LENT DAY 35: It's enough to believe

 Day 35 Monday - Apr 3, 2023; Mar 25, 2024; Apr 14, 2025 

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. -Galatians 3:27

To know the power of this message, you gotta understand a little bit about what was happening in the Galatian church. Paul had learned that after he had left Galatia, some other Christians came in and began offering a different sort of gospel. They would come to be known in history as the Judaisers, because they insisted that to truly be Christian one had to be a Jew. We can just about hear their message: “Oh it’s great that you guys believe in Jesus and have been baptized. Now if you intend to follow him and worship his God it’s time to be circumcised. Jesus, after all, is Israel’s Messiah. And he fulfills our scriptures. And his church began in Jerusalem. You guys have only just begun becoming Christians. Now is the time to become God’s people through the covenant of circumcision and start obeying the law.”

When you realize that the Galatians were being told that faith in Jesus was not enough to be God’s people, and that Jesus’ gospel only matters if they follow the law, then Paul’s words become a radical promise: faith is enough. Didn’t God share the Spirit through hearing and believing the gospel (Galatians 3:2)? So he says “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:27). In Jesus you are God’s people. “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29). And what does he pack right between those two assertions? “For as many of you are were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek…” The power of baptism’s promise is how much it tells a person they belong to God and God’s people through Jesus. That’s all God sees. You’re clothed in him!

Today, we don’t necessarily have people insisting on being circumcised, but we still have a lot of voices in the church that find some way of saying “If you really want to be God’s people you gotta…” But baptism is the voice that says you are God’s people through one thing and one thing only: faith in Jesus Christ. And baptism says he is yours. For everything that we are to do as Christians, baptism reminds us of what we are to believe first, foremost, and always: that you belong to Christ, and therefore you are God’s people according to promise. 

There is much still to learn of this Christian life, Lord. Your law is very important. Teach me your ways. But let me never forget what makes me a Christian. Let me never forget what makes me your child. Let me never forget what my Lord Jesus has done for me. Therefore, let my baptism return me to the gospel message. Let me see that in it you have given me Jesus, and there made me your child. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.