For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26-28, NAB)
In a very insightful book on liturgy and worship in Paul’s epistles, Catholic scholar John Paul Heil offered the following comments about baptism and the theme of being “clothed upon” in Galatians 3:26-28:
Baptism and Ethical Worship
As Paul points out, it was not through Jewish circumcision but through faith in Christ Jesus that all of the Galatians are “sons” of God (3:26). Faith in Christ Jesus was sacramentally ritualized in a ceremonial immersion with water known as “baptism,” an initiation rite that replaced the Jewish initiation rite of circumcision. The Galatians who were baptized into Christ have “clothed themselves” with Christ (3:27). The metaphor of “clothing oneself” was a symbol of the transformation of one’s very life and way of living. This spiritual “clothing” of oneself with Christ in baptism thus initiated a new behavior and conduct in accord with Christ that was part of ethical or moral worship. This is further indicated as Paul goes on to proclaim, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither free nor slave, there is neither male nor female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (3:28). Having been “clothed” with Christ in baptism thus means that there is no longer a need for Jewish and Gentile believers to worship separately. All believers are now members of one and the same community who live for and worship God in Christ Jesus both liturgically and ethically.
That being “clothed” with Christ in baptism indicates a transformation to a new way of living and worshipping (3:27) recalls and resonates with Paul’s previous proclamation of this new and total transformation of life. Employing the first-person singular to refer not only to himself personally but to speak as the preeminent representative of every believer, Paul explains, “For I through the law died, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ, and I live—no longer I, but Christ lives in me, and insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me” (2:19-20). Christ’s live and sacrificial “giving himself up” not only for Paul but every believer is a further expression of the “grace” of the Lord Jesus Christ, who “gave himself” for our sins (1:3-4). It was this divine grace that motivated the liturgical worship of Pal and the Galatians expressed in their giving “glory” to God (1:5). And this divine grace now motivates the ethical worship of every believer who has been “clothed” with Christ in baptism, so as, like Paul, to “live for God.” How it is this divine grace that now motivates this new way of living that worships God ethically is confirmed as Paul continues, “I do not reject the grace of God, for if righteousness is through law, then Christ died for nothing” (2:21). (John Paul Heil, The Letters of Paul as Rituals of Worship [Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2011], 68-69)
