One phrase out of a passage, does not doctrine make.
Peter is NOT talking about water baptism and he says so if you read the WHOLE verse.
1 Peter 3:18-22 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.
Plus, Catholics tell us that eating Jesus saves them. So which one is it?
And then we have Jesus here saying that it's believing that saves.
John 3:14-18 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Don't the words of Jesus count more than anyone else's any more?
Of COURSE Peter was talking about “water” baptism (which pretty much everyone just calls baptism...) if you read the whole verse:
“18 For Christ also suffered[b] 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, 19 in which[c] he went and proclaimed[d] to the spirits in prison, 20 because[e] 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. 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, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
1. Peter compares baptism to Noah’s flood. I mean, he literally says that baptism corresponds to the water of the flood. So of course there’s water.
2. If there was no water involved, why would Peter feel it necessary to mention that the removal of dirt isn’t what saves you?
And well since “water” baptism is the ONLY Christian baptism there is (since the death of John the Baptist, anyway), the idea of separating the two is more than kind of ridiculous. Because... you can’t.
And well, Communion does forgive your sins (because Jesus said it did), so yeah, in that way, it does save you.
And actually - faith doesn’t save, at least, not directly. Jesus by his grace through his death and resurrection saves you, and this salvation is given to you through faith.
You can’t pit faith against baptism and communion. They’re all one in the same.
And I’m not Catholic.