LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 65

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Convention Sermon
❸ “Who Are You Wearing?:

The Robe That Makes All the Difference.”

Galatians 3:24–4:7 • Sunday Midday
By the Rev. Dr. Leopoldo A. Sánchez, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology
and Director of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
65th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod | July 21, 2013

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be
justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 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.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is not different from a slave, though
he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the
date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But
when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the
law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying,
“Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

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or as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ” (Gal. 3:27).
To put on Christ. To be clothed with Christ. To wear Christ.

What a strange, strange way of speaking! How do you put on a
person or something so inextricably linked to a person? At big red
carpet events, the rich and famous are often asked: Who are you
wearing? Well, Valentino! Versace! Or perhaps more likely for us,
Walmart! Now, what someone wears may or may not tell us much
about him or her as a person.
Oh, but when Paul tells Christians they have put on Christ in
Baptism, this is an entirely different matter. Who we are is entirely
decided by who we wear.
So who are you wearing today? Well, Christ. Whose robe is that?
I’m clothed with Christ’s robe, His righteousness and holiness. He
is the designer who made it, and He has passed that robe on to me
to wear, not just for special events but all the days of my life and
gloriously at the Last Day.
To put on Christ, His robe, means “to put on the new creature,
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” What Adam lost in the fall, Christ, our Last Adam, has
restored unto us. Sinners are covered with Christ’s forgiveness.
This is the awesome robe passed on to us as a gift. This is the robe
of Luther’s happy exchange. Christ’s robe of righteousness for my
unrighteousness, His forgiveness for my sin, His absolution for my
guilt, His justification for my shame, and thus His strength for my
weakness, and His joy for my tears.
For Paul, putting on Christ also means that the baptized are covered

C o n v e n t io n se r m o n s

with Christ’s holiness, that the baptized are promised the indwelling and assistance of the Holy Spirit. Christ was anointed with the
Holy Spirit at His Baptism for us, so that upon completion of His
mission on the cross, He would give us the Spirit in our Baptism.
Through the Baptism of Christ at the Jordan, Luther says, God has
sanctified, “hallowed and set apart the Jordan and all water to be a
blessed flood and a rich washing of sins” so that the baptized may
be blessed “with true faith in the Holy Spirit [and] so that through
this same saving flood all that has been born in him from Adam and
whatever he has added thereto may be drowned in him and sink.”1
As Christ comes out of the waters of the new creation where the
Spirit hovers over as in the first creation, Christ leaves His robe of
righteousness in the waters for sinners to pick up so that we might
be clothed with His forgiveness in those waters and receive His
Holy Spirit. Luther reminds us to return to this Baptism daily by
picking up the robe Christ has left there for us. He writes: “Let all
Christians regard their Baptism as the daily garment that they
are to wear all the time. Every day they should be found in faith
and with its fruits, suppressing the old creature and growing up
in the new.”2
So have you picked up the robe from the waters of the Jordan
today? To wear the new creature, the clean and sparkling robe, is
never easy because that means one has to drown the old creature
in the waters with the old filthy and smelly rags. Sometimes we
wear different clothing, garments with tags that say things like
“missional” and “confessional,” and even though these terms in
and of themselves could be used in a salutary way, we must admit
that at times we have used these words sinfully. We have let these
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