Inquirer.
Answer: We must distinguish between the work in virtue of which sin is not at all imputed to those that believe (even as to those about whom there was no question of baptism as Abraham), and the actual administration of the blessing upon earth, both fully revealed and actually applied, the work on which it was grounded being accomplished. This revelation of remission is clearly pointed out. It is promised in the new covenant, and recognized by the New Testament in the institution of the Lord’s supper. “This is my blood of the new covenant shed for many for remission of sins.” John the Baptist was to bring the knowledge of salvation to God’s people by remission of their sins. (Luke 1) The disciples were to remit sins, and they would be remitted (John 20); and the commission in Luke, the one on which (not that in Matt. 28) all preaching in the Acts of the Apostles is founded, whether Peter’s or Paul’s, is that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in Christ’s name. In past times, righteousness not being revealed, there had been forbearance (Rom. 3); now that Christ has been offered, righteousness in the remission, or pretermission, of the sins that had taken place before (i.e. in Old Testament times) was proved. But this of course is not all. For God then not only announced to souls individually (for, however many heard, it was individually) but set up a system on earth in which the new blessings were found, based on two instituted signs, baptism and the Lord’s supper, one initiatory once for all, the other the continual memorial of the Lord’s death till He come and the expression of the unity of the body. Of this last it is not our business to speak now. But baptism was the entrance into that system within the precincts of which all Christian blessings were found as externally administered on the earth. The first of these was remission of sins, on the reception of which came also the blessing by the Holy Ghost; and even if this was extraordinarily given as to Cornelius and his house, still they were admitted in an orderly way to the common blessings of Christians here below. But the first grand blessing needed was remission of sins: through this was knowledge of salvation and actual reception of it where it was received. Repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in Christ’s name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Peter does this when the Jews on the day of Pentecost were pricked in their hearts, and says that these are the things looked for: If you repent and enter into this divinely administered door of blessing, you will receive the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. He does not say, Be baptized and you will receive remission of sins, but be baptized with the baptism to remission of sins, become Christians where this blessing is found. They were baptized εὶς to, or for, it: so to Moses, to Christ, to His death. It was the truth and fact to which they were brought: owning this, they would then receive the Holy Ghost. It was the profession they came into. If true faith and repentance were there, they got the present actual administered remission; if not there, they did not get it as we see in Simon Magus. It may be a hardening, but is no blessing to him who is a hypocrite.
Thus remission of sins is not the fact of non-imputation by the death of Christ (which last Old Testament believers had) but an actual status into which a person enters. I may have forgiven a person perfectly in my mind; but he has not forgiveness till it is pronounced upon him. Here there is no outward sign; where there is, it may be abused to self-deception, as we see in 1 Cor. 10. The simile is used to show the difference between non-imputation on God’s part and administered or declared forgiveness. See the case of Nathan with David. (2 Sam. 12:1313And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. (2 Samuel 12:13).) Observe also the connection of forgiveness with discipline where non-imputation is not at all the question.
Hence, when Paul was converted, Ananias said to him, “Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins.” He entered then into an actually administered forgiveness. “Wash away thy sins” is of course a figure. It is not putting away the filth of the flesh that does it. But I come thereby into that which is proclaimed as the first blessing of the Christianity into which I enter becoming a professed Christian. If faith is there, my conscience is perfect according to the Christian system, and the other blessings follow; if there is profession without real faith, I am in the case of Simon Magus or of 1 Cor. 10; but I have been baptized to that. In Acts 2 and 22 the call is addressed to persons publicly under the power of the revelation and word of Christ; and they are then told what to do in order to obtain the blessings of Christianity actually here on earth, the path to perfect ones above. This must not be forgotten; for then they did enter, and for the first time, into the blessings attached to Christianity on earth.
Therefore Peter can say, in his first epistle 3:21, “Which figure also now saveth us,” taking care (as the proposition is general) to show that it was not simply the outward sign that did it. Hence, when he addressed those pricked in heart by his word, he (on the inquiry what to do) put the whole matter according to the commission in the end of Luke. They inquired for a good conscience; for this is the true force of the expression in 1 Peter 3: not “the answer” as in the Authorized Version, but the inquiry (ἐπερώτημα) for a good conscience. In Acts 2 they inquired for and got it. They were baptized to this truth and administered fact—remission of sins, and received then the gift of the Holy Ghost.
On the other hand, if a person (being not a professed Christian, a Jew for example or a heathen) was convinced that Jesus was the Christ, or Son of God, and would not be baptized, one would not say that his sins were washed away or that he was saved. See Mark 16:1616He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:16). But quickening seems never spoken of in connection with baptism. The question raised is not life but washing away or remission of sins. It is not a question of non-imputation, again, but the administration of forgiveness here on earth, as the privilege conferred freely on the conscience in Christianity, in which forgiveness is administered as a present actual thing. The baptized enter into this; though, being an outward or sacramental institution, it may be merely a form.