Monday, September 12, 2022

Karl Deenick on Christians Being Clothed with Christ After, not Before, Baptism

  

What Paul is not saying is ‘you are sons of God because you believed/put on Christ and that was then symbolised in baptism.’ Paul is not thinking, then, of baptism as a testimony to faith. If that were the case, you would expect Paul to have put it the other way around: ‘you are sons of God because, as many of you as have believed/clothed yourselves with Christ, have been baptised.’ But he doesn’t put it that way. Baptism comes before ‘clothing yourself with Christ’ by faith.

 

Nor is simply Paul referring to a spiritual baptism rather than an actual physical act. So, ‘you are sons of God because as many of you have been washed/baptised by the Spirit have (in so doing) put on Christ.’ That view wouldn’t fit the logic of Galatians. Paul is very careful in Galatians to show that the Holy Spirit is the inheritance that comes through identification with Christ, rather than the other way around—they are heirs of the Spirit through Christ (Gal. 3:7, 9, 14, 22, 29; 4:7). A person receives the Spirit because of identification by faith with Christ and the deliverance from the law that comes through Him (esp. Gal. 3:2). Again, that being the case, if Holy spirit baptism was meant it would have to come second: ‘as many of you as have put on Christ, have been baptised (by the Spirit).’ (Karl Deenick, Washed by God: The Story of Baptism [Ross-Shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, Inc., 2022], 128)