This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you-- not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh ... In this clause, Peter pointed out a variation in the figure; whereas it was the polluted flesh that was destroyed and removed by the flood, it is a moral and spiritual cleansing effected in baptism.  Some have made this an excuse for saying, "Peter is telling them that it (baptism) is no external rite."[37] It is hard to conceive of a more irresponsible statement by a Christian scholar than this one.  All history denies the notion that baptism is not an external rite.  On the other hand, it most assuredly is an external rite. Christ was baptized in a river.  It took a laver (baptistery) to perform it in the days of the apostles (see  Titus 3:5, where the "laver of regeneration" is mentioned, and comment in my Commentary on Titus, pp. 145-147); it was performed in pools of water like those men pass by on the road when traveling (Acts 8:36); and even today there is hardly a church of any name in all Christendom that does not have in its place of worship either a baptistery or the vestige of one (the font); and it may be inquired where did these come from(?) if Christian baptism is not an external rite? Of course, it is also a fact that baptism is not merely, or solely, an external rite.