This is the beginning of the second section of Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia. He has finished his autobiographical section which he had used to defend the fact that he was truly an apostle on the same level with Peter and the others. For the Galatians to listen to him, he needed to show them that he had the spiritual authority of an apostle behind him. Otherwise they might have totally ignored him when he tried to correct them, their theology, and their behavior.
But as Paul had gotten in to a confrontation with Peter, so here in the 3rd chapter of Galatians he gets into a confrontation with them.
Here is the first section of the theological confrontation…Galatains 3:1-9 which says, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? 4 Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.“
He starts by calling the Galatians ‘foolish’. This is a term which normally has a moral or ethical component to it, so whatever Paul is concerned with is not just a matter of theology but of behavior that results from theology.
And then the other fascinating term…’bewitched’ (no, not Elizabeth Montgpomery twitching her nose). The idea of it is being so fascinated by something that you have lost all sense…to be intensely misled. But is there not also the other though hovering there about someone casting a spell on you? That idea can’t be totally overlooked.
This ‘bewitching’ has led them to staying from the truth (the gospel) and being disobedient to it. Clearly, in Paul’s eyes, his message to them was clear and focused upon the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified. They had seen it and heard it proclaimed straight from Paul’s mouth. This is what Paul publicly proclaimed and now they are being led away from it and dazzled with something else.
Paul then launches a barrage of questions at the Galatians all directed at how they really became believers and followers of Christ…the question all boil down to how they came to faith.
The first question is how they received The Holy Spirit…was it through faith or was it through their following the law (trying to good and obedient enough on their own) There are only these two choices and each one cancels out the other…one of Paul’s main points is that living by faith and living by law cannot co-exist.
Just a quick note…faith is not primarily doing but receiving.
The second question is Paul’s opening statement in vs 1 now phrased as a question…there he called them foolish and now he asks them if they are indeed foolish. This foolishness is about become even more pronounced. If they indeed began their lives of faith through The Holy Spirit, what is it that makes them think that they can continue it apart from faith and only in the flesh? Can you do better by yourself than you can with The Holy Spirit? Has Christ only brought them so far and now they need to finish it on their own?
Paul then refers to the suffering they have endured and asks if it was worth it. They had probably suffered some persecution from the Jews and other unbelievers (however no persecution is really mentioned in the letter). Why would such suffering be in vain? If they were willing to go back to the law instead of living by faith then the persecution suffered would indeed have been in vain.
The last question is a continuation of the thought from vs 2…where did The Spirit come from and in what manner was it received? Interesting note that the verb e ‘supplies’ is in the present tense…The Spirit is continually being supplied.
There is then a bit of a digression to Abraham and we are right to ask the question about what his name means in this context. As the answer to the question in vs 5 is obvious (hearing of faith and not works of the law) so Abraham is put up as an example of this. The quote in vs 6 comes from Genesis 15:6 and tells us that Abraham obtained righteousness from God on the basis of his faith and not his works. Where justification is, so The Spirit is also.
Perhaps…and this is just a side note…the false teachers were bringing up Abraham in order to prove their case so Paul is forced to bring him up in order to refute them.
But here is the point that Paul is trying to make. Living by faith instead of law is not something new. It goes all the way back to Abraham and those who live by faith today are walking in his footsteps. As it was in the beginning, so it still is today.
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