In their
translator’s handbook for First Peter, Daniel C. Arichea and Eugene A. Nida
render 1 Pet 3:21, a popular text supporting water baptism being the instrumental means of regeneration, thusly:
which was a symbol pointing to baptism, which
now saves you. It is not the washing off of bodily dirt, but the promise made
to God from a good conscience. It saves you through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
Commenting
on this passage and the theology thereof, they write:
The text as it stands makes baptism
(or the water of baptism) as the agent who saves. A careful reading of the
whole verse, however, indicates that which now saves you should perhaps go
with through the resurrection of Jesus Christ at the end of the verse
(compare 1.3), and the TEV has made this clear (compare Brc “It is the
resurrection of Jesus Christ that that makes this saving process possible”; NEB
“It [baptism] bring salvation through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”).
Understood in this matter, baptism is clearly not the agent but the instrument of
salvation (for example, NEB “water of baptism through which you are now brought
to safety”), and the implicit agent of salvation is God (compare 1.3-5). To
express it in another way, it is because Christ is risen from the dead that
baptism becomes an instrument through which God can make known his saving
activity. If Christ were not raised, then baptism remains only a symbol not of
life but of death. But since Christ is indeed raised from death, then the
Christian is also enabled to rise from the water of baptism into a new life
(compare Rom 6.1-11). (Daniel C. Arichea and Eugene A, Nida, A Translator’s Handbook on the First Letter
from Peter New York: United Bible Societies, 1980], 121, emphasis in original)
For more on 1 Peter 3:19-21 and other texts that support baptismal regeneration, see: