The Flesh and the Spirit: Galatians 3:2-5

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What we’ll See:

Paul is going to continuing talking about Living by Faith

He is going to remind the Galatians how they received the Holy Spirit

He is going to start presenting an Argument for continuing in Faith

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Context

The Galatians

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Galatians 3:2-5

Galatians 3:2–5 (ESV)

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 by the flesh?

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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-

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Galatians 3:2

What is your testimony? How did you come to know Jesus as your savior? When did you trust Him for Eternal Life? Paul is asking the Galatian Christians about a part of their testimony:

2. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

The Greek here says “This only I want to learn from you.” He asks the Galatian church about how they received the Holy Spirit, and he gives two opposing ways: did they receive the Holy Spirit by living out the Law, or did they receive the Spirit through Faith. When they received the Holy Spirit, was it because they were following the laws in the Book of Deuteronomy, or was it because they trusted in Jesus?

In the Greek, “hearing with faith” is literally “hearing in faith.” This is the idea of not just listening to the Gospel, but listening and deciding to believe. First, God, in His mercy, gave people a way to have Eternal Life, and then, the Galatians heard God’s message, and decided to believe.

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In John 10:27-28, Jesus says,

27. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

28. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

I like to think that these sheep hadn’t been sheared yet, and that in Jesus’ word-picture, the sheep hear the Shepherd call, and, wobble over to Jesus in their awkward, sheepy way. The Galatians simply heard Jesus and skipped over to Him: sheep skip, in case you were wondering. That’s what had happened with the Galatians. They wandered over to Jesus. They trusted in Him, and what was the result? They got Eternal Life.

by works of the law

Remember, this word “Law” is probably referring to the Old Testament. He appeals, or presents an argument, to the Galatians by asking a simple question: “Which one worked in the Past.” A common phrase my father has said while farming is “if it ain’t broke… don’t fix it.” He is appealing to the Galatian church’s common sense. They already had evidence in their own lives for how God worked: the Holy Spirit; and they received the Holy Spirit as a gift when they believed in Jesus.

Also, while the Old Testament tells how a person should love their fellow human, it never tells someone how to gain the Holy Spirit; we know now from hind-sight that there are verses that prophecy that people would get the Holy Spirit, but none that say how a person gets the Holy Spirit. Although we are promised in Ephesians 1 that the Holy Spirit won’t leave us, people who lived under the Law didn’t have the same promise. King David once said in Psalm 51:11 “take not your Holy Spirit from me.” Paul will make the point later on that the life we have by faith as believers is so much better than it would be if we lived under the Law; Paul could be making the same point here.

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Galatians 3:3

3. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

3. οὕτως ἀνόητοί ἐστε, ἐναρξάμενοι πνεύματι νῦν σαρκὶ ἐπιτελεῖσθε;

Having begun by the Spirit.

So a person receives the Holy Spirit by faith. But then Paul mentions something else. What does he mean by begun in the Spirit. This is probably talking about “being born of the spirit.” A theological term for this would be “spiritual rebirth.” Jesus introduces this in John chapter 3:1-14, where he says that a person must be “born again,” or “born of the spirit” to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

I think that Paul is making the same point as before: How did or does God choose to work in your life, Galatians?

(Talk about how they might have already had success in defeating sin in their everyday lives. This idea of a Law Based Gospel didn’t come in until later.)

Paul also asks “are you being perfected by the flesh?”

The word for perfecting here is the word “επιτελεω” in the Greek. It can also mean to finish something. This is the same word used in Philippians 1:6 which says, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Notice how similar this looks to verse 3. Who starts the good work in us? God does. And who finishes it? God does.

This word can also mean to accomplish a plan. God has a plan for you to live like Jesus, to love other people, and He’ll do that in your life, by faith.

The idea of contrasting is to compare to almost opposite things in order to make a point. I think Paul is doing that here in these two verses. Look, if you will, at Paul’s choice of words here compared to in verse 2.

What is he contrasting?

He contrasts “faith” with “the Law” in verse 2.

What does he contrast in verse 3? Living by the Spirit and living by the Flesh.

So we have two categories:

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We have on Side A: Faith and The Spirit. In the other Category, we have the Law and the Flesh. Why would he ask if the Galatians are going to be perfected by the Flesh? Because, trying to live out our Christians lives by trusting in Laws or sets of Rules is actually living “by the flesh”.

The word flesh can also mean “body”. Paul could be making two points. First, the flesh is just that, it’s physical; it’s weak. The word “flesh” also talks about the habits we’ve formed during our life along with our tendency to want to sin, or our sin nature.” Paul could be saying that when we trust in the Law to live the right way, we are trusting in our Flesh’s, or our physical body’s, ability to act out Human Laws.

Paul also could be saying that when we trust in our flesh, we are actually doing so because we wanted to satisfy our sinful desires. Think about how good we could look in front of other people if we were able to boast about being perfect; all by ourselves. Maybe another way this works is that we can pick and choose which rules we want to follow.

It could be a mixture of both.

Notice one other thing: Paul puts faith on one side and the Law on the other. There is a deeper problem here! The people who were trying to live by the Law weren’t living by Faith in God. Think about what that means!

Who gave us the Law in the first place? God.

According to Paul, the people who living by the law aren’t even trusting that God will make them righteous through the law, because that requires faith that God will make you righteous by the law. The people who were doing this didn’t have faith in God at all. This wasn’t a question about two ways to live for God. This wasn’t a debate about alternative ways to look at the bible. This was purely about physical matters; dare I say, playing politics or acting because of how they felt.

How do I know? Well, we see in Galatians 6 two of the reasons these false teachers were pushing believers to live by the law. Paul says that this was an arrogance issue. There were false teachers who wish to “wish to boast” in the Galatians following after the law. They want to talk about how great they are to their other legalistic friends. “See how well they are following the law? I’m so glad God gave me the opportunity to show them the right path.” They could even throw in an “all glory to God,” for good measure, even though they mean “well, a little bit of glory… well a little bit more than a little bit”.

Paul that the False Teachers are afraid of being “persecuted”. If they can show that following Jesus also means following the Law, then none of the Jews of the time will have a problem. Now to be fair, persecution was no joke in the first century. Remember, Stephen had been stoned just for saying things people didn’t like.

Having faith in God means trusting God even when it’s not easy. It means letting God show you where to Go. “Whatever path you want me to go on God, I’ll do it, whether it’s the Law or if it’s living by the Holy Spirit.” And notice, Paul brings up that they were already living this way.

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Galatians 3:4

4. Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Paul brings up their suffering: he appeals to their feelings. Notice that Paul has already shown God’s character in Chapter 1 verse 20, when he says that Jesus gave Himself for us, and in verse 2-3, he shows God’s character, and how God has already worked in our lives. Paul uses Logic to show how, since God started working through the Faith and the Spirit, why wouldn’t he continue. Finally, here in verse 4, he appeals to their feelings.

Paul doesn’t say exactly why they suffered, but two things could be in view. First, they were probably persecuted for their faith. The early Greek and Roman world was hostile towards Christianity. Many worshipped Zeus and Athena along with whatever false gods were popular in their region. Many times the way they worshipped was through “rituals” or actions the follower performed, such as sacrificing animals to an idol. Sacrifice was a normal way to please the false gods of a time. There were probably laws they also had to follow. Religions throughout history have had rules or laws to follow in order to honor the idols.

Why do I bring this up? Because the Galatian believers probably made some people angry when they turned away from honoring these idols. If they were fine with them “believing” in Jesus for Eternal Life, they would have felt very differently about these Christians not honoring Zeus or other idols anymore.

Talk about how this could have been persecution from the Jews. Did they suffer for no reason. If the Gospel was simply following the law, why did the people who followed Judaism have such a problem with it?

(Paul could be saying something else here: Talk about how people don’t persecute others for beliefs that aren’t true. The hatred they’ve likely experienced and suffered through is evidence that other people know that what they are trusting in is true. In John 3:19-20 that people don’t want their evil deeds exposed by the light. So what do they do? According to Romans 1:18, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Some of the most unconvincing arguments I’ve ever heard have come from people who are so angry about the Gospel, that they almost start sputtering out nonsense. Little do the people who do this know, but that visceral hatred is perfect evidence that what they hate is actually true. Paul could be saying, “did the people who persecuted you for living by faith do so for no reason?”)

Talk about how they might have suffered when they were living by faith and saying “no” to sin.

Pain, as bad as it is, can help us focus and remind us of what’s true.

Galatians 3:5

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 now moves over to miracles. In the early church, miracles were common. People might prophecy or speak in a language they had never learned before. Maybe some had the gift of healing. Whatever happened, it happened through the Spirit’s power. Imagine if you saw a blind person see again because a believer put their hands on them. Imagine you knew Chinese, and another believer you knew started praising God in perfect Mandarin, someone who had never studied another language before. Maybe someone gave you advice on where to plant your crops because they had a prophecy from God; and months later, your crops gave you 100 fold compare to your other crops. Maybe another believer told you “God told me that you shouldn’t take I-5 to get to work,” and you find out that there was a terrible accident exactly when you would have been on I-5. Those were the types of things happening in the early church. Now remember, they didn’t have the full word of God like we do which is probably why these miracles were around.

Paul reminds the Galatians how these Miracles happened: by the Spirit, which they got through hearing with faith.

Let’s summarize Paul’s argument so far. First, The believers received the Holy Spirit by believing in the Gospel; by faith. They then began their Spiritual Journey by being born again; by the Spirit, and finally, miracles where being performed by the Spirit they received by faith. Where do works of Law or the Flesh come in? No where! So why, if God started with the Faith and the Spirit, would He complete believers through the flesh or works of Law? He wouldn’t. We should continue to use the way that works: Faith.

Paul is going to continue his Argument for faith and even bring up Abraham to prove his point in Verse 6. We will talk about that… next week.

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What We’ve Seen:

• Paul starts to give an argument for living by faith.

• Trusting in works of law is just trusting in our flesh.

•God’s plan is living by the Spirit; living by faith.

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Application:

• Trust in God’s plan to make you righteous by faith.

• Look for ways to share the Good News we have with others.

• If you haven’t, trust in Jesus today for Eternal Life.