Baptism explicitly functions in
Galatians as the means through which Paul’s readers (“you”) become “clothed
with Christ,” and, therefore, belong to Christ (υμεις Χριστου) and are in Christ Jesus (Χριστω ‘Ιησου). It
is, after all, baptism “into Christ.” We should not exaggerate the difference
between Gal 3:28’s baptism εις Χριστον and
baptism εις το ονομα κυριου ‘Ιησου (cf. 1 Cor 1:13, 15), if indeed there
is one. . . . The Galatians’ union with Christ supersedes all other markers of
identity, including ethnic, social, and gender markers (Gal 3:28), and effects
baptizands’ adoption into God’s family. The same idea is implicit in Paul’s
critique of the Corinthians’ division into factions (according to the agent,
direct or indirect, of baptism?): in response to a situation in which
Christ-followers gathered under the name of Paul or of Apollos or of Cephas—or
even of Christ, if such gathering fostered divisions (1 Cor 1:10)—Paul asks,
“Has Christ been apportioned out?” (1 Cor 1:13). In both 1 Corinthians and Galatians
Paul subsumes all other markers of identity to Christ, and baptism is the
initiatory rite through which a person becomes identified with Christ. (Rafael
Rodríguez, “Baptism,” in The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries,
ed. Chris Keith [London: T&T Clark, 2020], 3:366-67)
