Galatians 3:1-5
- David Fairchild
- Aug 20, 2006
- Series: Galatians
Galatians 3:1-5 "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain--if indeed it was in vain? 5 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-"
INTRODUCTION
For two chapters Paul has well defended his apostolic authority. He has fought to prove that his Gospel is true, he received it from Christ, and that the other apostles are in agreement with him. He has fought to demonstrate that he didn't come to this Gospel through deep meditation or reflective contemplation, but that Christ revealed these truths through His own lips and not from the lips of mere man.
However, Paul doesn't argue for his authority simply to beat his chest and demand allegiance to his work. Paul argues that his authority is a true authority only in as much as he preaches the true Gospel and not some truncated or complicated gospel that is distorted and had no power. Paul is legitimate as long as his Gospel is the Gospel Christ has given to him. The moment his Gospel becomes obscured or distorted, he is no longer to be viewed as a Christian but is to be considered "cut off" from God.
Paul knows that this is a life or death issue, because the Gospel is a matter of life and death. It is a two edged sword that can both cut to kill or cut to cure. It is medicine that if mixed with anything else will kill you, but if taken on its own will cure you from certain death. It is the good news of God's great work in this world to rescue sinners from slavery and doom. For Paul, to fumble this truth, would be equivalent to suicide.
Paul now moves from his personal credentials and testimony, defending his apostolic authority, to address the Galatians personally. These are no longer general comments on doctrine, they are personal, and they are addressing everyone who would hear. It is as if Paul was looking each of them in the eye and dealing with their dangerous error. Only a man who loves this much would dare get this worked up and fight for their lives. Only a pastor with a pastor's heart could speak in the way Paul now speaks to his "dear idiots."
Paul finished the last chapter in 2:14-21 by showing us that we are saved when we stop trusting in our own works or morality. When we lay down our own efforts and die to the law and to our works and trust solely in the finished work of Christ, we enter into a different and new motivational structure for everything we think and do.
Now, from verses 3:1-5, Paul gets into the theology of this truth. He begins to demonstrate that we are not simply saved by the Gospel and then work really hard to keep us saved and grow, but that we are saved by the Gospel and grow by the Gospel. We don't begin by trusting in Jesus to "get in" and then try to "stay in." We do everything now with the motivation of the Gospel, and our justification and sanctification come by the Gospel alone. Our only hope for true growth is to have a deeper and more profound understanding of the Gospel. We get into the kingdom by the Gospel and we grow in the kingdom by the Gospel.
STUDY
Verse 1 "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified."
It is sad to see someone who came with simple child-like faith, aware of their sin, aware of God's holiness and the holy standards of the law, realizing their hopelessness in their own flesh and works, coming to God with empty pockets and hands in a posture of a beggar and debtor, turn to their flesh and works, looking into their pockets and resources, acting as if they can give to God and make Him their debtor through the works they perform. In the years I have been in ministry, I have seen this in many people, including myself. Paul calls those individuals foolish. He asks the question, "who has bewitched you?" This is a rhetorical question because he knew who was leading them astray. It was the Judaizers who were adding circumcision and the law to the Gospel to make them truly clean. They were placing a weight upon the neck of these "dear idiots" and pushing them off the pier.
What happens along the way? Can you sense the tendency for each of us to do the same? At what point do we switch from a confidence grounded in Christ's righteousness and work to a confidence in our spiritual performance? It is such a subtle slide that most have no idea that it's even happening. It is as if someone "has bewitched you." It's as if a spell has been cast and someone has worked some freaky Tom Cruise voodoo on us so that we end up in a Katie Holmes trance. We begin to get advice from family and friends who are well meaning dragons. We don't know we are caught in the trap of the Judaizers and so we pass on their poison to all around us-weighing down Christians with more and more works to prove we are really Christians and have the Spirit. Pious upright lives, deep intellectual thoughts, and ecstatic spiritual experiences are all ways in which we comfort ourselves that everything is alright, when in truth our hearts are resting in everything but Christ.
The problem with these type of individuals (we'll call them "us" for the sake of the point), is that we are much like the Judaizers in that we usually have exemplary lives and a tremendous spiritual resume. We are God fearing, sin hating, righteous servants of Christ who champion truth, spiritual disciplines, emotional connectivity, and seem to quote the Bible to support our position. We have all the theological boxes checked, and use the entire Christianese dictionary, but we have missed one important box: Come to Christ with nothing! John Gerstner puts it best when he says, "all you need is need, all you need is nothing!"
Notice Paul's cure for the evil spell the Galatians are under: it is to remind them of the clarity of Christ-that he was portrayed, seen, and clearly observed, not in a way that they could physically see, but in a way that was so vividly preached to them, it was as if Christ Himself were crucified before them. They saw Christ clearly with the eyes of their mind and heart.
How could a sorcerer put them under the spell of an evil eye, when before their eyes the crucified Christ was clearly portrayed? This is the key: when we begin to slip into old patterns and habits, old sins and thoughts, it is because we have failed to see the crucified Christ clearly. At the cross, the answers to the problems of history are found. It is the solution to every woe.
At the cross, God demonstrates His holy indignation of sin and the death it brings.
At the cross, God's wrath is poured out upon sin.
At the cross, we see what every one of us ultimately deserves. It is you and I that were enemies of God and strangers to His promises.
Yet at the cross, the most horrific and tragic event of human history, where the Son of God, the spotless Lamb, comes meekly and humbly into this world to suffer scorn, shame, betrayal, pain, and loss, is turned into the most beautiful and glorious hope for mankind. God demonstrates His love for us in that, "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). We are told in verse 20 of chapter 2 that the Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you. Does that shock you? Think of that exchange. Christ loved you when you were unlovely. Christ sought you when you were not looking. Christ clothed you when you were naked. Christ gave Himself for you. He traded His life for yours. He looked you in the eye before your execution and traded places with you. He gave you His life and record in exchange for yours. He was charged with your sins and you were credited with His righteousness. Do you see the significance of this? Does this melt your heart? This is the only cure for recovering Pharisees like you and me. This is the only way we can get out of our rut of self-pity and self-loathing. It is the only cure for our pride and arrogance, for our harsh and bitter hearts. To see the crucified Christ clearly portrayed before our eyes, will do more for your soul than any book, any counselor, any therapist, any drug, any lover, and any job. The answer to all of our questions is found at the cross of Christ. "For all the promises of God find their yes in Him" (2 Cor. 1:20).
At the same time God is pouring out His wrath upon His only Son, He is opening the way for you and me to be loved by Him with an unfailing, everlasting love that will never perish. He is pouring out His grace in a way that stunned the entire spiritual realm. For every blow that Christ received in our place, His stripes were healing us. For every false accusation and scornful shame that He endured, He was bearing it so we don't have to. For every stroke of the rod, for every whip of His back, Christ had in mind the glory of His Father and the love of His sheep: you, personally, His very own sheep. At the cross, Jesus turns this world upside down. He deals a blow to the head of Satan, and He finishes what He was sent to accomplish in His flesh, the only sacrificial death that would be acceptable to a holy and perfect God.
The only solution for our failure to grasp and apply the Gospel is the cross of Christ. It is a clear portrayal of the crucified God-Man. Gospel clarity must be centered upon the cross of Jesus Christ. When we fail to see Christ clearly portrayed, clearly seen in our thinking, our hearts wander and go astray to erect idols and false messiahs who steal from us the joy and power of the cross in our lives.
A Christian is someone who is gripped by the reality of what Christ has done. It isn't merely an intellectual assent to facts alone; it is a heart that is moved when seeing Jesus on the cross. You can't just agree with the facts and be a Christian. There are many people in this world who can appropriately answer a theological questionnaire and even claim they agree with those answers, but have no love for Christ. Paul says that if anyone has no love (emotion) for the Lord, let him be accursed (1 Cor. 16:22). You must believe (commit or entrust yourself) these facts to be true. This truth will grip your heart and there will be a conviction that accompanies your agreement to the truths. This is what it means to have Christ "clearly portrayed." Since this isn't with the eyes, it must be with the mind and heart. Our hearts and minds must be so gripped that we "see" Him clearly portrayed, even though we don't see Him with our visual senses, we can see Him with the eyes of our heart (Eph. 1:18).
Verse 2 "Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?"
Paul reminds the Galatians of their conversion. He brings them back to the time when they first trusted in Christ alone. He asks them a penetrating question about how they received the Spirit-in other words, how they were saved. Did they get the Spirit by performing their religious duty and God was obligated to give it to them. Or, did they receive the gift of the Spirit by simply trusting in Christ, "by hearing with faith?" This is how someone comes to know God and is moved from being an enemy to a friend, and from an orphan to a child of God. It is by faith alone! By trusting in what you hear of the Gospel. It is not a blind faith in faith. It isn't that you are saved or made right with God by simply having a general faith. It is a faith that comes by a hearing of a particular message. It is the good news of the Gospel that when heard and accompanied by faith, breaks the chains of slavery and saves us from the decay of death.
Something has to be said in order for it to be heard and believed. It is this message of their sin and Christ's crucifixion and resurrection that they believed. It is the Gospel that brought them life. This was a message that was about Jesus and not how to live. This is astounding because it is news and not advice. It isn't about how we can grow into maturity, but an announcement of what God has done for us. It is a truth, a fact, a historical event that actually happened and it must be reported and communicated in that way. It is first a declaration of what God has done and then it follows with how we respond by living "in line" with it.
Why then would they and we add to this good news and turn it into bad news? What is it in us that causes us to seek to save ourselves? Why do we struggle so greatly with a continued belief in this truth? We are ever inventing ways to save ourselves and impress God. Our hearts are idol factories as Calvin said. We pursue false lovers of our heart and false messiahs ad nauseam. It seems that Paul's recommendation for the Galatians is the same over and over again: trust in Christ plus nothing! Put no confidence in your flesh. Don't wait until you've worked up enough righteous deeds or a profound enough trust, just trust in what he's done exactly where you are. Don't look back, don't look down, look to Christ the "author and perfecter of our faith..." (Heb. 12:2).
As a Christian, to "believe" the Gospel means that we not only trust in the facts of the Gospel, that Christ lived, died, and rose after the third day, but that we abandon any hope to attain our salvation through any effort of our own. We must rid ourselves of our entire way of living before we trust in Christ. We must die to any attempt to make ourselves acceptable to God, others, and even to ourselves.
Before trusting in Christ we were trying to achieve some form of salvation and to make ourselves clean. But now, we no longer need to attain anything, but simply believe and receive what has been attained on our behalf. We no longer need to trust in false messiahs which promise us hope if we'll only do this or that, we now trust in the One who has done it all for us already, and all we can do is simply receive it by faith.
This kind of "believing" will act as a catalyst to launch you into an entirely different way of relating to God, relating to others, and relating to yourself. You will become truly free!
The same way that the Galatians received the Holy Spirit as He entered into their lives, is the same way the Holy Spirit makes progress and advances in their lives. To forget that, is to quench the Spirit and make no progress. The Gospel and the Spirit can't be separated because the Spirit is what caused us to believe the Gospel and by believing the Gospel we received the Spirit! They are tied together. To have more of the power of the Spirit in our lives is to grasp, believe, and apply the Gospel. When we are resting and believing in the Gospel, there is an increased sense of the power of the Spirit at work in our lives. When we abandon ourselves to anything else except what Christ has done, we sense the empowerment of the Spirit at work in our thinking, feeling, and acting.
The primary reason for our failure to sense the power of the Spirit is directly linked to our attempts to save ourselves by trying harder to be better. When we cast all of that off, and truly die to the law, we see the Gospel more profoundly and Christ's crucifixion more clearly, and low and behold, the Spirit is there in increased measure. This is Gospel progress in the Christian life. We can't progress any other way.
Another way for us to be stunned by God is to realize what we have. Spiritual maturity isn't always a matter of getting more of God, but a matter of being aware of what we already have. When Paul says, "did you receive the Spirit..." he is clearly reminding them what they already were given. Now, what does that mean? It means that God has given Himself to us. He has given us His Spirit that dwells inside every Christian who has received Christ as Lord and Savior. The Spirit is not some energy force, or some emanation of God; it is God Himself.
When speaking with someone about Christ and what it means to trust in Him, I'll often say that if you've received Christ as your Savior, God also gives you the Spirit. Most often the person who I am speaking with will have a look on their face of, "oh, that's nice," as if the Spirit is a bonus, like a sunroof on a new car when we didn't expect one! This is shocking to me, because it shows how little we understand what we have, and how little we treasure what we have.
There is a great scene in the trilogy of Lord of the Rings where Frodo is speared only to be spared by a Mithril coat. If you've read the book, you know that Mithril was a precious metal that was light, yet stronger than steel, it didn't tarnish, and was extremely valuable. Frodo was given this Mithril coat by Bilbo, his uncle, and wore it much like we would wear a bulletproof vest to protect us but without being staggered by its importance or value. There is a chapter in one of the books that tells the story of Frodo and his friends on a journey when one of them begins to talk about the Mithril coat. One of his companions says something like, "you know Bilbo was a very rich man, but even with all his wealth he had something that was far more valuable than anything else he owned, it was a coat of mail made out of Mithril." Another of the companions said, "a coat of Mithril! Do you know what that's worth? That would be worth far more than every piece of land in his entire country." Mithril was 100 time stronger and lighter than steel, and a 100 times more valuable than gold. Frodo then grabs his side and feels Mithril coat under his cloak. In that moment he became staggered as he was aware that he possessed something of far greater worth and power than his entire country.
If you've believed in Christ and His Gospel, you are someone who is walking around under your flesh with something of far greater value and power than this entire world because you have been given the Spirit. Do you know what you have? Do you have any idea? Are you staggered and stunned by this realization?
If you haven't received the Spirit, you haven't even begun the spiritual life. To receive the Spirit is to be a Christian, and without it, you are not a Christian.
Verse 3 "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"
The same way that the Galatians received the Holy Spirit as He entered into their lives is the same way the Holy Spirit makes progress and advances in their lives. To forget that is to quench the Spirit and make no progress. The Gospel and the Spirit can't be separated because the Spirit is what caused us to believe the Gospel and by believing the Gospel we received the Spirit! They are tied together. To have more of the power of the Spirit in our lives is to grasp, believe and apply the Gospel. When we are resting and believing in the Gospel, there is an increased sense of the power of the Spirit at work in our lives. When we abandon ourselves to anything else except what Christ has done, we sense the empowerment of the Spirit at work in our thinking, feeling, and acting.
The primary reason for our failure to sense the power of the Spirit is directly linked to our attempts to save ourselves by trying harder to be better. When we cast all of that off, and truly die to the law, we see the Gospel more profoundly and Christ's crucifixion more clearly, and low and behold, the Spirit is there in increased measure. This is Gospel progress in the Christian life. We can't progress any other way.
Problems will always be found when we base our justification on our sanctification. Our security can't rest in what we do, but in what Christ has done. This resting in our sonship causes progress in our thinking and feeling. When we see that we are now sons and daughters of the Father, and this is an identity we have now, not later at the end of days when God weighs all our good works, we begin to act differently.
Every other world religion says that your rest and identity will only come at the end when the scales are balanced. Christianity says that the weight of Christ's righteousness far outweighs any wicked deeds that you have done, and far outstrips any righteous deeds that you could do, so that when you rest in the weight of His righteousness, you can have your identity now and your shalom now! Why? Because it isn't your life that is the standard; it's Christ's.
Verse 4 "Did you suffer so many things in vain--if indeed it was in vain?"
Without an awareness of our justification (our salvation by grace through faith in Christ) we will suffer in vain. Our ability to withstand persecution in any form will either be seriously diminished, or we will become bitter and hateful of our enemies.
We will begin to see all people as persecutors while forgetting we are persecuting them. We will begin to villanize the "unrighteous" non-Christians and instead of loving them with humility, we will hate them in an attitude of superiority and pride. Our suffering will truly be "in vain," or in other words, it will be utterly worthless and without a reason. There will no rational sense to our suffering, since most of it will be self-inflicted.
Also, it is only when we forget that we are sinners and begin to demand a designer life without suffering that we suffer in vain. The problem in western culture with the problem of suffering is a problem because westerners don't believe they're sinners. They assume they are entitled to a pain-free life. Other cultures don't understand us, because suffering is part of life. They think we are weak in character because we don't accept that suffering is part of living.
I'm not saying that we should roll over and play dead on the matter of suffering. What I'm saying is that the objections to suffering are selfish ones that refuse to accept Christ's words which tell us that, "in this world you will have trials and tribulations, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
When we fail to see that we are sinners who deserve far much worse than we have received, and that we can not demand anything from God, but can only receive from Him, we find ourselves suffering in vain.
To the Christian, suffering makes sense because this world is broken and suffering. Sin has caused death and decay. I don't sin and become a sinner; I sin because I'm a sinner, and therefore only trust in Christ to give me "good cheer" or cause me to "take heart."
In order to have a healthy perspective on suffering, I must have a Gospel world-view which tells me that I'm far worse than I could ever imagine, but in Christ I'm far more loved and accepted than I could dare hope for. In that I have comfort, and in that I can suffer with a reason and not in vain.
Verse 5 "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-"
Paul now moves to press this home in the present context. Right now, does He who gives you the Spirit and work miracles among you do so by what you do or in the regulations you keep, or simply by hearing with faith?
These things happen because you believe right now, this very moment. Your supply of the Spirit comes to you now not only because you believed in the past at some moment long ago, but because you believe right now and trust in Christ and not your work. You are believing right this moment by hearing with faith in the message that you can't save yourself through your own efforts, and God gives you the Spirit.
If we are seeking the power of the Spirit in our lives, we not only look to when we first believed, we look to what we believe right now. Are you like the foolish Galatians who believed that they were saved by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone but are now trying to keep themselves clean or attain salvation through their own accomplishments? Is it any wonder that we don't sense the power of the Spirit in our lives as we did in the past? The reason for this loss of spiritual power is due to the fact that we have forgotten the core of the Gospel; that we can not save ourselves and commend ourselves to God or anyone by what we do. When we do this, we will sense a diminished fellowship with God, because the power of the Gospel, which is linked to the Spirit, is being robbed by thieves.
To grow, we must go back again to the message we heard and continue in "hearing with faith." The Gospel is not some basic principle that we grow past because we've mastered it and can move on. It is a dynamic power that is believed and must be believed continuously. It isn't milk and other theological truths are the meat. It is the milk and the meat. It is the beginning and the end of our life and growth. It is the abc's and the a-z.
Paul's questions are simple:
Are we dear idiots who have been hypnotized and can no longer see the Gospel clearly?
Did we become Christians and receive the Spirit because of what we did or what we believed?
Is our motivation for growing based upon what we do or what Christ has done?
Are we suffering for nothing?
Is God going to supply you the Spirit based upon what you do or what Christ has done?
What will you trust: your works or your Savior? That is the question.
If you want spiritual power, clarity, growth, victory over besetting sin, a sense of God's presence in your life, and a freedom from slavish duty, Paul's only cure is the Gospel. Who was Christ, and what has He done? To answer those questions truthfully with faith will change your life from the inside out.
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