Personal Experience
Have you ever struggled to get something right and had to do it over and over again until it worked? Like a stubborn stain, there are some problems which are only dislodged by sustained repetition. Two chapters of Galatians are focused on the argument that we are made right with God through faith in His Word, many different arguments are repeated over and over again, because of our tendency to fall back on our own self-centred, self-righteous pride. We keep thinking we must do more to make ourselves right with God and it’s exhausting. Here’s what we should do about that problem.
Scripture
Galatians 3:1-5 - ESV O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith —
Bible Study Questions
How do we live for God?
The first two chapters stressed the fact that there is only one Gospel and that God sent Paul to preach that Gospel to extend the Church from it’s Jewish beginning to the non-Jewish. It ended with the verses below, reminding us that we should live for God by the grace of God in faith. If we live for God by the law, what does that say about Jesus’ death and resurrection, was it necessary if we can live for God by following the law?
Galatians 2:20-21 ESV I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
What are you eyes on?
Paul is about to take the next two chapters to prove what the Holy Spirit wrote through Him in the last two verses of chapter 2 by appealing to their personal experience, Scripture, logic, historical facts, his relationship with them and finally by a series of allegorical examples. Why does he take such pains to repeat the reasons why our relationship with God is by faith alone by God’s grace alone? What happens to us so often that requires such focused repetition?
Galatians 3:1 - ESV O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
John 3:14-15 ESV And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Numbers 21:8-9 ESV And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
How did you receive the Holy Spirit?
Paul asks a singularly important question, drawing the Church to recall how they personally first experienced the Holy Spirit. What did they do to first experience the power of the Holy Spirit in them, was it by being circumcised? How did you first experience the power of God’s Holy Spirit?
Galatians 3:2 - ESV Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
Romans 8:9 ESV You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
Ephesians 1:13-14 ESV In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
How did you receive the Holy Spirit?
If the power of the Holy Spirit was introduced to the Galatians by faith in the Gospel that was preached to them without being circumcised or following the Jewish law, why did they want to start following the law afterwards? Who did they think saved them, and who would continue to work in them?
Galatians 3:3 - ESV Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Philippians 1:6 ESV And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 12:2 ESV looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Do you want to waste everything you’ve been through?
If we turn away from faith, from believing that we are saved by faith in God’s grace through the Gospel, then we have nothing. We waste everything we’ve been through, good and bad. What does this tell us about the importance of not adding anything to our understanding of what’s needed to be right with God?
Galatians 3:4 - ESV Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain?
1 Corinthians 15:1-2 ESV Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
How does God supply the Holy Spirit to work in and through you?
The Holy Spirit is at work in the Church, God sends Him to empower us for witnessing to the grace of God through Jesus Christ in the Gospel. This empowering of the Holy Spirit comes the same way that we receive Him at first when we’re born again, and it’s not by our own effort. What must we do to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit as individuals and as the Church?
Galatians 3:5 - ESV Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith —
1 Corinthians 12:8-11 ESV For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
Ephesians 5:18 ESV And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,
Acts 4:29-31 ESV And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Must we stop doing good works?
With this sustained emphasis on the fact that we can do nothing in our own strength, there is a danger that we misunderstand what is required of us. Do we sit back and wait for God to do everything? How do we walk by faith and still do the works which God prepared before hand that we should glorify Him through what we do?
James 2:14-18 ESV What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.