By Jeremy Writebol
I remember the day of my baptism vividly. It was a bright spring day, and it seemed that everything was illuminated with brilliance. I had a white, church-baptismal robe on. Our church building had big open windows in the worship center where the natural sunlight from outside could flood in. The pastor asked me some questions about what I believed and why I wanted to be baptized. Then, upon my confession, he immersed me into the waters with these identifying words, “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Although I had already been born-again by the Spirit, I felt a new trajectory and aim in life. There was a new, articulated identity about me.
It’s difficult in this world to often remember who we are. Questions, with varying degrees of difficulty, surround us regarding the identity we most prominently will bear. Many of us place our vocation as our identity. Usually, the first question we ask someone is “what do you do?” Identity is boiled down to our actions and outputs. In our culture today, identity has become a matter of how we choose to define our preferences, desires, or in whatever ways we find belonging and acceptance. The turmoil of this search often erodes our ability to live with confidence and purpose. We second-guess ourselves, our commitments, and our communities.
But the words of Paul here in Galatians 3 and 4 are meant to provide absolutely clarity of the primary identity a believer in Christ has. It’s a gifted identity that fundamentally reshapes how we live in the world. Paul’s reasoning here is that if you have been “baptized in Christ”—that is you have trusted and believed in Christ as your only Savior and Lord—then you are identified or “clothed” in Christ. He is your absolute identity (Galatians 3:27). And if this is true for you, that you belong to Christ, then all that is true of Christ, and all that Christ possesses, is yours as well. God sent Christ to redeem us out of our slavery to sin and adopt us into His family as His sons (Galatians 4:4–5). We are inheritors of all that God the Father has given the Son!
This reality is what the event of my baptism reminds me of. The water didn’t fundamentally change me. But the event of being baptized pointed to the reality that God had rescued me, freed me, and adopted me as His own. For each Christian who asks, “who am I?” the answer provided to us (which our baptism reminds us of) is that we are children of God, inheritors of every good blessing and promise of God. Our identity is firmly solid and secure. In Christ, you are a son (v. 26)! In Christ, you are an heir. Live today as a child of God, freed from the tyranny and slavery of sin.
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