Gal 3:27 — Circumcision and Baptism

Introduction

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. So we could almost say it is like a two-sacrament Sunday. We get both sacraments, at least one through actual participation, and the other through hearing what the word of God has to say about baptism and how it points us to Christ. Both sacraments, both the sacrament of baptism, which is to be administered only once, and the sacrament of communion, which is administered many times, both sacraments point us to Christ. That is what they are all about. Both sacraments, both baptism and the Lord’s Supper, point us to Christ and to all that we have in Him. There is a bit of a difficulty with both sacraments and that is that they do not only point us to Christ, they also in some degree, cause us to introspect, do not they, somewhat?

And the wonderful thing about the biblical teaching about both sacraments is that the focus really is upon Christ and not upon you. And we see this even more clearly with the sacrament of baptism. It is also true with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that we should not spend all of our time introspecting and only thinking about whether we are truly repentant. We should look away from ourselves to Christ and receive this means of grace that he has given to feed us upon Christ. But it is even more clear with baptism. Baptism is central to the Christian life. You might think, but I was baptized a long time ago. I do not really think about it that much. It is not like a constant thing that I am reflecting upon. And yet, when you look at Paul’s letters, you notice how often he does talk about baptism.

I read in the passage for the revelation of God’s will after we had the assurance of pardon and the song of joy I read from Romans 6, where Paul says to the Christians in Rome, do you not know that you have been baptized into Christ? Here in Galatians, we have a similar argument. In Galatians 3, verse 27, Paul says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And so it is very important then to not only think about baptism as a sacrament that has significance at the moment in which it is administered, it is important also to think about the way in which baptism is something that we are continually being called back to. Paul uses baptism, he uses the fact that the congregation that he is addressing has been baptized as an argument.

Here in Galatians, the argument, the context is different. Here in Galatians, the context is that the Judaizers have come into the congregation of the churches in Galatia. Remember those churches in Lystra, and Derbe, and Iconium, and Antioch, in the middle of Asia Minor, and those are all in the region of Galatia. So when Paul was addressing this letter to the Galatians, he is addressing the churches that he had founded on his first missionary journey.

Look at that very last verse in our text, Galatians 3.29. He says, if you are Christ’s, as signified and sealed to you in baptism. If you belong to Christ, and that is what baptism signifies, is that you are united to Christ. If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to the promise.

So you do not need to submit to circumcision to be reckoned as the offspring of Abraham. And Paul even explains there, why is it so important to be an offspring of Abraham? He explains it in the very next phrase there, heirs according to promise. That is what it means to be the offspring of Abraham.

It means that you are an heir of the wonderful inheritance that God has promised his people. That inheritance, of course, is heaven. The land that was promised to Abraham in his literal offspring was simply a picture of heaven. And the inheritance that Christ has purchased for us that was promised to Abraham long ago is the same promise, the same inheritance that we have in Christ. And so if you are Christ, then you are in Christ. And baptism is the sign and seal of union with Christ.

And besides, remember what Paul had said there, that when God made the promises to Abraham, he said, to your offspring, I will give this inheritance. And the offspring is singular, as he says in verse 16. It does not say to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ.

Christ is the offspring who receives the inheritance. He received it when he finished his work on the cross and he was raised from the dead. He received the inheritance. He received all that we are given in him. And it is in union with Christ, it is in union with Christ then that we are also Abraham’s offspring and heirs of all that God has promised his people, heirs of heaven.

Heirs of the eternal inheritance promised long ago. And so this passage here in Galatians 3, verse 27, but also in the context, not just that verse taken out of context, but this verse here, verse 27, as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, is a key passage that gives us some deep insight into Paul’s understanding of the doctrine of baptism. Remember that he has provided a very clear-cut understanding of redemptive history in the previous context. And he has divided redemptive history into three main eras, three main epochs. There is the era or the epoch of the promise, which is the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There is the era of the law, when the law came at Mount Sinai. And then there is the era that he calls faith, Remember in verse 23, he said, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our custodian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian, for in Christ Jesus, in union with the offspring, you are all sons of God through faith.

And so we pointed out last time that when Paul uses these three terms, promise, law, and faith, to refer to these three main epics of redemptive history, we could interpret those in covenantal terms. Promise is Paul’s term for the Abrahamic covenant. Law is Paul’s umbrella term for the Mosaic covenant. Not denying that the Mosaic Covenant also contains the promise? There is the promises that God made to Abraham continue even during the Mosaic period. And we see that especially in the sacrificial system, when they would offer up the sacrifices upon the altar as a picture of the sacrifice of Christ. But overall, the main thrust, the main emphasis, the characteristic quality of that second epoch of the Mosaic Covenant is that it is characterized by law.

And then the third epoch is what he calls faith, but he is referring to the New Covenant. Before the New Covenant came, we were held captive under the law in that previous epoch of redemptive history. But now that faith has come, now that the New Covenant has come, we are no longer under the custodianship or supervision of the law. But the key is that the coming of the law in that second main period of redemptive history did not cancel, did not annul the previous covenant with Abraham. In fact, it continued even under that epoch of the law and it was there precisely to prepare for, the law came to prepare for the coming of the offspring in the new covenant.

And so you see this wonderful picture of redemptive history. Not only three big epics, promise, law, faith. But also, in a way, you could almost view it as like a, I do not know, maybe like a cradle? You have the promise over here, and then you have faith over here. You have Christ over here, and underneath it all is that promise undergirding, even though there is this big block of law in the middle? All along, the promise continued to be in effect until Christ came. Why did God give the law, verse 19? It was added as a temporary superstructure until Christ came. The offspring would come until Christ would come.

Abraham and the New Covenant

Fulfillment and Continuity

Now that Christ and the New Covenant have come, we have the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. The key point here is that this implies, does it not, using this metaphor of like a cradle, it implies that the new covenant The new covenant that we have in Christ, now that faith has come, now that the offspring has come, the new covenant is in continuity with the Abrahamic covenant. The new covenant, in fact, is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.? The new covenant is not like some brand new thing that just comes out of nowhere, as if everything before that, including all the way back to Abraham, is old and done away with. Yes, the law is the old covenant, and the law was a temporary thing until Christ would come, but before the law came, God had already promised that the offspring would come, and that he would inherit all things for his people. And so there is continuity between the Abrahamic covenant and the New Covenant.

And you see then that this is directly, this whole covenant theology, this whole picture of redemptive history with these three main covenants, this is critical for Paul because he is using this survey of redemptive history and this understanding of the covenants and how they relate to one another to address the specific issue at hand, which is that the Judaizers are telling the Galatians that being believers in Christ is not sufficient that they need to be circumcised and put themselves under the custodianship of the law. But what does Paul say?

He says, you do not need to be circumcised to become the offspring of Abraham and to receive the inheritance that was promised to Abraham. You do not need to be circumcised because you are already full members of the covenant through union with Christ.

Union with Christ

And baptism is the symbol of that. Baptism is the sign and seal of this wonderful reality of union with the offspring that was promised all the way back to Abraham. You do not need to be circumcised because you are already full members of the Abrahamic covenant. You are already heirs of the promises of God that God made to Abraham. You are already heirs of heaven because you are in Christ. Baptism, therefore, according to Paul’s theology here in this passage, baptism is the replacement for circumcision.

Baptism symbolizes union with the offspring. And if we are united to the offspring, that is Christ, then we are the offspring of Abraham in union with him. And we have all of the blessings that were promised to Abraham. Especially considering the fact that these are Gentiles? That is the key issue here. These are Gentiles. These are not people from the people of Israel. These are Gentiles. And Paul points out that God had already prepared for this. God had already promised all the way back in Genesis 12 that in your offspring, all of the Gentiles would be blessed.

Circumcision and Baptism

We are now in the time of fulfillment. The new covenant is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. It is in continuity with the Abrahamic covenant. And therefore, baptism replaces circumcision as the sign and seal of the new covenant, just as circumcision was the sign and seal of membership in the Abrahamic covenant. Circumcision and baptism, then, have many significant parallels. And there are many, many parallels, but I am only focusing here today on three, three big ones that we can draw from this text. First of all, baptism, like circumcision, ought to be administered to the children of professing believers, since they are included in this covenant. This one covenant that began with the Abrahamic covenant and is now fulfilled in the new covenant.

Children of Believers

No one disputes that children were included in God’s covenant with Abraham. We just read Genesis 17? God said to Abraham very clearly, I will be God to you and to your offspring after you. And since the new covenant is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, as Paul clearly teaches here in Galatians chapter three, We should assume that the inclusion of children continues from the Abrahamic covenant into the new.

There would have to be a clear pronouncement from Christ or the apostles stating that this policy has changed. But we find that nowhere in the Bible. In fact, Jesus said, let the children come to me. For to them belongs the kingdom of God. We even see in the New Testament clear examples of the children of believers being reckoned as members of the church.

The movement from the Abrahamic Covenant to the New Covenant is more inclusive, not less. Now we have Gentiles who are also getting in on it. Now we have women as well who can be baptized. Whereas in the Old Covenant only the men could be, only the males could be circumcised. The movement is including more and more, not kicking out the children. The children were included in the Abrahamic Covenant, and since the New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, they continue as well within the Covenant of Grace.

But the second point that I would make is that actually there are examples of household baptisms in the New Testament. The household of Cornelius, the first Gentile convert to the church, was a household baptism in Acts chapter 10. We also have Lydia and her household, they were baptized. The Philippian jailer says he was baptized along with his whole household. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue in Acts 18, was baptized and his household.

And so we do have actually clear biblical support for the practice of covenant baptism. That is baptism on the basis of membership in the covenant, including the children of believers. So that is the first key point that we see here from our text. I think this is all implied here in our passage because of Paul’s broader biblical, theological, redemptive historical argument about promise, law, and faith, and how faith, that is the new covenant, is in continuity with the prior Abrahamic covenant. Because of this broader point there, when Paul then says that we are baptized into Christ, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, I think is clearly implying that baptism is the new covenant replacement for circumcision in the Abrahamic covenant. There is another passage in Colossians, in Colossians 2, verse 12, where Paul also makes the parallel between circumcision and baptism. But I like this one here in Galatians because he sets it in the context of that broader covenantal argument.

And he makes it very clear that the new covenant is not something fundamentally different from the Abrahamic. There is a slight difference, which is that the Abrahamic is forward-looking and waiting for the Messiah to come, and the New Covenant is backward-looking, because we see that Christ has come in the fullness of time, and he has fulfilled the law through his death and resurrection. But fundamentally, those two covenants, God’s covenant with Abraham, and the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, are fundamentally the same covenant. They are fundamentally the same covenant of grace. And therefore they have the same terms of inclusion. The children of professing believers are included in God’s covenant.

And there has been no indication anywhere in the New Testament that that policy has changed. In fact, we see the household baptisms in the Book of Acts and First Corinthians to suggest that it continues. Now there is a second thing I’d like to draw out from this passage about the parallel between circumcision and baptism. And it is related to the first point about the inclusion of children.

Faith and the Covenant Sign

Baptism, like circumcision, calls for faith, but does not require evidence of faith beforehand. Baptism, like circumcision, it does call us to believe, but it does not absolutely require as a precondition that you have to have evidence of genuine faith before the sign can be applied.

The principle is especially clear with circumcision. It was not withheld until boys were old enough to understand its meaning. God did not command his people to wait until a child understood the spiritual significance of cutting away the flesh as a symbol of regeneration and forgiveness, or until the child showed evidence of conversion. Circumcision was administered on the eighth day, when the infant could neither understand nor believe. No spiritual transaction was occurring in the infant’s heart at that moment.

Yet, God did give circumcision to his people and used circumcision as a powerful sign and seal of the Abrahamic Covenant. This does not mean that faith is irrelevant or conversion unnecessary. Rather, circumcision calls for faith and continual conversion. Instead of withholding circumcision until boys understood its significance, God repeatedly called his people to reflect upon their circumcision and live in light of it.

Remember in Deuteronomy, for example, Deuteronomy 10, 16, and also later on in Jeremiah four, verse four, Moses and Jeremiah are talking to the people and they are saying, you are stiff-necked and rebellious. Circumcise your hearts. Do you not realize what your circumcision means? Circumcise your hearts. Be no longer stubborn. And since circumcision has been replaced by baptism as the New Covenant version of circumcision, Paul also appeals to the fact that his congregation has been baptized and reasons from that.

All of these verses, Galatians 3.27, Romans 6 that I mentioned earlier, they are the new covenant parallel to the old covenant language of circumcise your hearts.

Let what is true of you according to the sign be true of you in reality. And so also Paul appeals to the fact that we have been baptized, just like God appealed to the Israelites who have been circumcised and calls us to live in light of that, to reflect, “I have been baptized; therefore, even though I struggle with sin, even though I have these doubts and problems and temptations, my true reality and identity are found in Christ.”

Baptism is preaching the gospel to you and calling you to faith. So when I initially said in the second main point that baptism like circumcision calls for faith but does not require it beforehand, We should not become complacent. We should not think, it does not require faith, so therefore faith is irrelevant. No, that is the whole point of these sacraments that God has given to his people. The sacrament of baptism and the sacrament of circumcision, they call us to faith. They call us to believe what the sign is telling us and to live in light of it.

Baptism’s Strong Language

This explains why the New Testament uses such strong language about baptism. Consider 1 Peter 3:21: “Baptism … now saves you.” Such words immediately raise a question: Does baptism literally save? Do they teach baptismal regeneration—that applying water to a person actually saves that person at that moment—or do they mean something else? Galatians 3:27 likewise uses very strong language.

Galatians 3.27, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Really, Paul? Every single one? Are you sure? It sounds somewhat startling to us? But this is the reason for this language.

It is not that the New Testament, Paul here in Galatians, or Peter in 1 Peter, it is not that the New Testament is simplistically arguing that everyone who has had the water of baptism placed upon them is automatically regenerate. Nor is it to say that you can simply go, I was baptized, so therefore I am saved, and I do not need to walk with the Lord, and I do not need to be a believer. No, that is not what the New Testament is saying. Rather, the New Testament, and Paul in particular, is appealing to our baptism, and using it as a pastoral argument to reason with us, to draw us back to the truth of who we are in Christ, and to call us to live in keeping with that.

Do not like he said in Romans 6, do you not know that all of us who are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into his death? And if we are baptized into his death, then we are in the chute and we cannot hold back. Now we are going to go all the way through to the resurrection? And so if you have been baptized into Christ, you have been baptized into his resurrection as well. And we must live in light of that. The New Testament’s very strong language, that you have been baptized, that baptism now saves you, that you have been baptized into Christ. It sounds like baptismal regeneration, but it is not. It is actually the pastoral way of appealing to us and calling us to remember our baptism and to live in light of it, to put on Christ.

Clothed with Christ

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. It is like a garment. Christ is like this garment that completely envelops you and controls you. That is who you are. I think it implies both aspects of salvation, both the forensic, judicial aspect of our sins being forgiven and being credited with the righteousness of Christ, and also the transformative aspect, that we have the Spirit within us to change us into the image of Christ. But the forensic idea of the garment is very powerful, is it not? It is like this garment that completely covers you.

And so when God sees Christ, He does not see you and your sins and your doubts and your struggles. He sees Christ. So therefore, since you have been baptized, believe that. Believe what the sign is preaching to you, what God himself is saying to you through this sign. Now of course, there are thousands, probably millions by this point in church history, millions of people who have received the outward sign, but the inward reality is not there. And they have walked away from the Lord, they have no consideration, no concern, their baptism means nothing to them.

And so as long as we believe what God is proclaiming to us, as long as we receive the promise of the gospel that is being preached to us in our baptism, then the reality is also there. And God wants us to have that assurance. He wants us to have that confidence. The Heidelberg Catechism, maybe later on today you could go and read that whole section on the sacraments. That whole section on the sacraments beginning with question, I believe it is around 60 or so,

It says, just as surely as my body is washed with water, so I can be assured that my sins are forgiven and that I have the Holy Spirit and that I am clothed with Christ. Or just as surely as my mouth feeds upon the bread and the wine, so by faith we receive Christ himself in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The sacraments do not automatically convey that which they signify. There is no like automatic guarantee that everyone who has been baptized is in Christ or that everyone who partakes of the Lord’s Supper is genuinely feeding upon Christ. But the sacraments are there to assure us of that reality, and therefore the sacraments are effective when the Spirit is present to grant us faith to receive what the sign is proclaiming to us.

Calvin’s approach to the sacraments is helpful. He writes:

“Let it be regarded as a settled principle that the sacraments have the same office as the Word of God: to offer and set forth Christ to us, and in him the treasures of heavenly grace” (Inst. 4.14.17).

He says, “Let it be regarded as a settled principle.” This is a foundational principle in his theology, that the sacraments have the same office, the same function, the same use, as the word of God. There are many people in the congregation who hear the word of God, who hear the gospel, and do not believe it, but that does not change the promise of the gospel. The promise of the gospel is there.

What is the office of the sacraments? It is the same as the office of the word of God. It is “to offer and set forth Christ to us, and in him the treasures of heavenly grace.” And then Calvin immediately goes on to add that the sacraments have no profitability for us unless they are received by faith.

Baptism’s Meaning

Christocentric, Not Conversionistic

The first thing we can draw from this passage about the relationship between circumcision and baptism is that Baptism, like circumcision, ought to be administered to the children of professing believers since they are included in the covenant. Secondly, baptism, like circumcision, calls for faith but does not require it beforehand in order for the sacrament to be valid. And then third, baptism, like circumcision, is ultimately Christocentric. That is what baptism and circumcision in the Old Covenant are all about. It is all about Christ. Baptism is a sign of being in Christ. That is why Paul uses that language. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Circumcision also had that same meaning. The cutting away of the flesh pointed to the cross when our flesh was judged upon the cross. Circumcision was a sacrament that pointed ahead to the offspring himself, Christ the offspring, receiving the ultimate circumcision upon the cross and through his resurrection. Baptism-like circumcision than is Christocentric. And that is why, going back to the very beginning of the sermon, I mentioned that these sacraments, they do call us to introspect, but we have to be careful not to overdo that, because the more that we introspect, the more we lose the significance of these sacraments. The sacraments are not signs of your conversion, of your obedience, they are not signs of how well you are doing in the Christian life and your faith and your repentance. They are signs of all that it means to be united to Christ and the wonderful reality of that.

We could speak of a conversionistic view of baptism versus a Christocentric view of baptism. A conversionistic view of baptism focuses our mind on ourselves. And it totally destroys the whole point of what baptism is trying to point us to. I have a quote here from a book called Biblical Doctrine by John MacArthur and Dick Mayhew. And they believe in believer’s baptism. And notice how they have this conversionistic view.

They say the baptism is the outward, post-conversion demonstration of an inward reality that has already occurred at conversion. Baptism is the outward post-conversion demonstration of an inward reality that has already occurred at conversion. You have to be converted before you get baptized so that the baptism becomes the outward demonstration of the inward conversion that has happened in your heart. That is not correct. That is not what the Bible teaches. You do not see that here in Galatians.

In Galatians 3 verse 27, if Paul had this conversionistic view of baptism, then he would have said something like this. He would have said, you Galatian Christians are in serious spiritual danger. You are open to this false gospel of the Judaizers, and so that makes me question if you have really been converted in the first place. You need to repent, stop listening to those false teachers, and become more obedient to the Lord, and then maybe we should even do a re-baptism after that to make sure that it was true.

That is not what Paul says. He does the opposite. He says to these Christians who are wavering, these Christians who are having struggles in their faith, who are beginning to doubt the cross and beginning to listen to the Judaizers, he says to them in the most amazing, positive way, you have been baptized into Christ and you have put on Christ. Of course, he knows that there may be individuals in the congregation for whom this is not true, for whom faith is not a reality. And there are hypocrites in the church. And Paul knows that full well.

Later on in another epistle in 1 Corinthians 10, he uses that argument. He says, do not just think because you were baptized that you are automatically saved. Remember Israel and Egypt, they came out of the waters of the Red Sea. They were baptized into Moses, and yet many of them fell in the wilderness because of their rebellion against God.

So Paul knows that. Paul knows that not every single individual who has been baptized is elect and regenerate. But nevertheless, although he knows that, he does not harp on that and use it as a negative thing to cause them to introspect and doubt. He flips it onto the positive side. He says, do you not know that you have been baptized? Do you not know that you are in Christ? If that is true, then why do you need to be circumcised? You already have everything. You already have the blessings that God has promised to Abraham.

Baptism Administered Once

And this, incidentally, is why we believe that baptism should only be administered once. Even if, after the initial administration of it, a person walks away from the faith. Even if they have a time in their life where they are just living a completely hypocritical life. Maybe they were not truly converted until much later. But we do not re-administer baptism when they are truly converted because baptism is not primarily about you and your conversion and your promises to be an obedient Christian.

It is primarily about God and his promises to you. If it was about our promises to God and our commitment to be a good Christian, then we would be administering baptism every Sunday because every week we struggle, every week we fail? No, we baptize only once because we know that the promise of God stands sure, even if man does not believe it. The promises of God are absolutely sure.

Circumcision was not administered repeatedly. Remember in the Old Testament there were times when the people of God as a nation were largely apostate with only a handful of true believers as a remnant. And yet when God sent a reformer like Josiah to reform the people of God, to cast out all the idols from the temple and to bring the people back into a covenant renewal ceremony to commit themselves to obedience to God, he did not say you need to get re-circumcised. The circumcision was still valid. It still pointed to the reality. And therefore it is always there. The promise of God is always there as often as we receive it in true faith.

The wonderful thing is that today we also have the privilege not only of hearing a sermon about baptism and what it tells us about who we are in Christ, but in a moment we will come to the Lord’s table to feed upon Christ in the sacrament of communion, to take with the mouth of our soul, which is faith, to take with the mouth of our soul the body and blood of the Lord to reassure us and to nourish us upon him. Circumcision at the beginning, Passover repeated throughout the year, every year in the Old Testament. Same with us in the Christian life, baptism at the beginning, and then the Lord’s Supper to confirm our faith and to nourish us with Christ.