Pastor Bruce on "Put On"

The following is from pastor Bruce Oyen.

"Stephen, your post about putting on Christ was well said. You made a good point that Galatians 3:27 refers to putting on Christ symbolically through baptism. If Christ were put on spiritually or savingly through baptism, Paul's statement in Romans 13:14 would not make much sense. The Romans had already been baptized, as we read in Romans 6. But to those persons, who had put on Christ through baptism, Paul said in chapter 13 that they were to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ." So, it seems to me they were told in chapter 13 to put on in reality what they had already put on symbolically. That is, the character of Christ was to be manifested in their daily lives, in accordance with the meaning of baptism.

Here is what John Gill says on Romans 13:14. What is most applicable to the subject is put in blue. Gill wrote:

"As a man puts on his clothes when he rises in the morning: the righteousness of Christ is compared to a garment, it is the best robe, it is fine linen, clean and white, and change of raiment; which being put on by the Father's gracious act of imputation, covers the sins and deformities of his people, defends them from divine justice, secures them from wrath to come, and renders them beautiful and acceptable in his sight: which righteousness being revealed from faith to faith, is received by faith, and made use of as a proper dress to appear in before God; and may be daily said to be put on by the believer, as often as he makes use of it, and pleads it with God as his justifying righteousness, which should be continually: moreover, to put on Christ, and which indeed seems to be the true sense of the phrase here, is not only to exercise faith on him as the Lord our righteousness, and to make a profession of his name, but to imitate him in the exercise of grace and discharge of duty; to walk as he walked, and as we have him for an example, in love, meekness, patience, humility, and holiness:"

Well said, brother Oyen. Thanks for you imput.

Stephen