it is evident to me reading through Acts that at the beginning even the apostles did not fully understand the glory of the gospel that Christ had worked. they did not understand that it was to the Gentiles also, and they did not understand that all foods were clean, or that circumcision and other ceremonial aspects of the law were for the heart and not the flesh.
these things they worked out and understood as God by His Spirit revealed them.
reading Peter's account of his vision and experience at the house of Cornelius (Acts 11), we see that his thinking was renewed when he saw that God justified these that heard the word and believed, and only then understood how that Christ baptized with the Spirit. what can we say to this? even Peter was still being perfected, else why would he have been rebuked and corrected 3 times in a vision from God, and then shown by the power of God directly how and by whom men are justified?
the seal of our salvation is in our hearts, not in whether our hair has become damp, and it is God who sees and judges the heart, while men look at the outward things. likewise it is God who justifies and washes us, not we who justify and wash each other. if water baptism remitted sin, we are wasting our time evangelizing when we could be so much more effective by taking water hoses and squirt guns full of blessed water and spraying down entire crowds. but this - as Simon Peter also said - is merely the washing away of dirt from our bodies. the washing that justifies us before God must be done by God or we would have reason to boast.
[h=1]1 Peter 3:21New International Version (NIV)[/h] [SUP]21 [/SUP]and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[SUP][a][/SUP] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
[h=1]1 Peter 3:21Names of God Bible (NOG)[/h] [SUP]21 [/SUP]Baptism, which is like that water, now saves you. Baptism doesn’t save by removing dirt from the body. Rather, baptism is a request to God for a clear conscience. It saves you through Yeshua Christ, who came back from death to
[h=1]1 Peter 3:21American Standard Version (ASV)[/h] [SUP]21 [/SUP]which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ;
[h=1]1 Peter 3:21Living Bible (TLB)[/h] [SUP]21 [/SUP](That, by the way, is what baptism pictures for us: In baptism we show that we have been saved from death and doom by the resurrection of Christ;[SUP][a][/SUP] not because our bodies are washed clean by the water but because in being baptized we are turning to God and asking him to cleanse our hearts from sin.)
[h=1]1 Peter 3:21GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)[/h] [SUP]21 [/SUP]Baptism, which is like that water, now saves you. Baptism doesn’t save by removing dirt from the body. Rather, baptism is a request to God for a clear conscience. It saves you through Jesus Christ, who came back from death to life.