In
Gal 3:27, the apostle Paul affirms the truth of baptismal regeneration.
What is interesting is that the following from two Evangelical Protestants
(with Reformed leanings), speaking of a verse that is about justification and our initial conversion to Christ,
affirms Paul is speaking of believers, not simply being declared but becoming “like
Christ” (Christification) and also affirms Paul is speaking of a process, not something that is
once-for-all, completed in the past(!):
Putting on Christ
Just as putting on the new man is both a past
act and a present challenge, so also is the putting on of Christ a past and
present matter. Paul says in Galatians 3:27, “All of you who were baptized into
Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (the Greek word translated “clothed
yourselves” is the same word translated “put on” in relation to the new man in
Galatians 3:27, Ephesians 4:24, and Colossians 3:10 and can be translated “put
on Christ”).
To clothe
oneself with or to put on a person “means to take on the characteristics,
virtues, and/or intentions of the one referred to, and so to become like that
person” (Richard N.
Longenecker, Galatians, Word Biblical
Commentary, vol. 42 [Dallas: Word Books, 1990], pp. 285-86). Paul, then, is
saying that when we came to Christ, we were joined to Him—we were made alive in
Him. We became partakers of the
divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and began
the process of becoming like Him. God didn’t simply give us the power to
imitate Him; He actually reconciled us to Himself so that our soul is in union
with His! (Neil T. Anderson and Robert Saucy, The Common
Made Holy: Developing a Personal and Intimate Relationship with God [Eugene,
Oreg./Crowborough, East Sussex: Harvest House Publishers/Monarch Publications,
1997], 107-8)
