Today we get another one of Paul’s beautiful “word pictures” about salvation. About salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus alone!
And this metaphor deals with “baptism,” as our Lesson heading (title) indicates.
“For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” So wrote the Holy Spirit through Paul in Galatians 3:27.
To me … this verse is not only aesthetically balanced, grammatically pretty, it is ingenious! A theological Masterpiece!
Here, when a person is “saved” … he or she is instantly “baptized” into Jesus! Actually in Greek “baptizo” means “to dip, to immerse, to submerge!”
And I am sure … this “baptism” has NOTHING to do with water!
It is an Act (Action) of God the Holy Spirit as He “places” a repentant sinner (one just having believed in Jesus, trusting His Shed Blood on Calvary) “into” Jesus Christ, into His “Body!”
I think Romans 6:3 well illustrates this truth. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?”
Maybe 1 Corinthians 12:13 is even better. “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”
Wow!
The Holy Spirit does the baptizing, at the very second of salvation! The precise moment you were saved, believed!
Here’s the trajectory: (1) belief or trust in Jesus our Saviour … (2) Holy Spirit regeneration, baptizing us into the Body … (3) enjoyment of New Life in Christ forever thereafter!
Wow again!
But look at our Text once more. “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ HAVE PUT ON Christ.”
Paul here equates being “baptized” into Christ as also “putting on” Christ! Both are viable, as I said, “word pictures!”
This second verb is “enduo,” which indeed means “to sink down” into one’s clothes! To “wrap up” real snugly! Hence, “putting on” Christ Jesus!
Trust Jesus … and a bunch of miracles simultaneously occur!
Baptized into His Body!
Enrobed, putting on the Saviour!
Possessing Eternal Life!
Baptism … that saturated in Jesus!
Putting on … wearing Him forever!
Pursue that kind of “obsessed, drenched with Jesus” life today!
And “wear” Him consciously, nobly!
All to His Glory!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
Oh yes, water baptism is a “picture” of that Spirit Baptism we experienced at the instant of salvation! A visible illustration of what happened when we were saved! But water Baptist itself does not save!
The Holy Spirit, God’s great Baptizer!