Lesson 3050

Lesson (3050)(05-7-20) 1 Peter 3:18-22
    “ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 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 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: Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him.”

   Today’s lesson explains how the righteousness of Jesus (the just) overcame the inborn sins of all of those who will believe in Him (the unjust).
    Sadly, there are those who try to use this text in their contention that water baptism saves the eternal soul. It is evidenced by the entire text of the New Testament that the baptism that remits the sins and saves the souls of those who accept it, is the baptism of one’s spirit into the Holy Spirit of God through faith in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Water has nothing to do with salvation. As Peter made clear in the lesson, water DOES NOT wash away the sins of the flesh.~