3. The cross and preaching (3:1-3)
3. The cross and preaching (3:1-3)
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?
Paul has just described (in 2:11–14) his public showdown with Peter in Antioch, because Peter had withdrawn from table fellowship with Gentile Christians and so in effect had contradicted God’s free acceptance of them by his grace. He has gone on to rehearse the arguments he had used with Peter to prove the doctrine of justification by faith. Now he breaks out into an expression of astonished indignation. He accuses the Galatians of folly. Twice he uses the word ‘senseless’ (anoētos), which is to be lacking in nous, intelligence. Their folly is so uncharacteristic and so unacceptable that he asks who has ‘bewitched’ them. He implies that a spell must have been cast over them, perhaps by the Archdeceiver, though doubtless through human false teachers. For their present distortion of the gospel is totally incompatible with what they have heard from Paul and Barnabas. He therefore reminds them of his preaching when he was with them. He ‘publicly portrayed’ (RSV) Jesus Christ before their eyes as having been crucified for them. How then could they imagine that, having begun their Christian life by faith in Christ crucified, they needed to continue it by their own achievement?
There is much to learn from this text about the preaching of the gospel.
First, gospel-preaching is proclaiming the cross. True, the resurrection must be added (1:1; 2:19–20). So must Jesus’ birth of a woman, and under the law (4:4). But the gospel is in essence the good news of Christ crucified.
Secondly, gospel-preaching is proclaiming the cross visually. Paul uses a remarkable verb, prographō. Usually it means to ‘write previously’, for example, ‘as I have already written’ (Eph. 3:3). But graphō can sometimes mean to draw or paint, rather than to write, and pro can mean ‘before’ in space (before our eyes) rather than in time (previously). So Paul here likens his gospel-preaching either to a huge canvas painting or to a placard publicly exhibiting a notice or advertisement. The subject of his painting or placard was Jesus Christ on the cross. Of course it was not literally a painting; the picture was created by words. Yet it was so visual, so vivid, in its appeal to their imagination, that the placard was presented ‘before your very eyes’. One of the greatest arts or gifts in gospel-preaching is to turn people’s ears into eyes, and to make them see what we are talking about.
Thirdly, gospel-preaching proclaims the cross visually as a present reality. Jesus Christ had been crucified at least fifteen years before Paul was writing, and in our case nearly two millennia ago. What Paul did by his preaching (and we must do by ours) was to bring that event out of the past into the present. The ministry of both word and sacrament can do this. It can overcome the time-barrier and make past events present realities in such a way that people have to respond to them. Almost certainly none of Paul’s readers had been present at the crucifixion of Jesus; yet Paul’s preaching brought it before their eyes so that they could see it, and into their existential experience so that they must either accept or reject it.
Fourthly, gospel-preaching proclaims the cross as a visual, present and permanent reality. For what we (like Paul) are to placard before people’s eyes is not just Christos staurōtheis (aorist) but Christos estaurōmenos (perfect). The tense of the verb emphasizes not so much that the cross was a historical event of the past as that its validity, power and benefits are permanent. The cross will never cease to be God’s power for salvation to believers.
Fifthly, gospel-preaching proclaims the cross also as the object of personal faith. Paul did not placard Christ crucified before their eyes so that they might simply gape and stare. His purpose was to persuade them to come and put their trust in him as their crucified Saviour. And this is what they had done. The reason for Paul’s astonishment was that, having received justification and the Spirit by faith, they should imagine that they could continue in the Christian life by their own achievements. It was a contradiction of what Paul had presented before their eyes.