All Your Sins are Free

Why put on a mask when you're already wearing Christ's righteousness?

The lectionary epistle for this coming Sunday is Ephesians 6:10-20.

In the New Testament, the language of clothing is always the language of baptism. And so at the end of Ephesians, the apostle Paul tells us to put on the whole armor of God. That is, to clothe ourselves in faith and truth and righteousness. To a mostly gentile audience, St. Paul is simply alluding here to the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, who promised that the messiah would come forth from the root of Jesse. This Christ, Isaiah prophesied, would kill with the truth of his word. This Christ, Isaiah foreshadowed, would be girded with righteousness and faith.

Though putting on the armor of God sounds like something we do— have more faith, speak more truthfully, live a more righteous life, put on that armor— every Roman citizen among Paul's listeners would have known what we so often miss about this passage. A Roman soldier's armor was not something the soldier could put on by himself. A Roman soldier's armor was not something the soldier put on himself. It was too heavy. The armor had to be put on you by another. The helmet laid on you by another. The belt cinched tight behind you by another. The armor of God isn't something you do. The armor of God is about something done to you. The armor of God— faith, truth, righteousness— is none other than Jesus Christ.

To put on the armor of God is to be clothed with Christ.

To put on the armor of God is to be baptized.