CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Galatians 3:1. Who hath bewitched you?—Fascinated you, as if overlooked by the evil eye, so that your brain is confused. The Galatians were reputed to possess acute intellects: the apostle marvelled the more at their defection. That ye should not obey the truth.—Omitted in R.V. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified.—In preaching, a vivid portraiture of Christ crucified has been set before you as if depicted in graphic characters impossible to mistake.
Galatians 3:3. Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?—What monstrous folly is this! Will you so violate the divine order of progress? The flesh may be easily mistaken for the Spirit, even by those who have made progress, unless they continue to maintain a pure faith (Bengel).
Galatians 3:4. Have ye suffered so many things in vain?—Since ye might have avoided them by professing Judaism. Will ye lose the reward promised for all suffering?
Galatians 3:5. He that worketh miracles among you.—In you, at your conversion and since.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 3:1-5
The Deceptive Glamour of Error—
I. Diverts the gaze of the soul from the most suggestive truth.—“Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified” (Galatians 3:1). The cross of Christ was the great theme of Paul’s preaching. He depicted it in such vivid colours, and dwelt on every detail of the story with such intense earnestness and loving emphasis, that the Galatians were arrested, excited, charmed. They were smitten with a sense of sin. They seemed to be actors in the scene, as if their own hands had driven in the nails that pierced the sacred Victim. They were bowed with shame and humiliation, and in an agony of repentance they cast themselves before the Crucified and took Him for their Christ and King. While they looked to Jesus they were secure, but when they listened to the deceptive voice of error their gaze was diverted and the deep significance of the cross became obscured. Then backsliding began. Like mariners losing sight of their guiding star, they drifted into strange waters. The cross is the central force of Christianity; when it fades from view Christianity declines. “As the sun draws the vapours of the sea, and then paints a rainbow on them, so Christ draws men and then glorifies them. His attraction is like that of the sun. It is magnetic too, like that of the magnet to the pole. It is not simply the Christ that is the magnet; it is the crucified Christ. It is not Christ without the cross, nor the cross without Christ; it is both of them together.”
II. Confuses the mind as to the nature and value of spiritual agencies.—
1. Concerning the method of their first reception.—“Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:2). Making it appear that spiritual blessings were acquired by outward observance rather than by inward contemplation and faith. Confusing the true method of moral regeneration, it arrests all growth and advancement in the spiritual life. It throws back the soul on the weary round of toilsome and hopeless human effort.
2. Concerning the purpose for which they were given.—“Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). It was a reversal of the divine order. Having begun in the Spirit, so they must continue, or they would be undone. It was absurd to look for perfection in the flesh, especially when they had discovered its helplessness and misery. Pharisaic ordinances could do nothing to consummate the work of faith and love; Moses could not lead them higher than Christ; circumcision could never effect what the Holy Ghost failed to do. Spiritual results can be brought about only by spiritual agencies.
3. Rendering suffering on behalf of the truth meaningless.—“Have ye suffered so many things in vain?” (Galatians 3:4). The Galatians on their conversion were exposed to the fiercest persecution from the Jews and from their own countrymen incited by the Jews. No one could come out of heathen society and espouse the cause of Christ in those days, nor can he do so to-day, without making himself a mark for ridicule and violence, without the rupture of family and public ties, and many painful sacrifices. But if the truth may be so easily abandoned, all early struggles against opposition and all the educative influence and promised reward of suffering must go for nothing. It is disappointing and disastrous when a youthful zeal for religion degenerates in maturer life into apathy and worldliness, when the great principles of right and liberty, for which our fathers fought and suffered, are treated by their descendants with supine indifference.
III. Creates misconceptions as to the divine method of ministering spiritual blessing.—“He that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:5). One of the most subtle effects of error is to suspend the mind in a state of hesitation and doubt. It is a dangerous mood. Confidence in the truth is shaken, and for the moment the soul has nothing stable on which to lay hold. It is the opportunity for the enemy, and damage is done which even a subsequent return to the truth does not wholly efface. Paul saw the peril of his converts, and he suggests this test—the Spirit of God had put His seal on the apostle’s preaching and on the faith of his hearers. Did any such manifestation accompany the preaching of the legalists? He takes his stand on the indubitable evidence of the work of the Spirit. It is the only safe ground for the champion of experimental Christianity (1 Corinthians 2:14-15).
Lessons.—
1. Every error is the distortion of some truth.
2. The cross is the central truth of Christianity.
3. The highest truths are spiritually discerned.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Galatians 3:1. Faithful Reproof.—
1. The minister when he is called to insist upon the clearing up of truth, whether positively by showing what is revealed in Scripture or controversially by refuting errors, should mix his discourse with exhortation and reproof, to excite and quicken the affections of his hearers.
2. False teachers, who by fair words deceive the simple, are spiritual sorcerers, and error is spiritual witchcraft. As sorcerers by deluding the senses make people apprehend that they see what they see not, so false teachers, by casting a mist of seeming reason before the understanding, delude it, and make the deluded person to believe that to be truth which is not.
3. Though Christ and His sufferings are to be vividly represented and pictured by the plain and powerful preaching of the gospel, yet it does not follow they are to be artificially painted with colours on stone or timber for religious use. The graven image is a teacher of lies (Habakkuk 2:18).—Fergusson.
The Folly of Disobedience.
I. We are wise in matters of the world, but in matters concerning the kingdom of heaven the most of us are fools, besotted and bewitched with worldly cares and pleasures, without sense in matters of religion; like a piece of wax without form, fit to take the form and print of any religion.
II. The truth here mentioned is the heavenly doctrine of the gospel, so called because it is absolute truth without error, and because it is a most worthy truth—the truth according to godliness.
III. The office of the minister is to set forth Christ crucified.—
1. The ministry of the word must be plain, perspicuous, and evident, as if the doctrine were pictured and painted out before the eyes of men.
2. It must be powerful and lively in operation, and as it were crucifying Christ within us and causing us to feel the virtue of His passion. The word preached must pierce into the heart like a two-edged sword.
3. The effectual and powerful preaching of the word stands in three things:
(1) True and proper interpretation of the Scripture.
(2) Savoury and wholesome doctrine gathered out of the Scriptures truly expounded.
(3) The application of the said doctrine, either to the information of the judgment or the reformation of the life.
IV. The duty of all believers is to behold Christ crucified.—And we must behold Him by the eye of faith, which makes us both see Him and feel Him, as it were, crucified in us.
1. By beholding Christ crucified we see our misery and wickedness.
2. This sight brings us true and lively comfort.
3. This sight of Christ makes a wonderful change in us. The chameleon takes the colours of the things it sees and that are near to it; and the believing heart takes to it the disposition and mind that was in Christ.—Perkins.
Attractiveness of Worth.—In the Paris Salon some few years ago there was a bust of the painter Baudry by Paul Dubois, one of the greatest modern sculptors. Mr. Edmund Gosse was sitting to contemplate this bust when an American gentleman strolled by, caught sight of it, and after hovering round it for some time came and sat by his side and watched it. Presently he turned to Mr. Gosse inquiring if he could tell him whose it was, and whether it was thought much of, adding with a charming modesty, “I don’t know anything about art; but I found that I could not get past that head.” Would that we could so set forth Christ that His word might be fulfilled, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me”!
Galatians 3:2-5. Searching Questions—
1. As to the mode of receiving the Spirit (Galatians 3:2).
2. As to the folly of expecting advancement by substituting an inferior for a superior force (Galatians 3:3).
3. As to the uselessness of suffering (Galatians 3:4).
4. As to the exercise of spiritual and miraculous power (Galatians 3:5).
Galatians 3:4. Suffering for the Truth.—They may suffer many things for truth who afterwards fall from it. As the example of others, particular interest and general applause will make even hypocrites suffer much, so continued suffering will make even the godly faint for a time. The best, being left to themselves, in an hour of temptation, will turn their back upon truth, so that no profession, no experience or remembrance of the joy and sweetness found in the way of truth, nor their former sufferings for it, will make them adhere to it.
1. Whatever have been the sufferings for truth, they are all in vain, lost and to no purpose, if the party make defection from and turn his back upon the truth.
3. Though those who have suffered much for the truth should afterwards fall from it, we are to keep charity towards them, hoping God will give them repentance and reclaim them. All our sharpness towards them ought to be wisely tempered, by expressing the charitable thoughts we have of them.—Fergusson.
The Uses of Suffering.—
1. They serve for trial of men, that it may appear what is hidden in their hearts.
2. They serve for the correction of things amiss in us.
3. They serve as documents and warnings to others, especially in public persons.
4. They are marks of adoption, if we be content to obey God in them.
5. They are the trodden and beaten way to the kingdom of heaven.—Perkins.
Galatians 3:5. Miracles confirmatory of the Truth.—
1. The Lord accompanied the first preaching of the gospel with the working of miracles that the truth of the doctrine might be confirmed, which being once sufficiently done, there is no further use for miracles.
2. So strong and prevalent is the spirit of error, and so weak the best in themselves to resist it, that for love to error they will quit truth, though confirmed and sealed by the saving fruits of God’s Spirit in their hearts.—Fergusson.