Bewitched! - Galatians 3

 Faith or Works of the Law

3 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?[a] 4 Have you experienced[b] so much in vain—if it really was in vain? 5 So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 6 So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Paul is very surprised that after the gospel had been so clearly been preached to the Galatians that they have foolishly been tricked into believing in another kind of gospel, which is really no gospel at all.  He uses the example of the gift of the Holy Spirit to show his point.  The Holy Spirit came upon them when they came to faith in Jesus.  It wasn't as if they did a certain amount of good works, or were circumcised, that they then received the Holy Spirit.  

In verse 6, we see a verse of paramount importance. Why? Because it comes from Genesis 15:6, where Abraham's faith and trust in God's promises was credited to him as righteousness.  This was where the Old Testament showed that people in the Old Testament were saved by grace through faith, even though Jesus hadn't come yet.  Guzik says,

"There are essentially two types of righteousness: righteousness we accomplish by our own efforts and righteousness accounted to us by the work of God when we believe. Since none of us can be good enough to accomplish perfect righteousness, we must have God’s righteousness accounted to us by doing just what Abram did: Abraham believed God. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness: This quotation from Genesis 15:6 is one of the clearest expressions in the Bible of the truth of salvation by grace, through faith alone. It is the gospel in the Old Testament, quoted four times in the New Testament (Romans 4:3, Romans 4:9-10, Romans 4:22 and here in Galatians 3:6)."

The passages in both Romans and Galatians were the most important verses Luther used from the bible as the fuel for the Protestant Reformation.  The three sola's of the Reformation are:  1. "sola gratia" (by grace alone) 2."sola fides" (by faith alone) 3. "sola scritpure" (by God's Word alone).  

For Luther what was happening in the Catholic church in his time was the same thing happening in the Galatian church 1,400 years ago.  Having started with the gospel, the Catholic church went back to works. They were bewitched as well. 

Why is so tempting to think we are justified by works?  Where is the focus?  Why is it part of the sinful nature to want to justify us?

7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 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.”9  So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

The first covenant God made with human beings was called the "Abrahamic covenant", through the faith of Abraham all nations would be blessed.  God told Abraham that he was "blessed to be a blessing" to all nations, not to just the Jews but the Gentiles too.  God's promise to Abraham was fulfilled in Jesus' birth.  Jesus' lineage started with Abraham and went through David.  God never goes back on a promise.  You and I have been blessed with faith through the covenant God made with Abraham.  We are in that sense children of Abraham too.  

Do you see why it is so important to see how the Old Testament connects with the New Testament?

How has your family blessed you and led you to faith?  It is fun to do a spiritual lineage to see the different relatives before you who were people of faith.  I know both of my grandmothers were women of faith and I am forever grateful to both of them!