flood. They died, perished, being baptized in the Flood. The waters destroyed, not saved the people.
1 Peter 3:21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
"In like figure" This phrase indicates that it is symbolic. "Symbolically" or "Figuratively" baptism (immersion) does also save us. Noah was not saved by water. He was saved by being in the Ark. The Ark represented Christ. All around him was "the filth of the flesh." Figuratively we are baptized or immersed in the filth of the flesh, as in the dirt of this sinful world. But it is Christ that saves by his resurrection., specifically the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To put it another way it is faith and faith alone in Christ.
Yes, that makes it a work, not necessary for salvation.Water baptism is something the believer does; water baptism is more dependent upon the believer than the baptizer, as evident is in the fact that John the Baptist baptized Jesus.
Again, water baptism is something centered on the believer.
What further do you want me to say. I say what the Bible says. Did you want me to quote ECF as well. I am not really into that.You only say what some denominations say about water baptism, that it is symbolic, but you can only repeat what you have been told by other men, not considering what the symbol means. You do not seem to be able to explain any further.
Read my post. I already did. It is symbolic of our death to our old life and symbolic of our new life in Christ. Rom.6:3,4 make that very plain. There is no pledge. What pledge or promise did you ever make at your baptism?Go ahead and try to explain more what the symbol means. Try to explain it without saying it is a vow, a pledge, a promise, a commitment to God that you are dying with Jesus.
Yes, that is what I have been saying. The key word you used is "illustrate."Baptism illustrates a believer’s identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Our old nature is to die and we are to be “buried with Him through baptism into death.” We are buried with the water, and raised out of the water, raised to “walk in newness of life” (live like Jesus).
There is no pledge involved.
What pledge? There is none. It is symbolic.Picture how baptism looks…the believer comes to make the pledge to God, to die to the sins of the world; so now standing in the water the believer falls back, as if dead; then, the believer goes under the water, buried; then, the believer rises up out of the water, raises up to live a new life.
The new life was given to him at salvation. All he ever needed was given at salvation. This is a picture of what happened at salvation.
Yes, a picture of our salvation.Romans explain this perfectly.
Romans 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.