Answer of a Good Conscience.
By R. F. Cottrell
“The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 1 Peter iii, 21. We hear one say, “I was sprinkled in infancy, and that answers my conscience,” and another, “I was baptized by affusion, and that answers my conscience.” It may perhaps be well to inquire how you know that you have a good conscience, for we read of some whose “mind and conscience is defiled;” also we read of an “evil conscience,” which needs to be “purged from dead works,” in order to serve the living God; and we are exhorted to hold “faith and a good conscience; which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck;” and we are warned of some who have their “conscience seared with a hot iron.” Then the conscience needs to be brought to some test; and what is a better test by which to try it than the word of God? Some disobey the word, because they can do so and their conscience not condemn them. These test the word by their conscience. It were better for such not to have the word. It is of no use to them; and, besides that, it will condemn them in the last day. But when we are willing to do our duty just as it is revealed in the word, then we may trust, with an apostle, that “we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.” But what do you understand by the answer of a good conscience? You say sprinkling answers your conscience; and, from this form of expression, I take your meaning to be that it satisfied the demand of your conscience, i. e., your conscience asks no more. But it is possible that the phrase, “answer of a good conscience,” in the text may not refer to what our conscience requires or demands, but to the answer, the response, or the reply that our conscience makes to what the Lord requires. Baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh—not the washing of our bodies from dust and filth—but it is the reply of a good conscience to the Lord’s requirement. To illustrate the answer of a good conscience I quote a passage from David: “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” The text calls baptism a “figure,” and says that it “saves us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” As a figure, then, it seems necessary that it should represent his resurrection and exhibit our faith in that great fact of the gospel. Hence Paul says, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” Baptism is an emblem of the burial and resurrection of Christ. The sinner, by repentance, becomes dead to sins, to live no longer in them; he is buried or planted in the likeness of his death, and raised up again from the watery grave, as a sign of his faith that Christ died and rose again, and that his saints shall be raised in like manner at his coming. Does the putting of a drop of water on the forehead of an infant or an adult bear any resemblance to a burial and a resurrection? Is it being planted or buried in the likeness of his death? This is what the Lord Jesus, in the gospel, requires; and he set us the example by being buried in the waters of Jordan, as is generally admitted. The answer of a good conscience to this requirement is, “Amen; I will do it; I will be buried as my Lord was; and thus show my faith in the great facts and promises of the gospel.” A good conscience answers thus; and does not seek for some substitute, that will, as they say, “answer my conscience.”
R. F. COTTRELL.