Acts 2:38 and Salvation

Dr. Couch, is Acts 2:38 saying that baptism produces salvation? ANSWER: Oh, heavens no! But you need some Greek to understand grammatically what's going on in the verse. Ger, in our commentary series from AMG, gets it right. He writes: "Peter is not saying that the physical act of baptism results in forgiveness of sin, but rather, that baptism is the closely related physical sign of the spiritual reality of repentance, which results in forgiveness. "Repentance is linked with the forgiveness of sin based upon grammatical agreement in both gender and number (both are second person plural). The 'eis' indicates that forgiveness of sin is the result of repentance. This makes the command to be baptized (third person singular) a parenthetical idea. The verse could then be paraphrased as follows, 'Repent for the forgiveness of your sins, and be baptized.' Peter only associates repentance or belief with the forgiveness of sin, making no mention of baptism as a condition of forgiveness (3:19; 5:31; 10:43)." Be careful of legalists and those who do by study by fear! They are usually very ignorant and try to put a legalistic spin on verses in Scripture. They always move to the extreme and have no sense of how doctrine and truth really work in the Word of God. Such folks avoid! I hope this helps. Thanks for asking. Dr. Mal Couch