Galatians 3:1 - Printer Friendly

ESV: O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

NIV: You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

NASB: You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?

CSB: You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?

NLT: Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross.

KJV: 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?

NKJV: O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

Paul is building on a thought given in the previous verse (Galatians 2:21). He has said that if anyone can be justified—made right in God's eyes—by the law, then Jesus died for nothing. His death would be pointless if there was another way to be made right with God, other than to trust in Christ's death in our place on the cross.

Now Paul turns forcefully back to his original readers. These were people in the region of Galatia who had believed in Jesus when Paul visited their towns on one of his missionary journeys. Now, however, they had begun to believe the lies of the Judaizers, a group of Jewish leaders who taught that Gentiles must be circumcised and follow the law to truly be saved.

Paul calls the Galatians "foolish," and asks: who has bewitched them? When Paul was there, they had clearly understood the simple truth of the gospel of God's grace. They understood the power of the cross. Paul said they saw it with their own eyes when he described it to them. Did someone use magic to steal away the truth from them? Are they under an evil spell? Paul is not really suggesting that some kind of hex is at work; he is making the point that this is such a foolish lie that it is as if someone is manipulating their beliefs against their will.

Paul is stern with them because believers have a responsibility to hold on to the truth they receive about Jesus and not to be talked out of it. As the following verses will show, this is possible in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 3:1–9 begins with Paul calling the Galatian Christians he loves ''foolish.'' They have begun to believe they must follow the law of Moses in order to be included in the family of God. Paul asks: did God give His Spirit to them with great power after they believed, or after doing works of the law? Clearly, the Spirit arrived in response to their faith. Abraham also was declared righteous by God in response to his own faith. Paul insists God's promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him pointed to this time when Gentiles would be saved by faith in Christ.

Paul indicates the Galatian Christians are foolish for believing they need to follow the law of Moses to be right with God. He offers three specific arguments to support this. First, they received God's Spirit in a powerful way after believing in Jesus, but before doing any works of the law. Second, Scripture itself shows God's blessing coming by faith, and His curse coming by the law. Christ paid the price of that curse on the cross. Third, God's covenant with Abraham is like a legal document, and it cannot be revoked.

In Galatians chapter 2, Paul declared that we can only be justified—''made right with God''—by faith in Christ and not by following the law of Moses. In chapter 3, Paul offers three arguments for why that is true. He argues from the Galatians own experience, from the Scriptures themselves, and from the legal standpoint of a covenant contract. Finally, Paul answers what the law is for if it cannot save us from our sin. In part, it reveals our sinfulness and convinces us of our need to be saved by faith in Christ. The following chapter will expand on what it means to be an ''heir,'' spiritually.

Galatians is sometimes called “a short Romans” for its similar themes of justification and sanctification through faith. A group of Christians known as “Judaizers” were preaching a gospel of legalism, rather than grace. Paul’s main purpose in writing the letter to the Galatians was to reiterate the true nature of the gospel: we are justified (made righteous) and sanctified (made more Christlike) through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. This letter was probably written shortly before the church elders in Jerusalem issued their official refutation of the Judaizers, commonly called the Jerusalem Council.