3:27 Baptized into Christ
To Put on Righteousness. Martin Luther: To put on Christ in
baptism is to put on righteousness, truth and every grace and is the
fulfillment of the whole law. Through Christ you have the blessing and
inheritance of Abraham. First Lectures on Galatians.
To Be Born Again. Martin Luther: To put on Christ is not a
matter of imitation but of new birth and a new creation. We have not just
changed our clothes in the outward sense but become entirely new people. Second
Lectures on Galatians.
The Trinity Present in
Baptism. Erasmus
Sarcerius: These words present the form of baptism, because all three persons
of the Trinity are understood when only one of them is mentioned specifically.
Thus to be baptized in the name of Christ Jesus is to be baptized in the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Paul says that baptism comes from
Jesus Christ because it was Christ who instituted it. Annotations on Galatians.
Baptism Should Never Be
Repeated. Johannes Brenz:
By what means or by what mystery or sacrament does God adopt us as his
children? Civil adoptions have their ceremonies and sacraments by which the
adoption is effected and confirmed. So what is the sacrament by which a person
is certified and confirmed in his conscience that he has been adopted as a
child of God on account of Christ?… This sacrament is baptism, because whoever
is baptized is clothed in our Lord Jesus Christ.… Baptism is true baptism if it
is administered according to Christ’s ordinance, but an imposter does not
receive the fruit of this baptism. What can we say about those who at the
beginning received the correct baptism, as children do nowadays, and are truly
clothed in Christ, but later on reject him because of their sins? Do they
retain their baptism? If they repent, should they be rebaptized? My answer is
what Paul wrote to the Romans: “God is faithful, even if every human being is a
liar.” And, “The unbelief of the ungodly does not cancel out the faith of God.”6
Therefore, even if someone loses Christ because of his sins, the covenant of
God established with the baptized in baptism remains firm in so far as it
related to God, and a person who has sinned is not required to be baptized
again. All that is required of him is that he should repent and return to
Christ in that spirit. Similarly, once a marriage has been confirmed by a
public proclamation and blessing in the church, it is not necessary for there
to be a second blessing, even if the couple should fall out to the point that
they separate for a time and are later reconciled. If they are reconciled, they
return to the enjoyment of the blessing already given. In the same way, if
someone turns away from Christ after being baptized and later repents, he
returns to the enjoyment of his earlier baptism and does not need to be
baptized again. Explanation of Galatians.
Baptism Is No Guarantee of
Salvation. John Calvin:
The argument that the Galatians have put on Christ because they have been
baptized seems weak, because baptism is far from being efficacious in everyone.
It is absurd to say that the grace of the Holy Spirit should be so bound to the
external sign. Both the uniform doctrine of Scripture and experience seem to
confute this statement. My reply is that it is customary for Paul to speak of
the sacraments in a twofold way. When he is dealing with hypocrites who boast
of the bare sign, he proclaims its emptiness and worthlessness and strongly
attacks their foolish assurance. He concentrates not on the ordinance of God
but on the corruption of the ungodly. But when he addresses believers, who use
the signs properly, he connects them with the truth that they figure. He makes
no boast of any false splendor in the sacraments but exhibits in fact what the
outward ceremony figures.
Is it possible for the sacrament to cease to be what it figures,
because of the faults of human beings? The answer is simple. Although wicked
people may feel no effect from them, nothing is taken away from the sacraments,
and they still retain their nature and power. The sacraments present the grace
of God to both the good and the bad and do not deceive in promising the grace
of the Holy Spirit; believers receive what is offered. By rejecting that, the
ungodly render the offer unprofitable to themselves, but they cannot destroy
the faithfulness of God and the true meaning of the sacrament.… What is proper
to God is not transferred to the sign, and yet the sacraments keep their power,
so they cannot be regarded as empty and cold spectacles. Those who abuse the
saving ordinances of God not only make them unprofitable to themselves but even
turn them to their own destruction. Commentary on Galatians.
We Can Boast Only of Christ. Georg Maior: Christ alone should be our
uniform and decorations—on the inside, by faith in our hearts, and on the
outside by [good] works, so that nothing should be visible in us other than
Christ and that Christ should be all in all. When he does everything in everyone
and fills all things no one has any cause to boast about his works or his
merits. Anyone who wants to boast has only Christ to boast about, the one who
was handed over for our sins and raised from the dead for our justification,
who dwells in our hearts by faith and who renews and restores us to eternal
life. Commentary on Galatians.
True Believers Must Go
Beyond The Sacraments.
Wolfgang Musculus: Here someone will ask whether the apostle was right to say
that because you have been baptized you have put on Christ, when it is clear
that there are all kinds of people who have been baptized but who are strangers
to the grace and Spirit of Christ, like Simon Magus for example, whom nobody
would claim had ever really put on Christ. Those who are baptized put on Christ
in a sacramental way, but only those who go beyond the sacrament and put him on
in actual fact are real Christians. Undoubtedly there were many Galatians who
had not really put him on but had only made a profession of Christianity and
been sacramentally baptized. Paul was right to say that whoever has been
baptized has put on Christ, as long as you understand this in a sacramental
sense. This sacramental way of speaking is common in Scripture. Commentary on
Galatians.
Baptism Remains a Valid
Witness. Kaspar Olevianus:
How long does the comfort we obtain in baptism last? My answer is that we bear
the testimony of grace and faith and of the covenant between God and us in our
bodies until we die, and that covenant is eternal. The Galatians had sinned
after baptism, yet Paul calls on them to remember what it means. The papists
restrict the effect of baptism to those sins by which a person had been
contaminated before being baptized, which in the case of infants means original
sin and in the case of adults both original sin and whatever they had done
before receiving baptism, because they receive the cleansing of those sins by
their own repentance and satisfaction for them. But the Galatians had sinned
often and sometimes seriously after being baptized, which is why Paul says that
they had been bewitched and were unable to believe the truth. They had even
gone to the point of biting one another, which is why Paul told them to watch
out that they were not completely eaten up by one another. These were great sins
after baptism, but Paul still based their faith on that event. Similarly with
those to whom John wrote in 1 John. They had been baptized, but John wrote,
“Little children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not sin.
But if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father (note that he includes
himself in this!) Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for
our sins, and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world.” And in 1
John 1 he had written, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.”
Note, all sin, and not just original sin. Likewise, just as the rainbow is the
sign of the covenant between God and the entire human race that comforts us
whenever a storm or rain threatens our lives, so we carry the baptism of water
in our bodies as a sign of the covenant that has been ordained by God (which
teaches that the Lord says that even John’s baptism was not a human invention
but came from heaven). It bears witness to us in all our life, fellowship and
communion with Christ that he died and rose again for us by God’s will and that
through him we have the free use of all his blessings. Therefore baptism is not
to be narrowed down to anything less than Christ, so that when we put him on,
the power of baptism is nothing less than that of the death and resurrection of
Christ, to whom baptism points.9Sermons on Galatians.
Admitted Into The Family of
God. William Perkins:
Baptism must put us in mind that we are admitted and received into the family
of God, and consequently that we must carry ourselves as the servants of God. Commentary
on Galatians.
Faith In Christ Is An
Internal Baptism. Jean
Diodati: Faith in Christ causes him to be effectually applied to all true
believers, who are baptized in his name with internal as well as external
baptism, even as a garment to the body, to communicate his righteousness, life,
spirit, rights and dignities to them, that as he is the Son of God by nature,
they may also be made the like by grace and adoption, and that without any
distinction of nations, states or conditions. Annotations on the Bible. (Galatians, Ephesians: New Testament, ed.
Gerald L. Bray and Scott M. Manetsch [Reformation Commentary on Scripture 10; Downers
Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2011], 126-29)
