3:25-26 Now that faith
has come believers no longer depend on the law
to lead them to their Teacher: we are no longer under a disciplinarian.
In fact, through faith our spiritual condition has changed completely. Here
Paul passes immediately to the highest dignity conferred on those who believe
in Christ—namely, the dignity of being children of God (literally, “sons
of God” . . . ) This dignity is not restricted to those of Jewish descent;
Gentile Christians enjoy this privilege as well. Paul is eager to affirm this,
so he jumps from the first-person plural in verse 25—“we [Jews] are no longer
under a disciplinarian”—to the second-person plural in verse 26: you [Gentiles]
are all children of God. This transition shows the Apostle’s firm
conviction that the change in the spiritual situation of Jews has brought with
it the possibility of a similar change for all human beings.
Being a child of God does not exclude
the need for teaching, but it does exclude being subject to the “disciplinarian,”
the law of Moses, since the sons and daughters of God in Christ Jesus participate
in the glorious sonship of their risen Lord. Later in Galatians (5:13-26) Paul
will indicate what replaces the law as the guide to Christian conduct.
Paul speaks of baptism as the means by
which believers enter into this very close relationship with Christ: For all
of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Baptism
is the concrete expression of adherence to Christ in faith. Paul virtually
identifies faith with baptism in these verses, illustrating that Christian
faith is not only assenting to a creed or having a religious experience. Faith
follows the pattern of the incarnation and therefore involves the body as well.
Baptism expresses and brings about the incorporation of the whole believer—body,
soul, and spirit—into the body of Christ. Paul will explain in Rom 6:3-14 how
baptism unites believers to Christ’s bodily death and resurrection, both in the
present and in our ultimate future. Baptism actualizes faith in Christ.
In this way baptism differs radically
from circumcision. It is not just a rite but a means of truly joining the lives
of two persons, the believer and Christ. While circumcision leaves a permanent,
visible mark on the body that indicates belonging to a particular nation, baptism
leaves no mark of nationality and is offered to people of every nation.
In speaking of baptism Pual does not
say “baptized in Christ”; he literally says, “baptized into
Christ.” In other words, Christ is not the element in which a believer
is immersed but rather the person to whom the believer is united through
baptism. Immersion happens “in water” (see Matt 3:11) and “in the Spirit” (see
Matt 3:11; 1 Cor 12:13), but because of the union it affects, it is baptism “into
Christ.”
Baptism produces not only a change in relationship
but also a change in one’s being that Pual describes with the verb “to clothe”:
you have “clothed yourselves with Christ.” This statement is perplexing.
How is it possible “to clothe oneself” with another person? The expression
could be misunderstood as merely an external, superficial change: changing
clothes does not transform a person. But here, as in certain Old Testament
passages, “clothing oneself” expresses a change that redefines a person’s life.
For example, in a text that Paul may have had in mind, Isaiah writes:
I will rejoice heartily in the LORD,
my being exults in my God;
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation,
and wrapped me in a robe of justice [righteousness]. (Isa 61:10; see Ps 132:16)
To be clothed in Christ brings a profound
transformation. (Albert Vanhoye and Peter S. Williamson, Galatians [Catholic
Commentary on Sacred Scripture; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2019],
126-28)