Groups of Believers in Galatia

Galatians 3.27 is crucial for understanding both Paul's concept of baptism and for insight into the groups of believers: ‘For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ’. As an initiation rite, baptism was unique in that it linked baptized converts to the spiritual Christ in a moral way. (Recall discussion of enduomai, ‘to clothe oneself ’, and its moral significance in Chapter 2).

The phrase ‘for as many of you as were’ (Gal. 3.27) clearly indicates that there were two main groups of believers in the assemblies in Galatia: those who were baptized and those who were not. Those who were baptized became members of the renewed covenant community of God, who in Gal. 6.1 are referred to as ‘you who are spiritual’ and in 6.16 as ‘the Israel of God’. They are placed in contrast to those who have not been baptized and are, therefore, not yet spiritual or living by the Spirit. The unbaptized and unspiritual are alluded to in Paul's words, ‘If a person be caught unexpectedly in any transgression’ and stand in contrast to ‘you who are spiritual’ (6.1).

Paul says in Gal. 3.28: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freed person, there is neither male nor female; for you are all (one) in Christ Jesus’. In the baptized group all ethnic, social, and gender distinctions – religiously, of course, not physically – are no longer recognized. All are looked upon equally – ‘one in Christ Jesus’.