Since I know NT Greek, I could spend a lot of time on the exegesis of these challenging passages. It requires extensive exegetical work. I don't have the time this week as I'm busy preparing a sermon on James 1:5-11 to be preached this weekend. To try to compensate, here is some exegesis from A T Robertson's
Word Pictures in the New Testament - one of the finest Greek exegetes of the 20th century.
Acts 22:16,
By baptized (
baptisai). First aorist middle (causative), not passive, Get thyself baptized (Robertson,
Grammar, p. 808). Cf.
1 Corinthians 10:2 . Submit yourself to baptism. So as to
apolousai, Get washed off as in
1 Corinthians 6:11 . It is possible, as in
Acts 2:38 , to take these words as teaching baptismal remission or salvation by means of baptism, but to do so is in my opinion a complete subversion of Paul's vivid and picturesque language. As in
Romans 6:4-6 where baptism is the picture of death, burial and resurrection, so here baptism pictures the change that had already taken place when Paul surrendered to Jesus on the way (verse
Romans 10 ). Baptism here pictures the washing away of sins by the blood of Christ.
1 Peter 3:21,
Which also (
o kai). Water just mentioned.
After a true likeness (
antitupon). Water in baptism now as an anti-type of Noah's deliverance by water. For
baptisma see on "Mt 3:7". For
antitupon see on "Heb 9:24" (only other N.T. example) where the word is used of the earthly tabernacle corresponding (
antitupa) to the heavenly, which is the pattern (
tupon Hebrews 8:5 ) for the earthly. So here baptism is presented as corresponding to (prefigured by) the deliverance of Noah's family by water. It is only a vague parallel, but not over-fanciful.
Doth now save you (
uma nun swzei). Simplex verb (
swzw, not the compound
diaswzw). The saving by baptism which Peter here mentions is only symbolic (a metaphor or picture as in
Romans 6:2-6 ), not actual as Peter hastens to explain.
Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh (
ou sarko apoqesi rupou).
Apoqesi is old word from
apotiqhmi (
Romans 2:1 ), in N.T. only here and
2 Peter 1:14 .
Rupou (genitive of
rupo) is old word (cf.
ruparo, filthy, in
James 2:2 ;
Revelation 22:11 ), here only in N.T. (cf.
Isaiah 3:3 ;
Isaiah 4:4 ). Baptism, Peter explains, does not wash away the filth of the flesh either in a literal sense, as a bath for the body, or in a metaphorical sense of the filth of the soul. No ceremonies really affect the conscience (
Hebrews 9:13 ). Peter here expressly denies baptismal remission of sin.
But the interrogation of a good conscience toward God (
alla suneidhsew agaqh eperwthma ei qeon). Old word from
eperwtaw (to question as in
Mark 9:32 ;
Matthew 16:1 ), here only in N.T. In ancient Greek it never means answer, but only inquiry. The inscriptions of the age of the Antonines use it of the Senate's approval after inquiry. That may be the sense here, that is, avowal of consecration to God after inquiry, having repented and turned to God and now making this public proclamation of that fact by means of baptism (the symbol of the previous inward change of heart). Thus taken, it matters little whether
ei qeon (toward God) be taken with
eperwthma or
suneidhsew.
Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (
di anastasew Ihsou Cristou). For baptism is a symbolic picture of the resurrection of Christ as well as of our own spiritual renewal (
Romans 6:2-6 ). See
1 Peter 1:3 for regeneration made possible by the resurrection of Jesus.
John 3:5,
Of water and the Spirit (
ex udato kai pneumato). Nicodemus had failed utterly to grasp the idea of the spiritual birth as essential to entrance into the Kingdom of God. He knew only Jews as members of that kingdom, the political kingdom of Pharisaic hope which was to make all the world Jewish (Pharisaic) under the King Messiah. Why does Jesus add
ex udato here? In verse
Luke 3 we have "
anwqen" (from above) which is repeated in verse
Luke 7 , while in verse
Luke 8 we have only
ek tou pneumato (of the Spirit) in the best manuscripts. Many theories exist. One view makes baptism, referred to by
ex udato (coming up out of water), essential to the birth of the Spirit, as the means of obtaining the new birth of the Spirit. If so, why is water mentioned only once in the three demands of Jesus (
Luke 3 5 7 )? Calvin makes water and Spirit refer to the one act (the cleansing work of the Spirit). Some insist on the language in verse
Luke 6 as meaning the birth of the flesh coming in a sac of water in contrast to the birth of the Spirit. One wonders after all what was the precise purpose of Jesus with Nicodemus, the Pharisaic ceremonialist, who had failed to grasp the idea of spiritual birth which is a commonplace to us. By using water (the symbol before the thing signified) first and adding Spirit, he may have hoped to turn the mind of Nicodemus away from mere physical birth and, by pointing to the baptism of John on confession of sin which the Pharisees had rejected, to turn his attention to the birth from above by the Spirit. That is to say the mention of "water" here may have been for the purpose of helping Nicodemus without laying down a fundamental principle of salvation as being by means of baptism. Bernard holds that the words
udato kai (water and) do not belong to the words of Jesus, but "are a gloss, added to bring the saying of Jesus into harmony with the belief and practice of a later generation." Here Jesus uses
eiselqein (enter) instead of
idein (see) of verse
Luke 3 , but with the same essential idea (participation in the kingdom).
May the Lord bless you as you pursue this topic.
In Christ,
Oz
