I believe a person can still be saved if they were not water baptized in certain conditions if their heart condition is there, and they are not putting it off procrastinating to get it done.
What if a person realizes they need to be water baptized and they are on the way to do it and die.
Or they are too frail to get it done for they cannot be picked up.
Or another condition that is out of their control, and I did not see an incident where anyone baptized themselves.
If it is in their heart but out of their control with a reason then it would seem like they would be saved.
Like the thief on the cross that acknowledged Jesus as Savior when he said Lord remember me when you come in to your kingdom, and Jesus said today you will be with me in paradise.
The thief could not be water baptized for he was on a cross but Jesus said he will be with Him for to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
They were baptized on to John's baptism, and I do not think they were baptized with Jesus' baptism until after Pentecost.
Which those that were baptized on to John's baptism had to be baptized on to Jesus' baptism.
Rom 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Rom 6:4 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.
Rom 6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.
Water baptism is not to show an outward sign that you confess Christ, or to belong to a Church, but it is to identify with Christ's death which if you do that then you will identify with His resurrection.
If you do not think water baptism is for salvation then how do you identify with Christ's resurrection.
That is why Jesus said we must be born of water, and the Spirit.
We have to identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of the man Christ Jesus by confessing our sins, dying out to sins, being water baptized, and receiving the Spirit.
Some people cut out the middle man saying it is a work.
1Th 1:3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.
2Th 1:11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power.
But faith is a work for all we think and do is a work.
1Pe 3:20 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.
1Pe 3:21 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.
The Bible says baptism does now save us so it is part of the salvation plan of God.
It is speaking of water baptism because it identifies it with the flood.