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 —
In 5 a similar question is put to that in 4, but this time not from the point of view of the Galatians, but from God's, God's giving of the Spirit. The operation of God in their midst - was it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? A twofold interpretation is possible: either God's giving of the Spirit, and working of miracles among them, or Paul's ministering among them - i.e. 'Do you concede that when I came among you I ministered to you in the power of the Spirit? You are obliged to concede this, for you are the miracles that were wrought. Well, then, how did I do it - on the principle of works, or of faith?'
This is an important pragmatic consideration. Either way, it amounts to the question: Where is God working? Where has God worked in history? When has real revival come? Has it been through the message of good works? Or by the message of faith alone? What of the Reformation? How are we to explain it, except in terms of the rediscovery of the message of justification by faith alone? This is the dynamic that turned the world of the 16th century upside down. The history of our own Church in Scotland bears abundant witness to the truth of this. It is when the glorious gospel of grace has been obscured, and a barren religion of good works been substituted that the life and vitality of the Church has reached its lowest ebb. And the answer to this parlous state has ever been the recovery of a true message and a new emphasis on the cardinal doctrine of justification by faith. Church history has more to teach the Church than many are prepared to admit!