There is an astounding and often forgotten fact about our salvation. That the resurrected Jesus Christ before He was lifted in to His former glory said this as the great commission: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. It is a conditional scripture, meaning; until they are baptized, they are not yet saved. That is to be announced saved; or until you are baptized your salvation is incomplete.

Mark 16:15-16 (KJV)

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Water baptism when it comes to the subject of salvation is often forgotten. Though just like receiving Christ as our Lord and Savior is a work of faith, it is often cast aside for a more conducive and celebrative moments. It is in its entirety mostly undermined, due to it being often misinterpreted by the lot of our Christian faith society. It is so under rated that it is generally not sort as the first priority to a prosperous Christian life but rather announced as a sacrament to symbolize an aspect of the death and resurrection of Christ. Which also is not true. For baptism literally engages a physical death to self so that Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit may by a cleansing of our former conscience there in us dwell in by His Holy Spirit.

1 Peter 3:20-21 (KJV)

Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 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:

Baptism by design save us from a thing that we usually try to deal with by reading the word of God. The word of God is not meant to cleanse us, but rather to grow us in our salvation. Rather, water baptism as Apostle Peter elaborates; is meant to save us by not putting away our sins (Which is done by the blood of Jesus and His death upon the cross). But it is meant to cleanse our conscience (mentality) by giving us a good conscience to ward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We thus face and enter in to death ( total submerging in to water), so we rise out as people who are dead to former self. It is meant to quicken our dead /seared conscience but killing the desire for sin or the old character and rise Christ in us.