like figure
1 Peter 3:21
3:21 like figure. Thus both the flood, with its ark of safety, and baptism, with its emergence from the waters of “burial,” are “like figures” of the wonderful reality of the death and resurrection of Christ, as well as the death to sin and new life of the believer. Baptism in and of itself would at most be only a bath for washing off the filth of the flesh, but when experienced as a testimony of one’s saving faith in the atoning death and justifying resurrection of the Lord Jesus, it becomes “the answer of [or, better, “appeal for”] a good conscience toward God (see also Hebrews 9:14) secured forever by Christ’s resurrection.