“Galatians 3:1-5”

Thursday, July 12, 2018

“You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?”

---End of Scripture verses---

Paul now turns his attention from defending himself to defending the Gospel. In the first 5 verses of chapter 3 he appeals to the personal experience of the Galatians to remind them that they were justified by God’s grace through their own faith in Christ Jesus, and not by the works of the Law of Moses. Paul called his brethren “foolish” because they had nullified the grace of God in favor of a fulfilled and defunct law that could not save their souls. “For if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly” (Galatians 2:21).

It was as if someone had “bewitched” them, or placed them under a spell because, for the life of Paul, he couldn’t understand why anyone one who was thinking clearly and acting under their own volition would do such a foolish thing! Paul had focused so intently on preaching salvation through the death of Jesus Christ, it was if the crucified Savior had been held up before them to see with their own eyes. “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

But now, after having received the Holy Spirit’s gift of salvation through faith in believing His inspired revelation about Christ, they were seeking perfection through bodily procedures such as physical circumcision (Galatians 5:3-4). They were pursuing spiritual excellence through feckless, fleshly practices. They had gladly believed and received the Spirit’s appeal, and had even suffered persecution because of their faith in Christ, and now it was as if it had all been “in vain” (verse 4).

It must be so very frustrating and sickening to God when, after He draws His children out of the darkness of sin and into the light of His Son, they choose to go back to the bleak, barren, sinful, carnal world. It’s like watching a washed hog writhing in its own excrement and a sick dog eating his own vomit (2 Peter 2:20-22). To leave the excellence and security of Christ for the passing, paltry pleasures of sin is the height of foolishness!

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8)

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14).

Please read Galatians 3:6-9 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

-Louie Taylor

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