In Christ we are all part of the Family of God. When we come to faith in Christ, we become “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17), we are “born again” (John 3:3), and we have been “adopted” into God’s family. This is what Paul says in Galatians 3:27-29; “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” All the distinctions that separate humanity have been destroyed and we’re all brought together into one new family – The Church of Jesus Christ! Notice that this does not refer to water baptism but to the work of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 we read, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” When a person by faith trusts Christ for salvation, the Holy Spirit puts him into the body, the family of God, so that you become “children of God” (Galatians 3:26).
My sister was the oldest of us three kids. When we were little, she’d make us play dress up with her. This is something that my brother and I haven’t been real proud of. But playing dress up now is something I really enjoy! All of the family members in God’s family play dress up. In this passage he talks about “putting on” Christ as if He was a garment. Isaiah 61:10 speaks about putting on a “robe of righteousness.” But just a few chapters later in Isaiah 64:6 he says “all our righteousness’s are as filthy rags.” We are all wearing dirty clothes. I mean they are really, really dirty! Through our faith in Christ, God removes our dirty, dirty clothes and exchanges them for the perfect robes of righteousness; Christ Jesus Himself. In Jesus we all play dress up! Jesus took our filthy clothes and wore them to the cross. His blood washed them clean.
In his comments about the dying thief on the cross next to Jesus, Max Lucado writes, “…The purity of Jesus lifts and covers the dying thief. A sheet of radiance is wrapped around his soul. As the father robed the prodigal, so now Christ robes the thief. Not just with a clean coat but with Jesus himself! ‘Baptized into union with him, you have all put on Christ as a garment’ (Gal. 3:27 NEB). The One with no sin becomes sin-filled. The one sin-filled becomes sinless. It is eternity’s most bizarre exchange. Paul explained it like this: ‘Christ took away the curse the law put on us. He changed places with us and put himself under that curse’ (Gal. 3:13). When he sees sin, a just God must either inflict punishment or assume it. God chose the latter. On the cross ‘God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself’ (2 Cor. 5:19). I know John says that Jesus was carrying his own cross as he walked up the hill, but he wasn’t. He was carrying ours. The only reason he carried the cross was for us thieves and crooks. ‘Christ had no sin, but God made him become sin so that in Christ we could become right with God’ (2 Cor. 5:21). It wasn’t his death he died; it was ours. It wasn’t his sin he became; it was ours.”