3 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 bythe 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 —
Paul's first words are remarkable (1). This, then, is how he considers and describes their falling away. They have been 'bewitched'. This is the nature of their folly. It is as if someone had cast a spell over them. The commentators point out that the 'who' in 1 is in the singular. Paul is not referring to the opposers as a group, but to one who was behind them. This could mean either their leader, the instigator of the false teaching, the leader of the pressure group who was behind the others, egging them on; or to the evil one himself, the arch-instigator of the harm that was being done. The two alternative interpretations are not mutually exclusive: if there was one ring-leader behind the trouble makers it would also be true to say that behind him was Satan, whose tool he was, either wittingly or unwittingly. 'I see', says Paul in effect, 'behind all this trouble the shadowy figure of the devil himself' (cf 2 Corinthians 4, 'If our gospel be hid...the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not...'). This blinding work of Satan can take place, alas, in believers as well as in unbelievers. 'Bewitched' is the right word to use, for there is a spellbinding power at work in this kind of error (of the deviationist sects - such people are simply not amenable to reason; there is a glitter in their eye, they have become obsessional in what they now hold, and reasoning in the Spirit is impossible with them). In contrast to this, one thinks of what is said in James 3:17: 'The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace'.