You are right. No one was ever saved but by one thing, and that one thing is God's declared judgment to them of life. God's spoken word of judgment, “Let there be life.”
And when they were not saved it was never by anything that they were not saved but by God's declared judgment to them of death. God's spoken word of judgment, “Let life be taken away.”
By God's Word life comes forth and by God's Word life is taken away.
And now hear please God's spoken word and receive understanding of it. All baptisms in any manner are always baptisms of God's spoken word of judgment to either life or to the taking away of lief which means death. Baptism is always in reality about God's spoken Word by his judgment either to life or to end life.
And water has always been used as the symbol of God's spoken word of judgment, either to call forth life and light or to call back that life and light which he gave.
When this earth was formed it was first covered completely by water with God's Spirit, yeh, God's Holy Word “moved upon the face of the waters.”
There at Genesis 1:2, that word, “moved”, comes from a Hebrew word which implies how a hen hovers over her hatchlings as to “brood” them, that life can mature forth for them. Look it up. It is Strong's 7363 rachaph -- a primitive root; to brood His Spirit brooded over the water as his word of judgment calling life from the earth, “Let Life Come to Be.” God's very name means, in the causitive form. “He who causes to become.” But many of you have even obscured that by means of false doctrine.
That water was as the water of a womb of made of God's Word. It was as God's spoken word, “Let life come to be in the earth.”
And God by his spoken word said: Genesis 1:3 “Let there be light: and there was light” Genesis 1:5 “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night”
And God by his spoken word said: Genesis 1:6 “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Genesis 1:8 “And God called the firmament Heaven.”
And we see God using His spoken word over and over again throughout Genesis chapter one, yet so many of you refuse to hear God speak.
Upon that that ancient world perishing by water that water represented God's spoken Word of Judgment upon a disobedient world cleansing that world of filth. And that is the comparison we seeing being made at 1 Peter 3:15-22.
Look at it and cease not listening to God you who fear Him. Read it and see that baptism is compared to that water of God's spoken word of judgment upon that disobedient world, cleansing that world of filth.
Wake up!!! See the error that some of you are making. Some of you are saying we are saved BY that water at 1 Peter 3:15-22, when in fact we were saved from that water as it was God's adverse judgment upon a world of unrighteousness, cleansing this earth of filth.
We are saved from God's declared judgment also upon this present world of unrighteousness by God's spoken word declaring life in Christ. And Christ is our Ark of salvation by the Word of God.
1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify<[make holy] the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
17 For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
18 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:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
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? I think Not! “by” is “dia” -- a primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through
They were saved through [All of them together in the Ark that is Christ passing through and not perishing with] God's spoken judgment upon an ungodly world (the water of God's Word in the form of judgment) The spoken judgment clearing away of the filth of the flesh.
But, we are saved through [not perishing with it but passing through] God's spoken judgment upon this present world of ungodliness by the water of God's Word declaring life in Christ.
Now understand, please:
21 The like figure [to that Ark being saved through and thus escaping God's judgment upon the world] 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:
22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
