Galatians 3:25-29

BUT NOW WE ARE NO LONGER CHILDREN. YE ARE ALL SONS OF GOD: AT YOUR BAPTISM YE PUT ON CHRIST, AND WERE INVESTED WITH SPIRITUAL MANHOOD: ALL PREVIOUS DISTINCTIONS OF CREED OR RACE, OF POSITION OR NATURE, WERE DONE AWAY: YE ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST. The sudden change from the first to the second person plural betokens an extension in the point of view from Israel to the Gentile world. The Epistle has been dealing since Galatians 3:17 with the position of Israelites under the Law before the Advent of the Christ. But that event brought Gentiles also within the scope of God's revealed promises and of His blessings in Christ. So the Apostle turns to his converts, largely enlisted out of Gentiles, with the assurance, “Ye are all sons of God, whatever your antecedents”. Their adoption is assumed, as their possession of the gifts of the Spirit is assumed in Galatians 3:2. The spirit of adoption, of which they were conscious within their hearts, assured them that they were sons of God (cf. Romans 8:15-16).

Galatians 3:27. ἐνεδύσασθε. The conception of spiritual manhood is here associated with baptism by a figure borrowed from Greek and Roman usage. At a certain age the Roman youth exchanged the toga praetexta for the toga virilis and passed into the rank of citizens. So the Christian had been invested at his baptism with the robe of spiritual manhood. Whereas he had before been under the control of rules and regulations, like a child in his father's house, he possessed now the independence of a grown up son. This figure of clothing is applied in various ways in Scripture: the effects of death and resurrection are described in 2 Corinthians 5:4 by the figure of unclothing and reclothing : the figures of putting on Christ and putting on armour are used in Romans 13:12; Romans 13:14; Ephesians 6:11 to express the new life support and strength required for our Christian warfare. The exact force of the figure depends in every case upon the context. Here the author evidently has in mind the change of dress which marked the transition from boyhood to manhood. Greeks and Romans made much of this occasion and celebrated the investment of a youth with man's dress by family gatherings and religious rites. The youth, hitherto subject to domestic rule, was then admitted to the rights and responsibilities of a citizen, and took his place beside his father in the councils of the family.

Baptism is in fact likened to a spiritual coming of age: the convert, who had hitherto been bound to obey definite commandments and fulfil definite duties, was now set free to learn God's will from the inward voice of the Spirit, and discharge the heavier obligations incumbent on a citizen of the heavenly commonwealth under the guidance of an enlightened conscience. He had entered on his spiritual manhood, and was accordingly emancipated from his earlier bondage to an outward Law.

There is an obvious correspondence between this figure of putting on Christ at baptism, and the ceremony which prevailed throughout the Church in subsequent centuries of investing catechumens with white robes on the occasion of their baptism. Both give expression to a kindred thought: some of the Fathers associate them together, and perhaps the language of the Apostle contributed to the spread of the ceremonial. The symbolism however differed materially: the white robes corresponded rather to the wedding garment in the parable: they were an emblem of purity and signified the cleansing effect of baptism, whereas the context of the Epistle points to enfranchisement and emancipation from control.