Transcript

One pastor and author said this: “What exactly is legalism in the spiritual realm? We have a definition in Galatians 3:3. Paul asked the Galatians, ‘…having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’

“Legalism is trying to please God ‘by the flesh,’ by attempting to keep a list of laws and rules that we think will earn us God’s favor and keep us in good standing with Him.

“It is identity based on performance rather than relationship. It makes rule-keeping the basis of victory….

“Suppose both partners in a marriage carried around checklists of each other’s duties in the marriage and checked each duty off as it was done.

“If the whole marriage was on that basis, I’d soon be seeing that couple in my office for counseling, because marriage can’t be reduced to a checklist.

“Do husbands and wives who love each other help each other? Of course. But the doing has to grow out of the loving. God wants nothing less from us.”

Galatians 3:1-5: “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

A man once opened his water bill and electric bill at the same time. He was shocked. Paul was shocked here in Galatians.

In verse 1, we can hear Paul’s amazement, mixed with love and concern. He says, “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth…?”

The word, “foolish,” refers to Galatians’ failure to use spiritual discernment. They were not lacking in intelligence, rather, they were unwise in departing from grace truth.

They had been saved through the gospel of grace, but now they were following the law.

They had turned from grace to law. And Paul was appalled that the Galatians would tolerate and embrace this.

Paul asked them, “who hath bewitched you?” The term, “bewitched,” means to cast an evil spell on someone. To Paul, the Galatians were acting as though they were under some kind of spell and not in full use of their rational faculties.

Paul did not mean this literally, but it was just his way of expressing that he struggled to make sense of what they were thinking and doing. Paul wondered who had fooled and misled them to not obey the truth for today.

They had turned from the sufficiency of Christ and God’s grace to the law.

And they had done so despite Paul clearly proclaiming, vividly describing, and explaining the Cross of Christ to them.

As Paul put it, “before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you.” The words “hath been evidently sent forth” was used of posting official notices on a placard in the marketplace or other public location for citizens to read.

The cross had been publicly displayed, presented vividly, and posted clearly before the Galatians. Paul had preached Christ crucified to the Galatians with great plainness and clarity. And they had seen the Cross through the eyes of faith.

They had heard and understood the gospel of grace from Paul, and the greatness and sufficiency of His death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and what it accomplished in Christ dying for our sins, and the Galatians believed it, and were saved by the grace of God.

So Paul wondered how they could turn to the law and disregard the Cross? Had not the Cross and the grace of God grabbed their hearts?

They had been saved by grace through faith, but now, someone had bewitched them that they could be sanctified, or set apart to God practically in their daily living, not by grace through faith, but by the works of the law.

The Galatians started well in responding to the gospel of grace, but now they had foolishly been drawn away from the truth for today, which is based in Christ, grace, and faith, to placing their confidence in the law, works, and the flesh.

Paul asked them in verse 2, “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

Paul presented this question so the Galatians would stop, think, and reason out why it was foolish to turn from grace to the law.

Paul asked them to go back to your conversion (4:6), and tell me this: How did you receive the Holy Spirit? By doing or by believing? By the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? These two options of faith or works are mutually exclusive.

How would you answer this question about yourself? And the clear and obvious answer is “by the hearing of faith.” By just believing the gospel of grace. That is how we are saved from all our sins and receive the indwelling Holy Spirit.

God saves us on the basis of His Son’s work and what He did on our behalf at the Cross, not on the basis of our works or anything we have done.

So what did the works of the law have to do with their salvation? Nothing. What did faith in Christ and His Cross have to do with their salvation? Everything.

If they could not be justified or receive the Spirit by the works of the law, why did they expect the law to have the power to enable them to grow and be sanctified in their walk?

Paul asked the Galatians, “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”

It was unwise and lacking spiritual discernment for the Galatians to think that becoming a Christian and living the Christian life operate under different principles.

Paul’s question was: Having received the Spirit and been justified by FAITH, are we now sanctified by the FLESH? The answer is clearly: No!

The Christian life starts by grace through faith in Christ, and we are to live the same way: by grace through faith in Christ. Sanctification is an act of faith and not of the flesh.

And the Christian life begins in the Spirit, as at the moment we trust the gospel of grace, we are regenerated or given new life by the working and power of the Spirit.

Now, for the believer to live a new life and to grow and be sanctified, we need the Spirit and His power and enablement.

But the Galatians had turned from grace and turned away from the Spirit, and were trying to be “made perfect by the flesh” in keeping the law.

By their flesh and will-power, the Galatian believers were trying to make themselves perfect, or mature, through their own efforts.

This left out the Holy Spirit that had saved them and given them new life. But one cannot live the Christian life without the Spirit and His power.

God and His life are what enables anything to grow. And the Holy Spirit and His spiritual life are what enable the believer to spiritually mature and grow (Col. 1:28).

The works of the law and the flesh are powerless to sanctify us. It is grace and the Spirit that have true power, and which empower us to live unto God.

All this is an important reminder for us, because the devil still works to get the believer off track in the same way today. If we have trusted Christ as our Savior, Satan can’t do a single thing about our eternal salvation.

But like with the Galatians, Satan can hinder our growth and maturity, and to scheme and deceive so that we get our eyes off Christ, turn from grace and a life lived by faith, and to live by religious rule-keeping and legalism by the weakness of our flesh.

Paul tried to reason with the Galatians by asking another question: “Have ye suffered so many things in vain?” When the Galatians first trusted in Christ, these new believers had suffered persecution for their faith.

In Acts 14, we see the persecution in Galatia, “And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (14:21-22).

Suffering for grace is inevitable because it flies in the face of religion, law-keeping, and legalism that so many find comfort in.

Paul asked the Galatians, “Was all your suffering in vain?” or for nothing. Their position that Paul was challenging in this letter would have meant that all the afflictions they had endured when they were first saved would have been needless suffering.

In turning from grace to law, they had, in effect, branded grace as false and error, and thus, they had then suffered so much for nothing. And in turning from Christ and grace to the law, they were, in essence, saying that the persecutors were right after all.

But Paul added, “if it be yet in vain.” By this, Paul expressed his hope that the Galatian believers would return to the grace of God and to Christ for Whom they had once suffered.

And his very letter to them showed his hope that they would return to the truth.

Paul asked another question in verse 5, “He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

Galatians was Paul’s first letter, written during the Acts period and the transition, after Paul’s first apostolic journey. The supernatural and miraculous sign gifts of the Acts period were still ongoing at that time.

Miraculous signs were done by apostles and others as the Spirit gave evidence and proof of the truth of their message and its authority.

The tense of the verbs, “ministereth” and “worketh,” indicates something that was being done in Galatia at the time Paul wrote this letter.

So there were outward manifestations of the miraculous in the Galatian churches.

Thus, as an added point and illustration, Paul asked what accounted for the miracles they continued to witness by believers among them after Paul had left.

Those miracles were confirmation of the truth and reality of Paul’s gospel of grace. They were not done as the result of the “works of the law,” but “by the hearing of faith.”

The Spirit had been received by the Galatians as a result of the hearing of faith in Paul’s gospel. And the continued miracles among them showed that Paul’s message of grace was the truth and of divine origin.

This being the case, the Galatians never should have turned from grace to the law. They should have taken their stand in grace.

And as they were justified by faith, and received the Holy Spirit by faith, and miracles were done among them as a result of the hearing of faith, so they were to live a godly life and serve the Lord by faith.

Galatians 3:6-9: “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

“And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”

Paul wrote, “Even as” to draw the similarity between the Galatians and Abraham and to establish the importance of the hearing of faith. The Galatians were justified and declared righteous by God by faith alone, “even as” Abraham received righteousness by faith alone.

Abraham is an example of salvation by faith alone without the works of the law. He lived hundreds of years before Moses and the giving of the law.

Quoting Genesis 15:6, Paul wrote that “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Righteousness was accounted, or imputed, to Abraham because he took God at His Word and simply believed Him.

Though Abraham was childless, and though he was an old man, and though his wife Sarah had passed the time when she could bear a child, God promised him a son and descendants as numerous as the stars.

Humanly speaking, this was impossible, but Abraham believed God, and God counted it to him for righteousness, apart from any meritorious act or work at all on Abraham’s part.

And though we are dead in our sins and headed for the lake of fire, unable to save ourselves, God holds out His promise of eternal life to us.

And, though humanly speaking, it seems impossible, but with God all things are possible, God says to trust that Christ, our Substitute, took all our sins upon Himself and paid for them at the Cross and that He rose again from the dead.

And when we take God at His Word, and we simply believe the gospel of grace, it is immediately accounted to us for righteousness, and we are justified.

Paul then wrote, “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.”

Paul conclusion is that since Abraham just believed God and we just believe God, and since God’s righteousness was credited to Abraham’s account by faith alone and God’s righteousness is credited to our account too by faith alone, then “they which are of faith, the same are the children [or sons] of Abraham.”

We are the sons of Abraham, not physically, but spiritually. As members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we do not replace the natural sons and the future role Abraham’s natural sons in prophecy for Israel.

Paul’s point is that believers under grace identify with salvation that is by faith alone, and Abraham is the great example in Scripture of that.

On the basis of the common denominator of righteousness being imputed by faith alone, Paul declares that believers today are spiritual sons of Abraham.

Then Paul states, “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.”

In this difficult passage, “the Scripture” refers to the Old Testament Scriptures concerning God’s program with Israel. “The gospel” is not the gospel of the grace of God, or Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, but rather the good news that God told Abraham in this verse, “In thee shall all nations be blessed.”

Under God’s program with Israel, in which all nations would be blessed through Israel, the Scriptures foresaw “that God would justify the heathen through faith.”

The Scriptures did predict the justification of Gentiles through the Jewish program and all nations being blessed in Abraham’s seed and Abraham’s single and greatest Seed, Jesus Christ. And this promise and prediction also entails the time of the kingdom and Israel being a blessing to the world through Christ.

But the Old Testament Scriptures never foretold this current dispensation of grace or program with the Gentiles, or that “Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel.” This was all hid in God until Paul.

Paul used God’s promise to Abraham in a secondary manner and made a spiritual application of the principle: of God justifying Gentiles.

Paul was simply showing in Galatians 3:8 that the justification of Gentiles under grace is not contradictory to God’s overall plans and purposes.

God’s heart was always to save Gentiles by faith under Israel’s program. And this age of grace and program with the Gentiles does not go against that, but magnifies it even more.

And then in verse 9, Paul says: “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”

And the way we are blessed with faithful Abraham is that, like Abraham, when we respond to God and His good news by faith alone, we receive the same blessing that Abraham did: God’s righteousness, imputed and credited to our account.

Galatians 3:10-14: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

“And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

“That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

Having established what faith in the finished work of Christ CAN do, Paul now pivots to what the law CANNOT do.

Paul points out that the law does not bring blessing but rather a curse. And because no person, except Christ, has kept the law, the broken law can only curse and not bless.

Paul states plainly that all who seek to obtain favor with God on the basis of observing and carrying out “the works of the law are under the curse.”

And the curse of the law is death, as seen by the blood sacrifices that were required for the law being broken.

Then Paul quotes Deuteronomy 27:26, in verse 10, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”

Paul reminded the Galatians that to put themselves under the law, they must be subject to ALL the law.

It is not enough to keep the law for a day, or a month, or a year. One must continue to keep it all the time. And obedience must be complete. It is not enough to keep just the Ten Commandments, but rather all 613 laws in the five books of Moses.

The law demands perfection. If one breaks one point of the law, it is all broken. Since God is perfect, His law is perfect.

If a person sets out to keep the law for salvation and righteousness, he must keep it perfectly and continue to do “all things” in it, without exception.

To put oneself under the law is to be under a system where one is doomed to fail and never earn righteousness.

The “Sword of Damocles” is an old Greek legend. According to the story, a noble named Damocles was flattering his king, Dionysius, exclaiming that the king was truly fortunate to be a great man of power and to be surrounded constantly by magnificence.

In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for one day so that Damocles could experience firsthand what it is like to be a king.

Damocles eagerly accepted. The next day, Damocles sat on the king’s throne amid embroidered rugs, fragrant perfumes, and the service of attendants.

But Dionysius arranged that a sword should hang above the throne, held only by a single hair of a horse’s tail. As Damocles looked up, it was to evoke in him the sense of what it is like to be king: that though he lived in opulence, he was always under constant pressure, threat, and dangers that might overtake him.

That is what it’s like for one to put themselves under the law; it is to be under the strain of the law’s curse of condemnation and death, to have the wrath of God always hanging over them. One misstep of disobedience to the law, the single hair is cut, and down comes the sword of judgment. And that’s a difficult way to live.

As we live by grace, however, we live by the blessing of freedom from all our sins, freedom from guilt, freedom from judgment, and freedom from the law.

Those under the law stand condemned, not justified, and cursed, not blessed.

In verse 11, Paul said it is clear that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God, because as Habakkuk 2:4 says, “The just shall live by faith.” God does not justify people by the law, but rather “by faith.”

Even under the law, just keeping the law did not save a person; one had to have faith to be righteous, a faith in God that resulted in their obedience to observe His law and bring the proper sacrifices for breaking it.

And it was on the basis of a person’s faith under the law, not their works, that one was “just” or right and righteous before God, and given spiritual, eternal life.

“And the law is not of faith,” Paul wrote. The law is a performance-based system. It demands works and absolute compliance. It requires strict, complete, and perfect obedience. The law says, “The man that DOETH them shall live in them.”

So the law says, “Do and live.” Whereas, faith and grace says, “Believe and live.”

But because all have broken the law, every person is under the curse of death and condemnation. So, how can we escape God’s wrath?

Verse 13 shows us how, as by grace and love, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.”

At the Cross, Christ has redeemed and bought us, rescued us, and liberated us forever from under the curse of the violated law and sentence of eternal condemnation.

Christ “redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Christ never broke the law. But at the Cross, He took our sins on Himself and was made a curse for us. Christ took upon Himself the curse pronounced on all those who violated the law.

And Christ took the penalty of all guilty lawbreakers. The dreadful “curse of the Law” was carried out against Christ, the sinless One. And, as our Substitute, He faced the wrath of God and the death we deserved.

And the sword of God’s judgment fell on Christ instead of us.

The proof that Christ was made a curse for us was the fact that He was hung on a tree, on a cross of wood. Under the Law, this was the fate of criminals who were cursed because they had broken God’s law and committed a crime worthy of death.

After a criminal, who committed a capital offense, was stoned, the body was hung on a tree as a warning and for all to see the shame that the criminal bore.

Christ willingly bore our sins, which are worthy of eternal death, and was hung on a tree and made a curse for us at the Cross. And by His shed blood, He redeemed “us from the curse of the Law.”

And when we trust in Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross, that He died for our sins and rose again, we are delivered and set free forever from the curse of the law.

And this results in the truth of verse 14, “That the blessing of Abraham [or imputed righteousness and justification] might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”