Replies

again, what we don’t find is anywhere the Scriptures teaching us baptism is symbolic,

So are you saying that you must be baptized in the Catholic Church in order to be saved? You do understand this is old teaching put forth by the 4th Lateran Council of 1211. Nowaday Catholics teach that others can be saved even if they aren't baptised in the Church.

Baptism doesn't save you but it is evidence of your salvation. This is what John Gills has to say on the matter which I agree with:

1Pe 3:21 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,

John Gill's Commentary...

but the answer of a good conscience towards God; the Vulgate Latin renders it, "the interrogation of a good conscience"; referring, it may be, to the interrogations that used to be put to those who desired baptism; as, dost thou renounce Satan? dost thou believe in Christ? see Act_8:36, others render it, "the stipulation of a good conscience"; alluding also to the ancient custom of obliging those that were baptized to covenant and agree to live an holy life and conversation, to renounce the devil and all his works, and the pomps and vanities of this world; and baptism does certainly lay an obligation on men to walk in newness of life; see Rom_6:4, the Ethiopic version renders it, "confession of God"; and to this the Syriac version agrees, rendering it, "confessing God with a pure conscience"; for, to baptism, profession of faith in Christ, and of the doctrine of Christ in a pure conscience, is requisite; and in baptism persons make a public confession of God, and openly put on Christ before men: the sense seems plainly this; that then is baptism rightly performed, and its end answered, when a person, conscious to himself of its being an ordinance of Christ, and of his duty to submit to it, does do so upon profession of his faith in Christ, in obedience to his command, and "with" a view to his glory; in doing which he discharges a good conscience towards God: and being thus performed, it saves,

For some reason people don't seem to realize that that reason they are being baptized is because they ALREADY believe in Christ. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved. It's that simple. Baptism isn't symbolic. (If I used this term it was in error.) It is evidence of our belief and is a profession of our faith.