For ye, as many as have been baptised unto Christ, have put on Christ.
Paul has just said that believers are sons of God through faith, and this verse gives the ground for it: baptism, and a garment. Two questions follow: what is it to be baptized into Christ, and how far does putting on Christ reach — to outward profession, or to inward reality?
The verse begins with "for." It points back to what faith has already done: it dismissed the law as guardian and brought the believer home.
Here are precious deeds of faith! It dismisses the schoolmaster; it brings the soul to God as to a father, and then it clothes the believer with the value of Christ in God's sight and acceptance... We are brought from under the law — the schoolmaster, and, with him, guardians and trustees are gone; we are "sons" at home in the Father's house, and have the rights and the mind of the First-born Himself put on us.
"Put on" is clothing language. The believer wears Christ, and that garment covers everything else from view.
Christ is, according to the truth announced in baptism itself, the One in whom we are, therefore, before God. It is His perfection, His beauty that is seen upon us. Nothing else is seen, no earthly condition, no place of privilege beside.
Scripture also uses "put on" as a daily command, not only as a settled fact.
Scripture urges us in practice not only to cast off the works of darkness but to put on the armor of light, and, more widely still, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 13:12, 14); while in principle Galatians 3:27 says all who are baptized have put on Christ.
You cannot wear two robes. Baptism to Christ ruled out the other garments a person might have put on.
If we had been circumcised, we would have put on Judaism. That would have committed us to keeping the law for justification. If we had taken John the Baptist's baptism, we would have put on the robe of professed repentance. That would have committed us to believing in the One who was to come after him. As it is, if we were baptized into Christ, we have put on Christ. We have committed ourselves to living out the life of Christ in practice — what the next chapter calls "the fruit of the Spirit."
Commentators differ here. Some hold that baptism goes no further than outward profession. In their view it pictures death with Christ, not the giving of life.
It is a sign of death with Christ, as Romans 6 and Colossians 2 make plain. It is not a sign of life-giving, and still less of the gift of the indwelling Spirit of God... Water baptism does not go beyond profession, as in Galatians 3:27 and elsewhere, though we are responsible to be true. No one is true except the person who believes and has Christ as his life.
Others read the wording the other way. They argue that the act itself does something.
Baptism, here, is said to be a putting on of Christ. Again, it does not say that baptism is a public confession of faith, or an act of obedience, or a picture of something already true (though of course it may involve all these). But surely it matters that the inspired writer states, as clearly as words can, that the act of baptism itself brings something about?
If baptism marked the end of the old ground, going back to law contradicts what you confessed.
Baptism is in itself a sign of burial... When I am baptized I acknowledge that the death of Christ has ended the first creation for me. By this I in figure put off the old garment and "put on Christ." This does not mean receiving Christ into the heart... If I have done this, and then go back to law as a rule of life, I announce loudly that I was wrong ever to be baptized into Christ.
Every believer wears the same garment. The old differences lose their standing.
Every true believer is clothed with Christ. When God looks at me, He sees me in Christ, clothed with Christ... And this is true of every believer, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. We all have put on Christ... It is not an old creation, but a new creation. In the old creation there were all these differences, but this is something entirely new.
- Freed — Faith has dismissed the schoolmaster; the believer stands as a son at home, not a pupil under guardians.
- Clothed — To put on Christ is to wear Him: God sees His perfection and beauty on us, and nothing else.
- Exchanged — Baptism into Christ put off one robe and put on another; circumcision would have meant wearing Judaism.
- Disputed — How far does baptism reach? Some say no further than profession, picturing death with Christ; others say the act itself does something.
- United — One garment for all: Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female have no standing in the new creation.
There is no Jew nor Greek; there is no bondman nor freeman; there is no male and female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus
Paul has just told the Galatians that faith in Christ, not law-keeping, makes a person a child of God. This verse closes that argument. It names three walls that once divided people, and it raises a question: does being "one in Christ Jesus" erase who you are as a Jew or Greek, a slave or free person, a man or a woman?
The three pairs are not random. Each names a different kind of barrier.
In the new creation there is neither Jew nor Greek [no national or religious distinction], there is neither slave nor free [no social distinction], there is no male and female [no natural distinction].
Teachers were pushing the Galatians back under the law. Writers point out what that move does. It brings back the very differences this verse removes.
By pushing people back to the Jewish law, they had brought national differences back to life. They even created new ones they had not noticed before. Legalism always insists on the difference between the Jew and the Gentile, and claims the Jew is superior... Under the law, women had a lower place in worship than men. The males were the appointed worshippers at the great national gatherings... But now males do not go up alone to keep God's feasts. Believers of either sex are heirs together of the grace of life. Both come alike into the presence of the Father. Both come to the throne of grace where He sits. Both come in the same powerful Name, and by the one Spirit who lives in them.
The reason lies in the two words at the end: in Christ. If everyone is in Christ, then what God sees is the same in every case.
God sees His perfection, His beauty, on us. He sees nothing else — no earthly condition, no special standing... If each one of us is in Christ, then Christ must be the same for each and all of us. There can be no distinction here. For distinction, we must look away from Christ.
The differences listed belong to the world as it now is. Christ's people already belong to a new order — though, one writer notes, their bodies do not yet.
In the last chapter we find that in Christ Jesus there is new creation. That is why all the differences of the old creation are gone. This new creation work has already reached our souls, though not yet our bodies. So we cannot yet take these things up in an absolute way... Still, even now we are in Christ Jesus. So we can learn to see each other apart from these differences, and lifted above them.
Writers here draw a line. The verse speaks of our place before God, and they warn against two ways it has been misused.
All these differences belong to the old creation. The risen Christ brings all into equal blessing and privilege. It is a question of our place and portion in Him. Let us be careful to keep the passage to that. People have used it to set aside or belittle the ordinary relationships of life. Others have used it to justify a woman taking the man's place in the services of God. But this twists the plain words of Paul. God approves the ordinary relationships of life in Christianity, just as before, and the letters of the New Testament all give order to them.
One writer follows that second misuse into the home.
The husband would give up his rightful place of authority. The wife would lose her only happy place of subjection. And where would the Christian child be if this idea were carried out? As children of God, all do stand on the same level. Father, mother and child, if they believe, enjoy the same spiritual privileges.
This oneness was not just a teaching. It produced a community the surrounding world could not explain.
...the new brotherhood that astonished the world. It included women whom faith in Christ had set free. They had been treated as mere servants and playthings by men. Now they stood in a close, shared relationship where Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female cannot be; "for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
- One garment. Because every believer is in Christ, God sees the same beauty on each — nothing else, no earthly condition, no extra privilege.
- One standing. The three walls fall: national and religious, social, natural. Legalism put the Jew above the Gentile and women below men; in Christ both sexes reach the Father by the same Name and one Spirit.
- One creation. The differences belong to the old creation. The new creation has reached our souls, not yet our bodies. So we cannot take this up in an absolute way today.
- One caution. Standing before God is not the same as roles on earth. God still approves the ordinary relationships of life. The New Testament letters give order to them. Using this verse against them twists Paul's plain words.
- One brotherhood. Lived out, this oneness astonished the world. Others could see it, not just hear it.