Thoughts on Numbers 26 & 1 Peter 3

Today’s reading: Numbers 26; 1 Peter 3

Thoughts on Numbers 26

Reading Numbers 26 this morning, I realized I made a mistake in my post on Numbers 17 that I need to correct.

I said in my post on Numbers 17 that I thought the reason God has the leader of each tribe bring his staff to the tabernacle and then makes Aaron’s bud was to head off more rebellions like that of Korah and the 250 men with him. I still think this is true, but the reasoning I gave was slightly off. I based that on thinking that the 250 rebels with Korah were from the tribe of Levi because when Moses addresses them he says, “You have gone too far, sons of Levi!” Then in his rant against them, Moses mentions them being Levites a couple more times.

However, in Numbers 26, Dathan and Abiram, who were part of Korah’s rebellion, are mentioned as part of the tribe of Reuben, not Levi. When I went back and checked, they are called out as sons of Reuben at the beginning of Numbers 16 as well, so I just must have missed that.

That said, while the 250 rebels in Numbers 16 are evidently not all Levites, based on Moses’ response to them, it does seem like it was a Levite led rebellion (which makes sense since Korah was a Levite), so God’s response in Numbers 17 still makes sense. God is establishing, before all the people, that He has chosen Aaron and his sons as priests, and the Levites as those who help with the tabernacle service, and in that seeking to cut off any future rebellions like Korah’s before they even spin up.

Thoughts on 1 Peter 3

Is baptism necessary for salvation?

Near the end of 1 Peter 3 Peter makes the comment, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you…” This statement has led a number of churches and denominations to teach that you cannot go to heaven unless you are baptized, but I don’t think that is what Peter is saying. While this might not seem too essential one way or the other, it can have some pretty significant implications. For example, many teach that if a baby dies without having been baptized, they will not be allowed into heaven even though they have not yet committed any sin, which, if true, is devastating for parents of miscarried or aborted children, or children who die during childbirth. But the question is not whether I like a doctrine, the question is whether the Bible teaches it, so let’s look at it.

We need to start with the full paragraph from Peter so we have our full context for what he says:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Starting out, Peter gives us the context for his statement on baptism as the flood of Noah, and specifically Noah and his family being brought through it, but he also mentions the imprisoned spirits who were disobedient before the flood. Many people teach that Peter is using this comparison because, just like in baptism where you enter the water and come out of it, so too Noah entered the flood and came out of it, but there are problems with this. First and foremost is that Noah and his family never entered the water. They entered the ark which saved them from the water. So if Peter is trying to say that it is water baptism that saves us just as it saved Noah, he has his imagery backwards since the water of baptism saves but the water is expressly what Peter says Noah had to be saved from.

It’s important to note here that “to baptize” in Greek just means “to put into.” Today, when we hear it, we immediately think of the religious ritual of baptism, but that would not have been the case for Peter’s readers. Yes, early Christians did use this term for the ritual of water baptism, but that is far from the only context we see it used in, even in the New Testament writings. So what is Peter referring to here, the ritual of water baptism, or something else?

The default view among many Christians today is that Peter is referring to water baptism because of the Noah context, but I already said above why I think that is actually backwards from what Peter is doing. But if it’s not that, what is it? I think Peter tells us expressly what he does (and doesn’t) mean. He tells us that the baptism (“being placed into”) that saves us is not the removal of dirt from the body, but the appeal to God for a clear conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is simply the gospel message taught throughout the New Testament, that we are saved by being placed into Christ by faith. In fact, the language of being “baptized into Christ” is used directly elsewhere, not referring to water baptism, but referring to the fact that, when we have placed our faith in Christ, we are spiritually placed into Him, and it is by that association with Him that we are saved. In fact, I would say that Peter even clarifies that this is what he means, as opposed to water baptism, when he says, “not as a removal of dirt from the flesh…” Water removes dirt from the flesh, being placed into Christ cleanses us spiritually, and Peter says explicitly that he is not talking about the baptism that removes dirt from the flesh, but the one that removes sin from the soul.

So if Peter is not bringing Noah up to make it about water baptism, why bring him up at all? The key here is the fact that Noah is not brought up in isolation, but in context of the spirits now imprisoned. Peter is making a reference here to the non-canonical, but wildly popular in his day, book of 1 Enoch, which tells the story of the angels of Genesis 6 that left their proper place to have children with human women, bringing forth the Nephilim. These angels and their half-human children corrupted humanity and led to a state where all of humanity had turned away from God. Noah and his family were brought through the flood because, rather than going the way of rebellion, they chose to align themselves with Yahweh. This is the same choice Peter is saying now saves us, not a cleansing of the flesh, but an aligning ourselves spiritually with Yahweh rather than continuing on in our rebellion against Him.

So no, Peter is not saying that water baptism is necessary for salvation. In fact, I think when he specifies, “not the removal of dirt from the body,” he is expressly communicating that that is not the kind of baptism he is talking about. Instead, it is being baptized (placed into) Christ that is necessary for salvation because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can get to the Father except through Him.

There is a lot more I could say on this topic, but that would probably need to be its own post entirely. I just wanted to bring this up here because when churches misunderstand Peter here and make this about water baptism rather than the gospel, it really muddies otherwise clear teaching on salvation.