What does it mean to be baptized into Christ (Galatians 3:27)?

"For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." The great point of the whole argument was, that the seed was risen, the seed Isaac, after he had been appointed to die, and actually under the knife, but now risen from the dead in figure, to show that this is the condition into which we Gentiles are admitted as having to do with Christ. Was Christ under the law when He rose from the dead? Nothing of the kind. So, says the apostle, it is with us Christians now. You have nothing to do with the Jewish schoolmaster. Faith has come in alike for us, and for you Gentiles; you have become sons of God without passing under the law at all. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Do you not know what your baptism meant? What does a man confess when he is baptized? That he belongs to a Saviour who died and rose again. "So many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ (says our apostle elsewhere) were baptized unto His death." And the death of Christ is that which for ever dissolves even a Jew's connection with the law. Up to death, the law had a righteous claim upon the Jew, but the moment he confessed Jesus dead and risen, even he at once passed out of it into a wholly new condition. With a Saviour who is risen from the dead as his life and Lord, his business is to walk as a man that is united to Him: the connection is broken with the old husband, and he belongs to another. Were he to attempt to have Christ and law together afterwards, it would be like a woman having two husbands; that is, spiritual adultery. The effect of it, too, is most palpable. Who has not seen a Christian one day joyous, the next day very much cast down in spirit, not sure whether he have eternal life or not; trembling at the thought of the Lord's coming; and yet that same man admiring, loving, adoring Christ? How comes this? He knows not death to the law. No wonder, then, he is in a miserable plight. The law presses him to death, and Christ is only known enough to keep his head above water, but with constant tendency to fall under it. How good for his soul to learn that God has broken all such ties by the death of Christ! My very baptism is the confession that, even had I been a Jew, I am dead to the law — "being dead to that wherein we were held." "Wherefore ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead." Of course, if dead to the law, it would be a most unhappy state not to be married to another. How great would be the danger of thinking oneself at liberty to do what one liked! But if belonging to Christ, then come the new feelings of one who is thus near to Him. Now, I belong to Him, and I am to do what He likes; our husband gives us liberty to do His will, not to do our own — "to bring forth fruit unto God." This is what baptism sets forth in a Christian; it is the confession of the death and resurrection of Christ. The believer should know, then, that he has done with the law, and is called to live unto God. "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" — not the law, but Christ.

The object of the whole is to show that, important as the law was for bringing people's transgressions plainly before them, yet now that a Christian has Christ, he has already confessed his sins, and has to do with another state of things altogether. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female. He takes up the grand distinctions of men naturally, and shows that these things did not characterise them as Christians. That which alone stamps me as such, is that I have Christ, and have put on Christ. "For ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." That is to say, they had not to pass under circumcision, or any other rite of the law, in order to get the promises. The Holy Ghost brings into these promises by having Christ. If you are striving to gain them by the law, you lose them; if you receive Christ, they are assuredly yours. He is the true seed of Abraham, and, having Christ, I have all the promises of God. "For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God by us." Thus, you see, he is giving the final touch to the great argument of the Holy Ghost throughout the whole passage: that the Gentile believer has nothing whatever to do with the law as a means of blessing from God; that he may use the law as a weapon against the ungodly, but that in Christ he has done with the question of law — has emerged definitely out of it all, and now he is in Christ. And if I am there, I have all that Christ can give. The point is, to give all the glory to Christ. The force of the passage must strike any thoughtful mind in looking round upon the present time. The evil against which Paul was warning them has now become overwhelming. In one shape or another the law is mingled with Christ; and therein you have poor Christians endeavouring to keep the two husbands at the same time. It is not something that we merely describe about others, but most of us know it from experience. We have proved both its misery and the blessing of deliverance from it. And may God be pleased to vouchsafe the same deliverance to every child of His who has tasted as yet only the misery and not the deliverance.

"For you, as many as were baptized unto Christ, clothed yourselves with Christ." The Apostle assumes that every one in the assemblies in Galatia had received baptism. Every believer in those days, whether Jew or Gentile, gladly accepted this very blessed sign of having part with Christ. Baptism cannot save us, or take our sins away. "Without shedding of blood is no remission (of sin)." Heb. 9:22. But baptism is the mark that a man is a Christian. When a man is baptized he takes upon him the name of Christ; he puts on Christ: he clothes himself with Christ. This is all outward, and it may be nothing more than profession without true change of heart, for baptism is like the door that lets us enter into that great circle of profession which we call "Christianity." Thank God, there are many in this great circle who are true; but, alas, there are very many who are false, who bear the name, but they have never been born again, born into the family of God: they are not truly sons. But these believers in Galatia were baptized "unto Christ." This is not at all a question of law. Christian baptism supposes man to be dead; and nobody asks a dead man to keep the law. The only death that can deliver man from his own death is the death of Christ. Therefore, when a man is baptized, he is not baptized unto his own death; he is baptized unto Christ's death. So when believers in Galatia were baptized, at that moment they "put on Christ," or "clothed themselves with Christ."

Every true believer is clothed with Christ. When God looks at me, He sees me in Christ, clothed with Christ. And when I have been baptized, and man looks at me, he says, That man has been baptized; he is a Christian; he bears the name of Christ; he has put on Christ: he has clothed himself with Christ. And this is true of every believer, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. We all have put on Christ. When God looks at us, He sees Christ. So the Apostle exclaims: "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." All is Christ and only 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. We are all one in Christ: and if you are Christ's, what need to be circumcised? You do not want to become the children of Abraham — Jews in that sense: the fleshly sense. The Apostle now closes this part of the argument saying, "But if you are of Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise." Of Christ: you are part of Christ: you are members of Christ: not merely the property of Christ, but you are identified with Christ. See Gal. 5:24: "But the ones of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh." These Galatian believers are already Abraham's seed, entirely apart from any question of circumcision or the law; and more than that they are "heirs according to promise." The Apostle has shown that Christ is the one true Seed; so if we are a part of that one true Seed, then we are Abraham's seed, Abraham's children, heirs according to promise, and all without law or circumcision.

By our baptism we have, as a matter of profession, put on Christ. Had we submitted to circumcision we should have put on Judaism, and thereby committed ourselves to the fulfilling of the law for justification. Had we been baptised to John's baptism we should have put on the robe of professed repentance and committed ourselves to believe on the One that should come after him. As it is we have, if baptised to Christ, put on Christ and committed ourselves to that practical expression of the life of Christ which in the next chapter is spoken of as "the fruit of the Spirit." As sons of God, having now the liberty of the house, we put on Christ as our fitness to be there.

The decisive question for the Galatians is this: has their position been changed by conversion to Christ? Are they still on the old legal ground, or on new? What did their baptism to Christ imply? They had been baptized unto Christ, and in so doing had "put on Christ" (v.27). In fact, baptism is in itself a sign of burial, and baptism unto Christ is baptism "to his death" (Rom.6:3). Hence, baptism is a striking picture of the setting aside of the old legal position by means of the death of Christ. I acknowledge by being baptized 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, or it would be a strong verse for the deluded advocates of new birth by water baptism. But it is outwardly putting on Christ as a garment. If I have done this, and then go back to law as a rule of life, I loudly proclaim that I was wrong in ever being baptized unto Christ.

The only connection with life is the passage in Colossians 2: "Wherein also we are risen with him"; but there it is carefully added, "by faith in the operation of God who raised him from the dead": and even there the coming up out of baptism is resurrection with Him: not simply quickening or life-giving, but formally distinct from it. Baptism is death — reception in the visible assembly, through death of that which we were, as alive in the first Adam, the death of Christ. As to putting on Christ in Galatians 3, it is only the public profession of Him, as contrasted with Jew or Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, male or female. The passage itself is that which declares that "we are all children of God [not by baptism but] by faith in Christ Jesus."

227 Nor is baptism incorporating into Christ. There is positive testimony to the contrary: "For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body." The Holy Ghost come down from heaven unites to the glorified Head in heaven. That baptism of the Spirit, we are told, took place on the day of Pentecost. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit"; others, when they came in amongst them, partook of the same Holy Ghost.

What has Galatians 3:27 to say to us on the subject? "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Baptism, here, is said to be a putting on of Christ. Again it does not say it is a public confession of faith, or that Baptism is an act of obedience or represents something already true (though of course it may involve all these). But is it not important to observe that the inspired writer affirms with all the clearness conceivable that the act of Baptism itself effects something? And does not this view of it add tremendously to the significance of Baptism? The fact is as astounding as it is true, that, Baptists, with all their glorying in Baptism, have shorn it of nearly all its meaning! "Baptized unto Christ." "Put on Christ." Here is the grand conception of the rite the Bible presents to us. And surely the Bible knows more about Baptism than any of us. Where have Baptists got their ideas from? Here we go from passage to passage in the Word of God and do not find so much as a reference to their favourite tenets, but on the contrary a repeated insistence upon what they have evidently overlooked, or at least, put in the shade. While they make everything depend upon personal faith, the inspired writers ground certain things upon Baptism. While they would insist upon everything being true before the rite is administered, neither John the Baptist nor Paul confined their view of it within such narrow limits, but John baptized the multitude after telling them what they ought to be; and Paul says, "Buried with Him (Christ) by Baptism." "As many as have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ." If there is only one way of being in Christ and that through believing, in what way could you be Baptized into Christ; and by Baptism "put on Christ"? But if there is a recognised outward sphere of profession, then one can understand the terms.

Verse 27. "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ." From Christ personal he now passes to Christ mystical, yet still keeping the former in the place of due pre-eminence. We may notice first the cast of the apostle's language. He does not say, because ye were baptized, but "as many as were baptized," etc., leaving room for the inference that not all the people who had received the gospel in Galatia had at that time been baptized. Then, as to the force of his statement, by submitting to Christian baptism they had, whether they worthily apprehended it or not, passed ostensibly, by an outward and solemnly impressive rite, into that new condition into which, by faith in Jesus Christ, all who had not believed in vain had been really and for ever brought. By faith they were all God's children: they who had been baptized had moreover added to their faith this first act of an obedient confession, and by so doing had as it were visibly clothed themselves with Him whose name they bore.

The import and effect of baptism, when undergone by real believers, is variously stated in Scripture. In 1 Peter 3:21 we are told its bearing on the individual conscience of the child of God. In Col. 2:11-12, it is treated with reference to the absolute change from old to new, as the spiritual realization of the old rite of circumcision, when its true meaning is embraced by faith, the believer being there regarded as both dead and risen with Christ. He is therefore truly circumcised and separate to God, because no longer, as to his new standing, in the flesh, but in the Spirit. In Romans 6 we have the same doctrine enforced, with an especial reference to the believer's walk. He is there instructed and exhorted to reckon himself "to be dead indeed to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord." In the passage before us a different figure is employed. The baptised believer is said to have "put on Christ." The filthy rags of his own false righteousness are gone. He renounces his former generation and its empty hopes, and by faith assumes the name and honour which belong naturally to the worthy One alone. He is a new creature in Christ Jesus. This description of the effect of baptism will be better understood by referring to his earlier declaration of the effect of faith in his own case (Ante, chap. 2:20). Christ lived in him, and he in Christ; and he knew both these things by the Spirit, according to the now fulfilled promise of the Lord (John 16:20; Rom. 8:1, 10). In like manner the believer, by descending into and again emerging from the waters of baptism, puts off himself, with his uncleanness, and takes instead the new and divine garments of salvation; henceforth to walk not as other Gentiles walk, nor in the oldness of the letter, as the "concision," but in newness of the Spirit, according to the grace and power of the Lord in whom he trusts.

Baptism is "unto Christ" (Rom. 6:3), "unto the Name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 8:16), a putting on of Christ (Gal. 3:27). It is a separation to Him as Master and Lord, as by the cloud and the sea the Israelites were marked off as followers of their divinely-appointed guide, — "baptized unto Moses" (1 Cor. 10:16). "Unto the Name of the Lord Jesus" — not "in" — defines it as the recognition of His Lordship — of the throne as His. Thus Paul also is exhorted by Ananias, "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the Name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16). Thus also in Eph. 4:5, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," are joined together.

And this is shown by the fact of the new place into which God has put His people now, "sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus;" the school of law is not the proper place for us. That does not mean that we are not to profit by the lessons which the law taught, of course. We may profit by the lessons which we learn in school without being under the schoolmaster; but under the schoolmaster, no one says "Father." The place of sons as such is manifestly somewhere else than at school. This, then, has come for us, for "as many of us as have been baptized to Christ have put on Christ." 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. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Manifestly, if each one of us is in Christ, 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; but if then we "are Christ's," then "are we Abraham's seed," in the fullest way identified with the very One in whom the blessing was to be, identified with the very Heir of blessing, and therefore heirs according to the promise, "in thy Seed:" that is Christ, in whom we are.

But then, he does further and other service in this same cause. He goes on to tell us the glorious things faith works and accomplishes in us and for us. "After faith is come," he tells us in Galatians 3:25-27, "we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For we are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ." 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 the eye and acceptance of God. And "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6). And "we are redeemed from under the law" (Gal. 4:5). Can any more full and perfect sense of an immediate dealing between Christ and the soul be conceived, than is expressed and declared by such statements? We are brought from under the law — the schoolmaster, and, with him, tutors and governors 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, and imparted to us! Can any condition of soul more blessedly set forth our independence of the resources of a religion of ordinances, and the poor sinner's personal and immediate connection with Christ Himself?