Does baptism save?

Obviously (1 Peter 3:21). It's remarkable that so many Evangelicals deny it or try to avoid saying it. What they ought to do, instead, especially when it's so evident what the people asking them the question are up to, is say something like, "Yes, baptism saves, but in the sense of sanctification, not justification." That's the context in which Peter was writing. The surrounding context is primarily about sanctification, such as "good behavior in Christ" (3:16) and "suffering in the flesh" as Christ did (4:1). There's a reference to a good conscience in 3:16, which is about sanctification, and verse 21 refers to a good conscience, which makes more sense if both passages are addressing sanctification. The context discusses how believers should approach opposition from non-Christians. Baptism involves a public commitment to God that sets the Christian apart in front of the surrounding culture, including those in the culture who are hostile to Christianity. Peter occasionally mentions justification in his letter, much as he occasionally mentions other topics, but he's primarily addressing post-conversion issues. That context favors a non-justificatory interpretation of "saves" (as in Matthew 8:25, 1 Timothy 4:16, Hebrews 5:7, 9:28, 1 Peter 3:20, etc.). Noah was already saved in the sense of justification when the flood occurred. His salvation in the flood context was of a different nature, as Peter's readers were saved through baptism in a non-justificatory manner. The parallel with Noah and the flood is vague under either reading, but makes somewhat more sense if Peter's focus is on sanctification rather than justification.

That reading also makes more sense of Peter's references to faith as justificatory without any reference to baptism elsewhere and his references to Cornelius' prebaptismal justification as normative (Acts 11:15-17, 15:8-11). People are born again in the context of preaching (1 Peter 1:23-25), which is distinct from the later context of baptism (1 Corinthians 1:17). It could be that the references to faith and preaching in 1 Peter 1 aren't meant to deny that it's not until later that people are justified, at the time of baptism, but that's a less natural reading. Why discuss justification as much as chapter 1 does, with all of its references to being born again and such, without mentioning its culmination in baptism, if we're born again, justified, and such in the context of baptism?

Then there's the absurdity of claiming that baptism isn't a work and therefore is consistent with justification apart from works. Other activities that are like baptism are categorized as works, and baptism lines up well with the concept of works referred to in James 2, for example (an outward manifestation of inward faith).

And the wording of 1 Peter 3:21 makes more sense if baptism isn't a means of justification:

"It is unlikely that the present passage [1 Peter 3:21] intends to say something so banal as that baptism's purpose is not to wash dirt off the body. What early Christian would have thought that it was? More probably Peter, like James [in James 1:21], has moral defilement in view, i.e., the 'impulses' that governed the lives of his readers before they believed in Christ...The 'removal of the filth of the flesh' is not a physical but a spiritual cleansing, and Peter's point is not that such cleansing is an unimportant or unnecessary thing, only that baptism is not it. The analogy of the passage in Josephus (18.117) suggests that Peter may simply be insisting that the inward moral cleansing to which he refers is presupposed by the act of water baptism. This interpretation is confirmed by the positive definition of baptism with which the argument now continues." (J. Ramsey Michaels, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 49, 1 Peter [Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1988], 216)

The resemblance between Peter's comments and those of Josephus, who denied that John the Baptist's baptism was justificatory, is another reason for thinking that 1 Peter 3:21 isn't referring to justification through baptism. There may have been a misunderstanding of baptism in early Jewish circles that both Peter and Josephus are addressing, and they're addressing it in ways that overlap to a significant extent. (Both refer to baptism, followed by a comment about what baptism isn't, specifically that it doesn't remove sin, followed by a reference to what baptism is, including a reference to how it involves some kind of setting apart of the individual to God, like a pledge or consecration.) My guess is that a misconception of baptism arose early on, before there was as much of a divide as there would be later between Judaism and Christianity, perhaps even while John the Baptist was still alive. The misconception was corrected, and that correction circulated in both Christian and Jewish contexts. Peter is presenting us with a form of the correction in Christian circles in the middle of the first century. Josephus is presenting us with a form of the correction in Jewish circles in the late first century.