I said to him, "You know, my lord." So he told me, "These are the people who have come out of the great Distress, who washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead, and the prince over the kings of earth; to him who loves us and has loosed us from our sins by shedding his blood —
Baptism, the counterpart of that, saves you to-day (not the mere washing of dirt from the flesh but the prayer for a clean conscience before God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
Some of you were once like that; but you washed yourselves clean, you were consecrated, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
This is the God to whom you owe your being in Christ Jesus, whom God has made our 'Wisdom,' that is, our righteousness and consecration and redemption;