A correspondent inquires about the best translation of 1 Peter 3:21, a verse which Thayer (p. 230) calls "that vexed passage." In the King James Version the verse says:

Truly one can say that baptism is the answer to a sinner’s request for salvation so that he might have "a good conscience toward God." But standard Greek lexicons do not define Peter’s word eperotema as an "answer."

The American Standard Version has an "interrogation of a good conscience toward God." The word "interrogation" fits the first definition of Greek lexicons, namely, an "inquiry," a "question," but it leaves the reader confused, and he himself asks a question, "What about baptism is an inquiry, a question, an interrogation?"

The Greek lexicons give another definition of Peter’s word eperotema as an "appeal," and "earnest seeking," "an intense craving," which means that baptism is an appeal to God to grant salvation so that a sinner may have a good conscience before God. The New American Standard, the New Revised Standard, and the Freed-Hardeman Version (FHV) all use the word "appeal."

The correspondent asks, "Do you think the text in 1 Peter 3:21 would allow: ‘the earnest request to God for a clear conscience’"? Yes, the second meaning of Peter’s word eperotema is in exact harmony with the phrase "the earnest request," and I believe it has more feeling than the word "appeal." Accordingly, the 4^th edition of the Freed-Hardeman Version will call baptism "the earnest request to God for a clear conscience."

However, a clear translation of 1 Peter 3:21 involves more than calling baptism an "earnest request to God for a clear conscience." As long as Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines baptism as a ceremony "of admitting a person into Christianity" by "dipping him in water or sprinkling water on him," any translation of 1 Peter 3:21 that uses the word "baptism" is unclear.

The word "baptism" is not a translation of the Greek word baptisma. The word "baptism" only anglicizes the Greek word, using English letters to replace reek letters, and does not tell what the word means. The Greek word baptisma derives from bapto, not meaning to sprinkle, but to dip, as seen in Luke 16:24: "end Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue."

The meaning "dip" is carried over in the Freed-Hardeman Version by the words "immerse," "overwhelm," or "submerge" (compare Mk. 10:38, 39), except in the four instances in which the author’s thought is not the action (an immersion), but the result of the action (a washing: Mk. 7:4; Lk. 11:38; Heb. 9:10; 1 Pet. 3:21).

The word "washing" in Scripture (loutron) also shows that sometimes the word baptisma is used, not to point to the action of dipping, but to its result: "having cleansed them in the washing of water by the word" (Eph. 5:26), and "the washing of regeneration" (Titus 3:5), and "having … our body washed in pure water" (Heb. 10:22). So, in 1 Peter 3:20, 21, the washing away (the immersing) of the sin of the world in Noah’s flood has become: