You’Re Bewitched!
YOU’RE BEWITCHED!
GALATIANS 3:1-5
It’s all too easy to behave as if faith was enough for our initial acceptance by God but not enough for our continuing acceptance by him.
The discussion now turns from the past episode at Antioch to the present situation in Galatia. Paul’s clear demonstration that first there is no hope or value in seeking to get right with God by observance of the law, and secondly in any case, God has himself made full provision in the gospel, has come between, and so prepares for his impassioned appeal (3:1).
The issue of the Galatians’ ready acceptance of a “different gospel” (1:6) is squarely set before them, and they are invited to draw their own conclusion. But Paul can only marvel that they have been so easily swayed. It was as though an evil spell had been put on them, and they had been mesmerized into a tame acceptance of the Judaizers’ false message. If they had been in a “neutral” position of unconverted Gentiles, it would be hard to understand their ready acceptance of such a message, but in their most privileged case of having already had “Jesus Christ … publicly portrayed as crucified” before their eyes, Paul can only recoil in horror before their unaccountable behavior! He challenges his readers to consider their past Christian experience, and does so along three lines:
First (3:2-5), how did they become Christians in the beginning? Was it because of an acceptance of what the law demanded or what the grace of God gave to responsive faith? Paul touches here on the vital point of New Testament Christianity: salvation is ours, not by achieving, but by receiving (John 1:12).
Secondly, at their conversion, did they become only partial Christians, needing some supplement (3:3)? This is an obvious tilt at the Judaizers’ innuendo that their experience, while good and satisfying up to a point, needed the addition of obedience to the law.
Thirdly, still pressing his hearers to consider what conversion means, Paul goes on (3:5): God who has given his Spirit in response to trustful acceptance (Ephesians 1:13-14) and who shows his clear presence in the church’s life, works at every point as his people believe, irrespective of their being circumcised or not.
So, on every ground, religion based on law cannot explain Christian experience, both at its start and during its course.