GALATIANS # 26
5/2/11
Paul’s doctrine:
faith or works of the law?
Chapter 3: 1 - 4

Title : The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
Edition : Second
Copyright : Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. Electronic Edition STEP Files Copyright © 2004, QuickVerse, a division of FindEx.com, Inc.

Galatians 3:1-9 ( ESV )
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

In the previous two chapters Paul first warned the Galatians (1: 6 – 9) of the deadly peril of “another gospel”. After this challenge of the assault undermining and condemning his preaching, he then gave an account of his part in some of the spread of Christianity north from Jerusalem and West as far as Galatia. He gives no details of his conversion: Christ himself appeared to him and charged him with the duty to take the gospel to the gentiles; He stresses this point and that he did not receive his gospel from man or men and is not subservient to the Jerusalem leaders.…

With this history he carefully details all his contacts with the church leaders in Jerusalem: he stresses the fact that the source of his authority is Jesus Christ – repeatedly stating the Fact that it did not originate with any man – not even the leaders in Jerusalem – his ministry is unique, not subject to the church hierarchy. He never is disrespectful of the church leadership but is not subservient to them in any way..

It is likely that the Galatians had a general acquaintance with Paul’s history – Paul doesn’t provide a detailed history; he supplies just enough additional information to prove his authority and the veracity of his teaching. He gives them the background, preparing them to understand his explanation of the error of the “other gospel” being preached by “those of the circumcision”.

At the conclusion of this historical section he masterfully states the gospel of justification, verses 15 – 21, some of the most compressed of all Paul’s writings. Here in these seven verses he lays out his entire gospel “…which we have preached unto you.”

In chapters three and four he proves the gospel he has just declared, “we are justified by faith”, with a series of arguments drawn from the scriptures (Old Testament to us) proving its truth and showing that it is not a new, different, exotic, doctrine but is the gospel of grace which has always been the means of our salvation - first mentioned with the promise God has given us, recorded in chapter three, v fifteen, of the first book of the Bible.

Paul now again directly addresses the Galatians:.
• v1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Paul starts off with the Greek word “o”, providing a very strong emphasis – he is very concerned,

As the Translators hand book puts it:
The tone of the whole verse—and of the whole section, for that matter—is one of unbelief. It is unthinkable to Paul that the Galatians have changed so quickly. The only explanation possible is that they have gone out of their minds!
Foolish (NAB “senseless,” NEB “stupid,” JB “mad”) puts the emphasis not on natural stupidity but on failure to use one’s mental and spiritual powers.
A vocative expression such as You foolish Galatians! may be both grammatically awkward and misleading in sense. It might mean, for example, that all the people in Galatia were stupid, which, of course, is not what Paul means. He is addressing particular Galatians and he is saying that they are “not using their heads” or “not thinking right.” It may be necessary, therefore, to say in some languages “You Galatians are not thinking right,” or “… not using your minds as you should.” In some languages the meaning of foolish is expressed idiomatically, for example, “you have lost your heads,” “your minds have left you,” or “your heads are empty.”

He is not accusing them of having a low IQ, but neglecting, or not using, their gift of discernment (1Cor 12: 10 ). They were like the men on the road to Emmaus; “foolish” (Luke 24: 25) not believing the truth right before their eyes. Using the word bewitched Paul conjures up implications of demon possession or hypnotism by some charismatic witch doctor – surely they wouldn’t voluntarily turn away from the Gospel without some powerful evil influence captivating them!

He had publicly proclaimed “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1Cor. 2: 2) before them. The phrase he uses here is like his message was put on a huge billboard, very visible – no way any of them could have missed or misunderstood it; and they had seemed to understand it, yet now they are slipping away…

• V2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

“Just a moment, Let me ask you one question, did you not hear even the most basic thing I told you?”

• vv3 – 4 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Paul’s central, foundational, most basic teaching, is that we are not, cannot, never have been, and never will be, be saved by works – we are saved exclusively by God’s grace…yet they are now turning away from his message! Those “of the circumcision” had misled the Galatians. Paul is concerned that false and /or mistaken preachers would cause them to be drawn away from the truth A little later Paul warns the Corinthians 2Cor 11: 1-4 of the very same potential disaster.

During His ministry, Jesus warned of false teachers: Matthew 23:15 ( KJV ) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. This is a chilling thought that everyone that preaches, or teaches should keep in mind at all times, as we studied in James (3: 1)! (See also Mat. 10: 42; Luke 17: 2)

It seems that Paul would have continued his historical record a little, giving us an account of his conversion and some more details about his ministry leading up to his ministry to the Galatians (almost 15 yrs. 12 +/- near Tarsus Acts 9: 30) but he doesn’t – what little additional we know, we find in Acts. His purpose was only to provide what additional information they needed to corroborate his credentials

From Timothy George in his writings in The new American Commentary (Volume 30 Galatians):

Everything else Paul said in Galatians 3 and 4 was predicated on the message he first preached to the Galatians, which he summarized in this familiar formula. Each of the three elements in this sermon summary are worthy of close attention. First, Paul preached Jesus Christ. It has been well said that “the universe of Paul’s thought revolved around the Son of God, Jesus Christ.”8 Before his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul had regarded Jesus as a failed messiah, a foolish rabbi who deceived himself and others. All of this was changed when “God was pleased to reveal his Son in me” (1:16). The prominent Christological titles Paul attributed to Jesus—Christ, Lord, Son of God, Savior—reflect his belief that Jesus was fully divine and thus a proper object of worship and prayer. In Rom 9:5 Paul could speak of “Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!”9 Paul’s doctrine of justification makes no sense apart from the high Christological assumptions on which it is based.
Second, Paul said that Jesus Christ “was clearly portrayed before your eyes.” The word “portrayed” (prographō) can mean either “write before hand” (in a temporal sense) or “portray publicly” (the prefix pro as locative, not temporal). The former sense in terms of predictive prophecy is consonant with Paul’s use of the Old Testament especially in the present context (cf. 3:8, where we read, “The Scripture foresaw [proidousa] that God would hand” (in a temporal sense) or “portray publicly” (the prefix pro as locative, not temporal). The former sense in terms of predictive prophecy is consonant with Paul’s use of the Old Testament especially in the present context (cf. 3:8, where we read, “The Scripture foresaw [proidousa] that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance [proeuēngelisato] to Abraham”). When we read Luke’s account of Paul’s preaching among the Galatians in Acts 13–14, we find him quoting freely from the Prophets and the Psalms, declaring to the people, “We tell you the good news: what God promised our fathers, he has fulfilled for us” (Acts 13:32). However, in 3:1 the word prographō more likely carries the locative meaning, “to display publicly as on a placard.” Paul likely was referring to the vivid, unforgettable way in which he first presented the story of Jesus’ suffering and death to the Galatians. In effect, he was saying to them, “How can you have been so deceived by these heretics when in your mind’s eye Jesus was, as it were, impaled on the cross of Calvary right before you? Yes, you have actually seen Christ crucified plastered on a billboard; how could you ever lose sight of that?” Of course, it is not merely the gruesome facts about Jesus’ death but rather the supreme truth that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor 5:19, KJV) that gives power to such portrayals of the crucifixion.
Finally, Paul put special stress on the finality of the cross. He proclaimed Jesus Christ as estaurōmenos, literally, as having been crucified. This perfect participle relates to Jesus’ cry from the cross, “It is finished!” The work of redemption was completely accomplished through that perfect atoning sacrifice.

Complete atonement Christ has made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
whate’er his people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place,
If sheltered in his righteousness,
and sprinkled with his blood?10





DISCUSSION
1. What does Paul mean by “foolish”?
2. What has caused such a heated reaction from Paul”?
3. Who had “bewitched” them?
4. Why doesn’t Paul give us more detailed history?
5. What is the “another gospel” they are attracted to?
6. Why are they vulnerable to it?
7. Are we vulnerable to “another gospel”?
8. What is the first line of defense against false teaching?
9. What “gift” has the Holy Spirit given us to deal with such things?