Under a Spell

I. The Question about the Precedence of Christianity — 3:1

A long time ago I read — or maybe heard the illustration somewhere — about a boy in Europe, in maybe the early 1900s. His parents wanted their son, who was about fifteen or sixteen, to come to America and enjoy the things that are here and make something of himself. They couldn't afford the trip, but they had relatives here, and one of the relatives sent the passage so he could come. His mother packed him his food — we're talking about probably a thirty-day trip — cheese, a big package of it, and a big supply of crackers, cookies, and bread, whatever else he had. Cheese and crackers. Every time lunchtime or dinnertime came, he broke off a piece of cheese and ate some crackers. That was his dinner. He was doing fine.

Then he got to America, and the family met him and asked, “How was your trip?” He said, “My trip was fine, but I just don't want to see any more cheese and crackers for a long while.” They said, “Cheese and crackers? What? They fed you cheese and crackers?” “Oh, no — my mom packed it, and I ate that all the way over.” “Don't you know your passage included all the food you could eat?”

A lot of Christians are like that. We have been blessed with all the spiritual blessings in the heavens in Christ, and some people are eating cheese and crackers. Some are living by the law and not by grace. All the plenteousness of grace is there before them, and they follow the law instead.

Paul was amazed — he shows it here in chapter 3 — at the way these Galatians were now behaving, because of how graciously they had received him when he was with them. In Galatians 4:13–15 he writes:

“You know that because of physical infirmity I preached the gospel to you at the first. And my trial which was in my flesh you did not despise or reject, but you received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. What then was the blessing you enjoyed? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me.” (Galatians 4:13–15)

They received him as an angel of God — even as Jesus Christ. They would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to Paul. Ever been treated like that? That's amazing — that was his perception of how graciously they had greeted him. It reminds me of visiting one of my Greek students this past summer. I had never met him before; I only knew him from the phone, helping him with his Greek questions. When we got there and called to say we were stopping by, he said, “Oh, brother, you're going to come to my house? It's so wonderful — thank you for coming.” Several times over the two days we stayed, he kept saying, “Brother, I can't believe you've come to my house to stay. Thank you so much for coming.” I thought, who, me? But that's the way it was — and that's the way Paul was treated by the Galatians. (This plucking-out-the-eyes language, by the way, is where some interpreters go to argue that Paul's thorn in the flesh was his eyesight — that may or may not be so; just a side note.)

That was amazing — the way they had treated him. But what is more amazing is that they had turned away from the teaching of the grace gospel he had taught them. They loved him, they treated him well, they listened to him and believed the gospel — and now they had turned away from it. Paul expresses his horror in Galatians 1:6:

“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel.” (Galatians 1:6)

They had turned away —

from Mount Calvary to Mount Sinai

from liberty to bondage

from Sonship to servant-hood

from faith to works

from Christ to Ceremonies.

Now, if you want to see Paul's outline for this passage — and Paul wrote with an outline, like everybody else does — you can see it by following the question marks in these five verses, chapter 3, verses 1 through 5. Every question mark marks the end of one point: five points here about their turning aside. He asks about:

the Precedence of Christianity

the Procedure of Christianity

the Perfection of Christianity

the Persecution of Christianity

the Promotion of Christianity.

Paul usually expresses some form of thanks for the people he's writing to — in the personal epistles, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, he calls them dear brothers, tells them he loves them, that he remembers them in prayer. That's not how he greets the Galatians. Here it's “O foolish Galatians.” That signals the surprise, the perplexity, and the indignation running through the whole letter. It seems impossible to him that they have turned from the grace he taught to the legalizing bondage of the Judaizers.

3:1 — “O foolish Galatians...”

He calls them ἀνόητοι — foolish, unintelligent. He doesn't mean they are demented; they are simply not using the sense God gave them. (I remember, way back in my childhood, if you did something stupid somebody would say, “You don't have the sense God gave a goose.” They weren't using the sense God gave them.)

Then he asks, “Who has bewitched you?” — ἐβάσκανεν — who put a hex on you, cast a spell on you? He is not seriously thinking they have been hexed; this is hyperbole, exaggeration for effect, meant to underscore the sheer stupidity of their actions. Bluntly, Paul is asking, “Have you lost your mind?” Today we might say, “What were you thinking?”

The word “who” is singular. If that has any significance, it may point to the one who stands behind all deception — Satan. Jesus said of him:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44)

And Peter warns:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

Think about that. I see these pictures where people are going into places and the lion jumps up, or whatever that is — I couldn't do that. And yet there is a roaring lion after me all the time, and after you as well. He wants to devour you, just like Satan is going to try to do.

These Galatians turned to the Law in spite of the fact that Jesus had been portrayed — placarded — among them: through Paul's preaching, through their baptism, and through the Lord's Supper.

Through Paul's preaching:

“and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” (Acts 13:39)

Christ on the cross took away their sin and did everything that needed to be done — and that could not happen by the law of Moses.

Through their baptism — believers in that day were baptized right away:

“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3)

That is Spirit baptism, of course, but water baptism pictures it — buried with Him in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life. When they were baptized, Christ was placarded before them; they had redemption through Him.

Through the Lord's Supper, which they observed regularly:

“This is My body which is given for you . . . This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:26, 28)

The blood of the new covenant — the grace covenant, not the old covenant, not the law.

In their experience, grace had preceded the law — for the Gentiles Paul preached to, and for the Jews as well, grace had preceded their coming to Christianity. Grace is not grace if something is added to it.

II. The Question about the Procedure of Christianity — 3:2

“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?” (Galatians 3:2)

Only one question — if Paul could get that one answer, he wouldn't need anything else.

These Galatians were already saved, and they had received the Holy Spirit. Salvation and the reception of the Spirit are not two separate events; they are simultaneous, though not synonymous — they happen at the same moment. (There are some thirty-three things that happen to a person the moment he believes, according to Chafer's Systematic Theology — a whole list, if you'd like it.) One of them is receiving the Holy Spirit, and anyone who does not have the Holy Spirit is not part of the body of Christ:

“For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free — and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)

And whoever does not have the Spirit does not belong to Christ:

“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” (Romans 8:9)

The difference is:

• The law says “Do” — Grace says “Done.”

• The law says “Try” — Grace says “Trust.”

• The law says “Behave” — Grace says “Believe.”

• The law points to the commandment — Grace points to Christ.

• The weakness of the Law is the flesh — the wonder of Grace is the Holy Spirit.

• The Law requires man's achievement — Grace rests on Christ's achievement.

So Paul is asking about the procedure of their salvation: were you saved by doing good works, or by the hearing of faith? The answer has to be by the hearing of faith — that is, by grace.

So that's the precedence, the procedure — but now the perfection of Christianity.

III. The Question about the Perfection of Christianity — 3:3

“Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

J. B. Phillips paraphrases the verse: “Surely you can't be so idiotic as to think that a man begins his spiritual life in the Spirit and then completes it by reverting to outward observances.”

Hebrews explains the concept well:

“For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14)

The one who believes has been perfected forever — how? By one sacrifice. He died in your place.

I had the chance to speak with a lot of people on vacation — I love just passing out tracts. I found one fellow — we had stopped, had gone into a store — and this man came up to me, and about everything he said was, “Thank you, Father, thank you, Father.” I asked him, “Are you a believer?” “Yeah.” “What do you believe?” He wasn't too sure, so I gave him a version of Kennedy's Evangelism Explosion question: “Suppose you came to heaven and they asked you, why should I let you in?” He named several things. I said, “No — what you need to say is, Jesus Christ paid for my sins; my sins are paid for; I'm no longer a sinner; I'm able to step into your heaven because my sin has been paid for.” He liked that — “Oh, thank you, Father.” But that is exactly what this verse is saying: by one sacrifice, we are completed, accepted by God.

There's a hymn — I don't think it's in our hymnal — that goes, “God sees my Savior, and then He sees me, in the Beloved, accepted and free.”

Our perfection before God is settled forever by that one sacrifice of Christ. Nothing can change that position before God — that is our perfection. My practice is not on the same level as my perfection. I am perfect before God, I stand before Him perfect in Christ, and I have a relationship with Him because of that perfection. But my fellowship with Him depends on how I am being sanctified — that is, on bringing my practice up to the level of my perfection, which is what I ought to be striving to do all the time. My practice — what I do — is not what causes God to accept me. I am already accepted; I can be no more accepted by doing anything, even the law. God does not look at what I do; He looks at what Christ has done. He does not simply pay the down payment on the cross and then leave us to keep up the payments the rest of our lives, hoping to get to heaven — that is not it.

Paul's question, then, is a logical one: are you going to complete the work Christ has already completed? Suppose a concert pianist somehow climbed inside me, and I sat down and played a fantastic piece of music. That is the way it is with these Galatians. First, the work has already been completed. Second, it is a divine work they cannot perform themselves. Now imagine, after the pianist inside me has played the whole piece to applause, I said to him, “Get out of my way — I'll finish this myself.” Wouldn't that be silly? That is what happens in our salvation: Christ in us brings us to perfection, and then we say, “Okay, now get out of the way — I'll do the rest myself, I'll add some works of the law, I'll complete what you started.”

Paul is right — they are foolish. First, the work had already been completed. Second, it is a divine work, and they cannot do it anyway. So that's the precedence, the procedure, the perfection. Now, the persecution.

IV. The Question about the Persecution of Christianity — 3:4

“Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?” (Galatians 3:4)

When they believed, they suffered much persecution. Luke records that Paul had warned the Galatians of this before he returned to Antioch in Syria after the first missionary journey:

“And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch [Pisidia — the cities of Galatia], strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”” (Acts 14:21–22)

The Jewish Christians especially suffered persecution from the other Jews in the synagogue and in the Jewish community, but it was not limited to the Jews — both Jew and Gentile were in that church, and the Gentiles preached and witnessed to all the residents of the city, Jews included, and probably even ran afoul of the Roman authorities for it. There was enough persecution to go around.

Paul reminds them that if they go back to Judaism, all of that suffering will have been in vain. Then he adds, “if indeed it was in vain” — as if to say, “It would be in vain if you go back to the Law — but I don't think you will.” It may be a note of encouragement: he's not entirely certain the report he's heard is true of them, or that it will hold in their case. He may have been hoping that this very letter would turn them around — that was certainly his purpose in writing it. So there's the precedence, the procedure, the perfection, the persecution — and now the promotion: another argument for the grace gospel.

V. The Question about the Promotion of Christianity — 3:5

“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?” (Galatians 3:5)

What was there in Paul's ministry that attested to the truth of the gospel? It was the miracles. In Lystra the people wanted to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, calling them gods — and there is one miracle in particular Paul has in mind:

“And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said . . .” (Acts 14:8–9)

What did Paul say?

• Keep the commandments —

• Have no other gods before God,

• Don't take the Lord's name in vain,

• Don't make any graven images,

• Remember the Sabbath day,

• Honor your father and mother,

• Don't steal, lie, commit adultery, or covet anything that belongs to your neighbor?

None of the above.

“He said with a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet!” And he leaped and walked.” (Acts 14:10)

No law there — just the grace of God to a poor, undeserving cripple. That is the way your salvation came: totally by grace, through faith, to undeserving, unworthy sinners.

No — are you trying to keep the law? I know you didn't come here yesterday to church — I was here, you weren't — but are you doing certain things, telling yourself, “We've got to do this, we can't do that,” as if that's what perfects you? You can't do it. In the first place, you cannot keep the law; and if you could keep it, God wouldn't accept it on that basis. Give up on the law. There's an old song that goes:

““Do this and live,” the law demands, and gives me neither feet nor hands. A better word the gospel brings: it bids me fly and gives me wings.”

God help us to accept the wings God gives, to do the things of God, and to give Him all the glory.

Lord, thank You.