“...Of course scripture doesn’t teach that?”
I respectfully disagree- Scripture DOES teach it.
Please reread - I mean get your bible out and read it
John 3:5 and 22
Then read Peter 3:21 and meditate on baptism.
First, I appreciate the respectful way you wrote that. I will give a respectful answer in return...
John 3:5 - water is physical birth through amniotic fluid, not baptism. Verse 6 makes it clear Christ is contrasting the first (water) with physical birth and the second (born of the spirit) spiritual birth. The first doesn’t save, nor does Christ say so. He says if you don’t experience both, you won’t experience the kingdom of God.
John 3:22 - if you read further, you will see the context is baptism for repentance - John the Baptist’s baptism, since he was not yet thrown into jail. Never does it say those baptized in this way went to heaven.
I Peter 3:21 - in this instance you are imputing a meaning without context, based on a word. Here is more of the passage for context.
“19 After being made alive,[d] he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[e] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.”
Baptism saves Christians now as the water that floated Noah’s ark saved him and drowned his unbelieving antagonists. The water itself did not save Noah, it was a judgement on the world. Noah obeyed God by putting his faith in His provision before the rain began and he was saved.
The water itself does not save us by cleansing us from defilement, but announces publicly that the person baptized has placed his or her faith in Jesus Christ. Baptism symbolizes exactly what Noah experienced, a break with the old life that God wiped away - as a result of his faith in God’s word.
Baptism by the Holy Spirit places the believer into Christ, saving him. Water baptism is a visual testimony to the world of what has happened internally.
Summary, none of those passages says water baptism is necessary for salvation.
No one really looks at the verses prior to and after 1 Peter 3:21. Here they are:
1 Peter 3:21:
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 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.
21 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:
22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.