Faith or Observance of the Law
1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
6Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Dig Deeper
Abraham Lincoln’s first term in office was an obviously difficult one. Due to his middle of the road stance he had made many enemies and had very few supporters. The Civil War had not been the easy victory that the North had expected and now as Lincoln’s first term was coming to an end, he had to decide whether or not to run for a second term. After deciding that he would, no one believed that he could possibly win. Even though, by that time, the war had started to turn in the North’s favor and it was becoming clear that Lincoln had done a masterful job of leading the country through difficult times, too many people appeared ready for a change, and Lincoln faced some fierce and impressive opposition in his Presidential opponents. When asked why people should vote for him and not choose a new President, Lincoln gave a timeless answer which resonated with people so much that it contributed, in large part, to his surprise victory. His response was that it wasn’t wise to "switch horses in mid-stream." Switching horses in mid-stream can be a dangerous affair in which the rider could easily fall off and get swept off by the current.
Paul certainly wasn’t running for re-election of any kind, yet he was worried that the Galatians were about to switch horses in midstream. They had heard the incredibly freeing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and had been invited to enter into the life of the Messiah and be a part of His new family, the new people of God. Right in the middle of that crossing, however, the Judaizers had cut in and offered them another horse. It wasn’t the horse that had gotten them to the middle of the stream, and this is part of Paul’s point, it wasn’t even as if they were being asked to take a slightly different route. The Judaizers were trying to lure them into switching horses altogether and follow what Paul believed was an entirely different gospel.
Paul starts out by placing the onus of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the Galatians. They are the ones that are acting foolishly by their own choice. Although Paul is certainly aware of the dark spiritual forces swirling about (Eph. 6:12), there will be no excuses here. They should have known better and, so, have acted witlessly. Yet, the blame is not all theirs. Paul also has some blame to go around to the teachers who have come in and bewitched them. These teachers must have been quite fascinating with their indepth expositions on Old Testament Scriptures and the law, and in fact, the word translated ‘bewitched’ is the root word for our English word ‘fascinated’. How could they do this, though, when Paul had clearly portrayed (a word that might mean he vividly described, but might also mean that he literally sketched it out for them) Jesus Christ crucified. With that phrase Paul doesn’t simply mean the death of Jesus on the cross, although that’s certainly part of it. He is referring to the whole message of the gospel of being crucified with Christ and being resurrected to his new life. This was the horse that they began to ride to cross the stream. It was the life of Christ in which they put their faith. Why would they even think of trusting in something else?
This is exactly the point Paul makes in verse 2. The Spirit Paul refers to is God’s Spirit, who was powerfully active whenever the gospel was announced. The Spirit enables God’s power in the lives of believers, transforming them into the image of the Messiah. For Paul, it was the Spirit that worked in people’s hearts allowing them to come to faith. It is the Spirit that brought them to faith and preserved in the life of Christ so why would they think of trusting in the flesh. Everything they have and are in Christ came through the Spirit. Have they really been so fooled as to think that they can now finish the race by their own flesh (translated ‘human effort’ in the NIV).? Usually when Paul uses the word ‘flesh’ he primarily means the whole sphere of human self-existence in rebellion against God, but he likely also uses that word to allude to the actual role that flesh plays in circumcision (it is worth noting, and will continue to be important in this letter, that Paul has teamed up spirit and faith on one side and flesh and law on the other). Paul is dumbfounded that they would have gone through so much suffering and persecution for the sake of entering into the life of the Messiah only to abandon all of that for the teachings of these Judaizers. Again, we must remind ourselves that in Paul’s mind, these teachers weren’t just teaching a disputable matter, they were teaching a whole other gospel. One for which Paul is stunned that the Galatians would actually fall.
To make his point, Paul will now turn to the Old Testament Scriptures. His argument is extremely rabbinical in its form and content and may exhibit some of the training that Paul had received before his conversion as a Christian (a term first used in Antioch which means basically, ‘the Messiah people’). The most likely answer, however, is that the Judaizers had made a great deal of use of Scripture (and most likely did so in a very imp;ressive Rabbinic style) so Paul will enter into their territory using language that would have made sense to them and a style that would have been familiar.
Paul’s central point of the letter begins right here. If you are in Christ, then you are already a child of Abraham in every way that matters. These other teachers have claimed that the Gentiles must be circumcised and trust in the law in order to truly be a member of Abraham’s family, but Paul doesn’t believe that at all. The biblical concept of faith is the belief that God’s promises will come true (see Romans 4:21). Thus, when God gave Abraham his first promise and Abraham believed it and lived according to it, he was in covenant with God. That doesn’t mean that he earned that status by having faith; the promise had already been made. The faith he exhibited was the sign or badge that he was in covenant with God.
In Genesis 12, Abraham is promised that all nations of the earth would be blessed through him, while in chapter 15, Paul says that his faith is the clear sign of his covenant status and membership. This is Paul’s whole point. When Abraham believed God’s promise, he was already in covenant with God. When people believe the message of the gospel and have faith by entering into the life of Christ, they are already shown to be Abraham’s children. Nothing else is needed. Faith in the life of Christ is not something to be abandoned in midstream. It is the only horse that will get us to the other side.
Devotioinal Thought
Are you ever tempted to believe that there has to be more to your Christianity than just entering into and having faith in the life of Christ? Do you ever feel that you must do things to earn God’s approval? Faith will lead to good works but it is faith in the life of Christ alone that gives us our new covenant status. Don’t forget that this week. We are in Christ, so we act like it, rather than acting like it to be in Christ.
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