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 —
The devil, then, is behind it. But that is not all. The result of the bewitchment, 'that ye should not obey the truth', indicates that Satan's wiles have a moral - or immoral - thrust and intent. Just as in the unbeliever blindness to the truth has a moral element of unwillingness in it, so here also, bewitchment, being led astray, has a moral issue involved: and it is disobedience to the truth. It should be understood far more than it is that obedience is a great and substantial protective to men's souls. Those that are determined with a full heart to obey the truth find that they are thereby kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. This is reinforced by what is said in the remainder of 1. Before them, Paul says, Christ has been placarded as crucified. They could not have missed the message, unless other, alien influences had been at work, encouraging, enticing them to close their eyes deliberately to the truth. The phrase 'evidently set forth' translates a Greek word which has three possible meanings: (i) to write beforehand (cf Romans 15:4) - perhaps a reference to the predictions of the Old Testament which Paul unfolded to them, in much the same way as Philip did to the Ethiopian eunuch; (ii) to write publicly, to placard, in the sense of displaying and setting forth for all to see; (iii) to write down something at the head of the list, as a priority (cf 1 Corinthians 15:3, 'first of all'). We may take something from each of these possible meanings, particularly the second and third, and in so doing we see just how inexcusable the Galatians were in their defection.