Ques. Could you please explain what is meant in 1 Peter 3:21, "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us"?
Ans. Peter writes to his own people, Israelites who had been brought up under the law and then professed Christ. In preaching to them in Acts 2:38, 40, he says, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.... Save yourselves from this untoward generation.”
Through baptism they changed their position as being connected with the guilty nation who had crucified their Messiah to the new position in Christianity. Through baptism (which is a figure of death), they were saved from the judgment of the guilty nation. It is the same in 1 Peter 3 and Acts 2. Ed.