Articles
Putting On Christ
Putting On Christ
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:26-27). When one is baptized into Christ he is said to have put on Christ. But what does “put on Christ” mean?
The same word translated “put on” is translated “clothe” when used in a literal sense (e.g. Mark 1:6 – “John was clothed with camel’s hair”). But here in Galatians 3:27, the word is of course used figuratively, as our body is not literally clothed with another person.
To have put on Christ does not mean what some in the religious world say – that we are clothed with Christ’s personal life of obedience and thus made righteous because God covers us over with His Son’s own personal righteousness. The Bible says that God accounts one’s own faith, not Christ’s, to him for righteousness (Rom 4:5), one is reckoned as righteous when God forgives his sins (Rom 4:6-8), and one who practices righteousness is righteous (1 John 3:7).
So what does it mean to have put on Christ?
Thayer in his Greek-English Lexicon, p.214, says this of the Greek word behind “put on”: “to become so possessed of the mind of Christ as in thought, feeling, and action to resemble him, and, as it were, reproduce the life he lived.”
It is said that in the work Roman Antiquities written by ancient historian Dionysius Halicarnassus, the phrase “put on Tarquin” meant to act in the same manner as Tarquin, who was a tyrant king of Rome. Likewise, it was not unusual for Greek writers to speak of putting on Plato or Socrates to convey the meaning of taking those leaders on as instructors and following them as disciples.
Let’s consider New Testament Scripture about discipleship and baptism. Clearly Galatians 3:27 teaches us that one puts on Christ when he is baptized into Christ. Those who are baptized are those who have been made disciples of Christ, for Matthew 28:18-19 tells us that disciples are made through teaching and baptism. And Jesus gives a description of those who would be His disciples when He said, “It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master” (Matthew 10:25a). Disciples are like their teacher. Bringing this all together, to put on Christ in baptism means becoming His disciple which means you are making Him your teacher and master and are thus going to follow His way to be like Him. Romans 8:29-30 tells us that those who would be called by the gospel and justified would be people who God predetermined to be “conformed to the image of His Son.” That’s an excellent commentary on what it means to put on Christ: to conform ourselves to the image of Jesus Christ.
Putting on Christ is not a one-and-done and you are finished. Hear Colossians 3:10: “and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.” Conforming ourselves to the image of Jesus Christ is accomplished through renewing ourselves in the knowledge of God’s word. That involves putting into practice Jesus’ attitude and mind and ways – to become like Him. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5). Romans 13:14 speaks in this way to the Christian: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” The Christian, then, is to continue to grow and be transformed to be like His Savior and Master and Teacher.
We put on Christ in baptism. And we continue to put on Christ when we conform ourselves to His likeness, when we seek to imitate Him and become more like Him, and that requires the renewing of our minds according to the truth of the gospel. Have you done that, and are you doing that?
