Baptism 3

From my first two posts, I've tried to show that it simply looks like CARM is using the straw-man of infant baptizers believe baptism saves their babies.  To quote a PDF I'll link to later from the LCMS site "a person is saved by God’s grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone."  The water does not save, Christ does.

Let's go back and break down the paragraph in 1 Peter 3 that we have been discussing.  When looking 1 Peter 3:21, in it's paragraph, as a whole, would you agree that it is talking about God saving; salvation through Christ?  It's as if Peter is trying to work up to baptism  (which has water in it), so as an example, Peter says remember Noah and how he was *saved*, actually, Noah and his family.

Let's look at the Greek definitions for the words save/saved as it is used of Noah and baptism:

Noah saved " 1) to preserve through danger, to bring safely through a) to save, i.e. cure one who is sick, bring him through 2) to save, keep from perishing 3) to save out of danger, rescue "

Looks like if someone didn't intervene, Noah and his family would have perished.  They were in danger.  To bring him through, to translate from a dangerous place to a safe place.

Baptism saves "1) to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction a) one (from injury or peril) 1) to save a suffering one (from perishing), i.e. one suffering from disease, to make well, heal, restore to health 1) to preserve one who is in danger of destruction, to save or rescue b) to save in the technical biblical
sense 1) negatively a) to deliver from the penalties of the Messianic judgment b) to save from the evils which obstruct the reception of the Messianic deliverance"

Again, we see baptism rescues, saves (salvation) from perishing, to heal, to deliver.

If it was only symbolic, why use this language? Especially in the context of this paragraph speaking about salvation?  So in the context of talking about salvation, real, actual salvation by God through Christ "through water" for Noah and us...in that whole context, it's just a symbol of what ***could*** happen *if* you make your own heart felt appeal??? as CARM states. I don't think so. Christ is the only one who can make that sort of appeal to the Father. And through baptism, the cleaning of our insides, not the outside, we are now able to make that sort of appeal.