Galatians 3:27-29 - Conditions for Belonging

The book of Galatians is a letter written by the apostle Paul to churches that were under a kind of attack. It was an attack on truth, on the gospel, and therefore on God’s people. Some were teaching that in order to be saved and to know God, faith in Christ alone wasn’t enough.

They argued that, in addition, OT ceremonial laws must be kept. New Christians who weren’t ethnic Jews were urged, essentially, to “become Jewish.” In this letter, Paul explains that a non-Jewish believer who trusted in Christ belonged among God’s people just as much as a Jew who trusted in Christ. They belonged.

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you didn’t belong? Maybe you went to some event and you immediately felt underdressed or overdressed. When I was growing up, my family moved many times, and so I went to many different schools, and it was always difficult at first because I didn’t feel that I belonged. Everyone knew each other, and I didn’t know anyone.

We need to feel that we belong. I’m sure if you have somewhere that you feel that sense of belonging, you love it. You feel comfortable with those people. You feel that you’re part of something. That sense of belonging is actually considered to be a fundamental human need.

One thing about belonging is that there are always conditions for belonging. If you’re at a concert, you can’t just walk backstage. You need a backstage pass. If you want to work somewhere, you have to be hired and qualified to do the job. If you want to be on a team, or part of some group, you have to meet the requirements.

But what are the conditions for belonging with and among God’s people? Both the OT and NT Scriptures present the people of God as set apart in some ways. So, there are some conditions. But – they are conditions met entirely by God.

Paul outlines these conditions here, and you can see them listed on page 6 in the WG. To belong in the church – among God’s people – you must be Baptized with the Spirit, Clothed in the Son, and Adopted by the Father. These are things that God does for us because of His great love and His free grace. This is how He saves us from sin, and delivers us from death, how He restores our lives and heals our souls.


This is how He brings us to Himself and gives us hope as we begin each day. And this is how He assures us that we belong with Him and with His people. These verses speak to our fundamental need to belong, and they remove the fear and the pressure by showing that the triune God achieves these for those whom He saves. So let’s look at these together.

Just before this, in verse 26, Paul told the Galatian believers, “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” I explained before that in the ancient world, the firstborn son took responsibility for the family when the father died. He was the primary heir – entitled to a double portion of the family inheritance. Repeatedly in the NT, Christ is referred to as the “firstborn son.”According to His human nature, Jesus is the firstborn of God’s people. He’s the first to rise from death to immortality. So, he’s the eldest and primary heir.

What Paul says here is significant because the Jews generally believed that their belonging among God’s people was their right by birth. But Jesus – and then Paul – expressed that actually belonging is by faith. All who have faith in Christ – whether Jew and non-Jew – receive all the rights and privileges of the firstborn. Our union with Christ gives us this status with Him.

Now notice that verse 27 begins with the word “for.” This could be translated “since,”
so verse 26 is true (“you are all sons of God”) because of what verse 27 describes, which is, first of all, “baptism into Christ.” Now, what baptism is this? Is it water baptism?

Well, if it was, that would mean that every single person who has been baptized with water is truly saved. We know that’s not the case. Water baptism doesn’t save. We all know people who have received water baptism but they aren't born again. Judas Iscariot – who betrayed Jesus and never trusted in Him – was baptized with water along with the other disciples. So Paul doesn’t have water baptism in mind here.

So then, what baptism is he talking about?

Well, in Joel 2 in the OT, God says a time is coming when He will “pour out [His] Spirit.”
And in Acts 1 in the NT, Jesus tells His disciples “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” and then Jesus says, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.”

Then in Acts 2, the OT prophecy of Joel and the Acts 1 words of Jesus are fulfilled. It was the time of the Jewish Passover feast. So, Jews from many nations were present.
In fact, Luke says “from every nation under heaven.” At that time, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples. Luke says they were “filled with the Spirit.” And the Spirit of God enabled the disciples to speak in the various languages of the people in that huge crowd, and so these people were able to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was according to God’s plans. All these people were evangelized.

Many of them were amazed to hear their own languages, and they asked each other “What does this mean?” But some skeptics said mockingly that these disciples of Jesus must be drunk. But then, famously, the apostle Peter stood up, corrected the mockers, and explained that what they were hearing was the fulfillment of Joel 2, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit.” They were baptized with the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said they would be.

Now, if you move ahead in the NT to 1 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul tells the churches, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free.” That is the baptism that Paul refers to when he says, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ.” Paul says something similar in Romans 6, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Again, Paul was obviously not talking about water baptism. Water baptism does not save. Many people who have been baptized with water are not truly born again. Paul is talking about baptism with and of the Holy Spirit. He’s talking about the transformation accomplished by the Holy Spirit when a person is brought to spiritual life from our natural state of spiritual death. The Bible says God pours out His Holy Spirit on all of those whom He saves.

Since summer is here, I’m sure some of you will go to a water park. Have you ever been to a water park with the big bucket that’s mounted high in the air and there’s a pipe that continually fills it, until it gets so full that it tips over and dumps a ton of water on everyone standing beneath it? It’s a powerful downpour. Anyone standing there is completely drenched. They’re immersed from head to toe.

That’s how we might picture this outpouring – or baptism – with the Holy Spirit. Anyone who expresses true faith in Jesus – meaning he or she is regenerated – experiences this baptism. In fact, we are regenerated by this pouring out of God’s Spirit upon us. This is something that God does when and to whom He chooses.

What a privilege to be a recipient of this baptism with the Spirit! All who receive this become sons of God through faith. We come alive and we believe. We are awakened to who Christ is and we trust in Him. And from then on, we belong. We belong with God because we have been baptized with God – with God the Spirit. We belong with His people because in Christ we all have the status of firstborn sons – washed under the flood of the outpoured Spirit of God. Similar to the big waterpark bucket, all we do is receive the downpour.

Now notice the rest of verse 27, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female.” This speaks to the broadness of who Jesus saves. Various places in the Scriptures state that God “shows no partiality.” The King James Version says “there is no respect of persons with God.”

What does that mean? It means God does not base His favor on some feature of your life. He bases it on His gracious choice. Therefore, people are baptized with the Spirit from all walks of life. No one can say God poured out His Spirit on them because of something they did or said, or because of where they’re from.

There are walls of separation between people, wouldn’t you agree? You’ve heard the phrase, “the other side of the tracks.” It’s a metaphor for the line of demarcation between people of different economic status or different races.

What Paul says here is fascinating though, because when a person is baptized with the Spirit, their economic status doesn’t change. Their race doesn’t change. Their gender doesn’t change. But the person does change, and the language Paul uses here sounds like they change clothes. Somehow, a person who is saved now wears Christ.

See there, “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” I mentioned earlier being underdressed or overdressed. Have you ever looked around at what everyone else was wearing and you wish you had dressed in a similar way. Why? Because you don’t want to stand out – to belong. Paul is telling these Galatians Christians that they are dressed appropriately for belonging among the people of God, because they are dressed in Christ.

And it’s important to understand that Paul uses this phrase “put on Christ” in two different ways that are connected to each other. Here’s in Galatians 3, Paul uses the Greek form of the verb that tells us that this is the statement of a fact. Like baptism with the Spirit, this is something that God has done.

But in Romans 13, Paul uses the Greek form of the verb that presents “putting on” as
a command – something we are to do. And with both of those in view, the meaning is this: if you have trusted in Christ, you can and should pursue the righteous life God commands because God has declared you righteous in Christ. Here in Galatians 3, Paul is only speaking to why we belong. We have been clothed in Christ.

This idea of clothing is present in both the OT and the NT. In Isaiah 61, the prophet Isaiah writes, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall [rejoice] in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

I served in two weddings this month; I officiated one and basically preached Christ in the other. But in neither one did the groom have on this headdress that Isaiah speaks of! Isaiah was describing a type of crown that the groom would wear. A bride and a groom would be dressed – from head to toe – for the occasion. They would be dressed like they belong in a wedding. And that has been the case for every wedding I’ve ever seen.

You see, those who have been baptized with the Spirit have been clothed in the Son.
We have put on – by God’s choice and power – the righteous record of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we belong with God and His people.

Now look with me at this last part of the passage. These outward characteristics (ethnicity, social status, economic status, gender) don’t matter, “for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Paul was dismantling the idea of first and second class Christians.

You can see how this would apply in Galatia. There were those who kept OT ceremonial laws and those who didn’t. But Paul was clear – all you need is to have Christ and you to be Christ’s. See verse 29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” This was the crux of the argument against Gentile Christians accused of not being secure in their salvation: they were not physical descendants of Abraham. That’s really what this was all about. It was one group requiring another group to jump through hoops in order to belong.

Don’t we see forms of this every single day? These Judaizers (as they were called) were manipulating the Gentiles' desire to belong. These Gentile Christians wanted to belong with God and His church. Paul says if you belong to Christ – meaning, you’ve been baptized with the Spirit and clothed in Son’s righteousness by faith alone – then you do belong with the people of God. You belong with the family of God because you are family.

You can see the words there – you are “heirs.” How does someone become “family.”
In Romans 8, Paul writes “you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry…“Father!” And in Ephesians 1, Paul writes that God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.”

You see, God doesn’t only “save” us when He brings us to Christ; He “adopts” us.
We become His children by His choice. And His children belong with His family.

These are all conditions that God meets for us. What do we do? We simply receive.
Will you believe today that God can meet these conditions for you? Regardless of what had taken place in your life up to this moment, belonging with God and His people is through faith in Jesus – a gift that God gives. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. Call on Him today. And hold your head up, and renew your strength, because the God of grace meets every condition for you to belong to Him.

Let’s bow in prayer and then go to the Lord’s table together.