God’s Word for You
Galatians 3:26-29 Your baptism
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, July 17, 2024
26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew, no Greek; there is no slave, no free person, there is no male, no female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, and heirs according to promise.
When Paul says, “sons of God,” there is no room for politically correct words, on account of the theology. We can’t translate this as “children of God” the way the revised NIV does without losing the entire meaning of what Paul is saying. A reader must be careful not to superimpose his or her view of the world onto the Bible. Instead, we must superimpose the Bible onto our view of the world and of ourselves. When Paul says “sons” in verse 26, he is talking about the specific benefits of being a son in his culture. A son had an independent standing, apart from the babysitter or childhood chaperone. A son was no longer a child, and a son had the full rights of an heir. The Galatians needed to know: now that the childhood chaperone of the law was gone, they were now free sons.
How did this sonship, this adoption, take place? Through our baptism. Baptism was originally given to John directly by God (John 1:33). Later, Jesus’ disciples baptized in the early days of his ministry. The Apostle John tells us “it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples” (John 4:2). Jesus did not command baptism for the whole church until later, after his resurrection, when he commanded his disciples to make disciples “by baptizing and teaching” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Because so many teach about baptism incorrectly, and because so many Christians misunderstand baptism, we have to say some specific and strong things about it.
1, Baptism is not a symbol. A symbol represents something else, and baptism is not a representation, but a miraculous washing with water and the word of God. This is especially clear when we see the result of removing one or the other parts of baptism: Without water, the word of God is a sermon or a quotation, and not baptism. Without the word of God, baptism is just an ordinary bath or washing. Without anyone to be baptized, there is also no baptism, but something like a rehearsal or a pantomime. But where there is a person to be baptized, and water, and the word of God, there is baptism and the forgiveness of sins.
2, The mode of baptism. When the word “baptize” (Greek βαπτίζω) occurs in the Bible, it is never used in such a way that insists the washing happen one way or another. A key verse is Mark 7:4, where we hear about “the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles (a variant adds: ‘and dining couches’).” This is with the same word, baptizo, even though it’s about doing the dishes. In a typical home of the time, neither a pitcher nor a kettle could be washed by immersion, let alone a dining couch. Also, when the jailor of Philippi had his family baptized, they could not leave the prison to do it, which strongly suggests a baptism at a wash basin (Acts 16:33). It would be wrong to insist on one mode of baptizing, such as immersion, insisting that it is the only valid method of baptizing. For this reason our churches usually practice pouring or sprinkling the water while repeating the words of Christ.
3, There are no restrictions on who is to be baptized, especially regarding the age of children (compare Colossians 2:11-12). However, children should not be baptized against the wishes of their parents or those who have authority over them. Jesus did not go door to door blessing children, but he blessed children when they were brought to him to be blessed (Mark 10:13-15). The Bible never mentions anything like an age of accountability regarding baptism.
4, Baptism is a means of grace. People are made disciples of Jesus through baptism (Matthew 28:19). And in Mark 16:16 we are told, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Forgiveness of sins comes through baptism (Acts 2:38), and baptism washes sins away (Acts 22:16). In our verse from Galatians (3:27), we see that we put on Christ and we are clothed with his merits in baptism. Therefore baptism meets all the requirements of a sacrament and is a means by which God’s grace is presented to us.
All differences are meaningless when we consider baptism. A baptized person has all the benefits of a son in God’s kingdom without any regard to his gender, race, or other status (there could have been many other categories: king or soldier, prisoner or jailer, and so on). That is not to say that gender, for example, is without any meaning in God’s kingdom. For example, only a woman may lawfully marry a man; only a man may serve as a pastor, and so on. But the point Paul is making is that the gospel-twisting Judaizers were completely wrong when they insisted that obedience to the law of circumcision was necessary for salvation. As happens so often with Jewish writers, Paul has traced the boundary all around this subject to show that there are, as it were, no gaps in the fence. When Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” he also surely meant, “No one comes to Father through Moses, but through me alone.”
To be clothed with Christ means to have all of Christ’s merits and benefits in God’s eyes. But not to be clothed with Christ? What would it mean to present yourself before the Father on judgment day without faith in Christ, or without any of the benefits of Christ? Jesus illustrated this when he told the Parable of the Wedding Banquet:
“When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe. He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:11-14).
Thank God for your baptism. Through it you are one of Abraham’s descendants, clothed with the righteousness of Christ and holding onto all the promises of God. “Thus,” says Luther, “the glory of the whole kingdom of Christ has been transferred to us.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.