Walking Through The Epistles - Galatians 3:2-6 by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Recap: Who Has Bewitched You?

Galatians 3:1 asks, "Who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth?" The word rendered "bewitched" means to speak evil, to misalign, to slander, or to cast a spell of false representation. Witchcraft is not only the casting of spells - at its root, witchcraft is disobedience, and disobedience is intentional. Missing God is different from disobeying God; disobedience requires a clear, known law that has been broken, as Adam did in the garden.

Witchcraft can be taught. A congregation can be bewitched through teaching, because whoever controls your ears controls your destiny. A pastor can expand or limit your spiritual ecosystem, which is why choosing spiritual leadership deserves at least as much care as choosing a life partner.

Received by Faith, Not by Works of the Law

Galatians 3:2 asks, "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" Paul is pointing them back to their own experience: they received the Holy Spirit at conversion, not by keeping the ceremonial law - circumcision, the Sabbath, and the rest, referenced in Ephesians 2:15 and Colossians 2:16.

Ephesians 1:13 says that having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise - the word for "sealed" there, arrabon, means earnest money, a down payment. God does not give the Spirit in measures; the fullness of what has been purchased will be enjoyed at the resurrection. Speaking in tongues is evidence of the Spirit's presence, not salvation itself - a person can be saved and never speak in tongues, because tongues is not the substance but a sign of it.

Acts 10:43-44 - as Peter preached to Cornelius, the Holy Spirit fell upon them before they were circumcised or had kept any law.

What Is the Hearing of Faith?

The Greek word for "hearing" means report or fame; the word for "faith" means assurance or assured belief. Together, the hearing of faith means a hearing that produces faith.

Romans 10:9-17 - if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved... How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?... So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Every Old Testament prophet preached this same gospel. Galatians 3:8 says the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In thee shall all nations be blessed." Hebrews 4:2 says the gospel was preached to them as well as to us, but the word did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith in those who heard it.

Life and Death: Two Ways to Live

Romans 10:5-8, quoting Leviticus 18:5 and Deuteronomy 30:11-14, sets two ways to live side by side: the righteousness which is of the law says the man who does these things shall live by them; the righteousness which is of faith says the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. Habakkuk 2:4 says the just shall live by faith.

There are three possible positions a person can occupy: living by faith, living by law, or being an unbeliever who does not yet know they are dead. Living by the law is deceptive, because a person under the law can still pray, still fast, still perform - and call it Christianity - while carrying a false salvation rooted in performance rather than grace.

Deuteronomy 30:15-19 - "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil... I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life." This is the same gospel Moses preached, the same one Joshua reiterated in Joshua 24:15 when he said, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Hebrews 11:24-26 - by faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Moses left Egypt because he had heard and believed something - the hearing of faith.

Unbelief Is Not the Absence of Belief

Of the generation that left Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land; the rest died in the wilderness. What disqualified them was unbelief - they believed the evil report of the ten spies rather than the word of God, just as Adam and Eve believed the serpent's report rather than God's word. Unbelief is not the absence of belief - it is the presence of wrong belief.

1 Corinthians 10:1-5 - all our fathers were under the cloud, passed through the sea, were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ate the same spiritual meat, and drank of the same spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ - yet with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. They experienced real miracles and were still overthrown, because miracles are not proof of right standing; the promised land itself is a picture of coming into God's rest, not merely a plot of ground.

Perfected by the Spirit, Not by the Flesh

Galatians 3:3 - "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Two Greek words are translated "perfect" in the New Testament. One, epiteleo, describes the active carrying through of something from start to finish - the journey. The other, teleios, describes being made complete. Paul's point is that a person cannot begin a journey of grace and now try to finish that same journey by works of the law.

Galatians 3:4 - "Have ye suffered so many things in vain?" This recalls the real persecutions of the Galatian churches recorded in Acts 13-14: driven out of Pisidian Antioch, a plot to stone Paul and Barnabas at Iconium, and Paul actually stoned and left for dead at Lystra. Paul is asking whether they have forgotten what they endured for the simple message of grace.

Galatians 3:5 - "He 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?" The tense matters - not "he that worked," but "he that works," continuously. God's supply of the Spirit and the working of miracles can continue even in the presence of wrong doctrine, because miracles are always a function of God's goodness, never something anyone earns. This is why a congregation can see genuine signs and still not have made it, in the same way Israel ate manna daily in the wilderness and still perished there through unbelief.

Why Abraham?

Galatians 3:6 brings in Abraham as the example of a Gentile who heard the gospel and was justified by faith before he was circumcised - proof that the promise never depended on keeping the law. Genesis 12, 13, 15, 17, and 22 each record God preaching the gospel to Abraham; circumcision in Genesis 17 came afterward, as a sign of the faith he already had, not a condition for it.

Joshua 24:2 records that Abraham's household, on the other side of the flood, served other gods before God called him out - Abraham was not chosen because of pre-existing righteousness.

• The sovereignty of God's election of grace - Romans 9:11 shows that God's purpose in election concerns assignment within salvation, not who gets to be saved at all. It was, and is, a purpose that stands independent of works.
• His father's journey - Genesis 11:31 records that it was Terah, Abraham's father, who first set out with the family toward the land of Canaan. The call on Abraham's life had already begun in the generation before him.
• His point of need - Abraham was barren. To typify a Christ who would come out of deadness, God chose a man and a wife who could not produce life on their own, so that when a son came, no one could credit human ability for it.

The Danger of Manufacturing an Ishmael

Whoever is walking toward a promise must be patient, because there is always a strong temptation to manufacture your own answer rather than wait for God's - to produce an Ishmael instead of waiting for Isaac. A major component of faith is patience. Do not call waiting delay - the two are not the same thing. What looks like delay can be preservation, sparing you from an outcome that would have destroyed what God is building. When your feelings are invested but something within you keeps saying "not this," that hesitation deserves attention rather than being dismissed as second-guessing.