While shepherds were abiding in the field, the angel of the Lord appeared to them and said, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). There is no doubt that the promised Savior is Jesus Christ. By His miracles and His resurrection from the dead, He showed convincingly that He was sent by the Father to be the Savior of mankind. Paul called Him “our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13), and Peter spoke of Jesus, saying, “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31).

Jesus is the Savior. But Paul said, “we are saved by hope” (Romans 8:24), and “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). Paul also said, “For by grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). He advised Timothy, “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee” (1 Timothy 4:16). James advised that we should “receive with meekness the engrafted [written] word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). Thus we are saved by “hope,” by “preaching,” by “grace,” by receiving “the engrafted word,” and we even save ourselves and others by “taking heed” unto ourselves and “unto the doctrine.” The key is that our faith, our hope, and all of these other things must be in Christ, the Savior.

It is not surprising, then, that Peter said “the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us,” which he explains is “(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 3:21). Even though Peter surely acknowledges that Jesus is the Savior, he also says that “baptism doth also now save us.” There is no contradiction between the ideas, however, when we realize that it is baptism which puts us into Jesus Christ, the Savior. “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

 As He instituted the Lord’s Supper, Jesus told the disciples, “this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). Salvation and the remission, or forgiveness of sins come through His shed blood. We contact that saving blood, which was shed in His death, as we are buried with Him in baptism. Paul reminded the Roman Christians of their common experience in becoming Christians: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 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” (Romans 6:3-4). We are saved by baptism into the Savior Jesus Christ, just as we are saved by faith in Him. The fact that we must obey Him to accept His sacrifice makes Him no less the Savior.