Bewitched! - Galatians 3:1-9

Let’s begin today by turning once again to the book of Galatians and chapter 3.

1 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 by the 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— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

For many years, the old TV show Bewitched suffered from open criticism and condemnation by the conservative Christian community.  Multitudes of Christian leaders denounced the very existence of a “prime time” TV program which featured a witch as its main character who wiggled her nose in order to magically manipulate things to her liking.

Compared to the vampires and vampire slayers and demonically possessed stars of today’s huge hit movies and TV shows, Bewitched is downright quaint.  It seems as innocuous as Gilligan’s Island or Hannah Montana (and according to recent reports, Miley Cyrus has already seen her better days and is following headlong in the miserable footsteps of Britney Spears).  Unfortunately, we could go on about the complete demise of morality on TV endlessly.

The verb “bewitched” is used only once in the Bible, here in Galatians 3:1.  Paul does not use it as a quaint expression.  On the contrary, he uses this word in order to describe the satanic influence of the Judaizers upon the minds of the Christians whom Paul himself introduced to the Lord Jesus and to salvation. In order to grasp the weightiness of his words, and of this particular word, we need to back away from our present culture’s understanding (or misunderstanding) of all things demonic, and look at it from another perspective.

John Gill was an English Reformed Baptist pastor who preached in the 1700’s.  Just as a side note, “[Gill] became pastor at the Strict Baptist church at Goat Yard Chapel, Horsleydown, Southwark in 1719.”  So whatever you may think of Grace Fellowship, things could always be worse.  “His pastorate lasted 51 years”.(1)  And he was very long-winded.  His perspective of things such as witchcraft was far more accurate than ours today.  Listen to what he says of this verse and of this word “bewitched” from an 18^th century perspective:

“Who hath bewitched you?  Some false teacher or another had, or it cannot be conceived how their heads should ever have been turned this way; [This bewitching] must be understood, not in a literal and proper sense, as Simon Magus bewitched the people of Samaria with his sorceries, but [figuratively]; that as sorcerers and enchanters cast a mist before people's eyes, or, by some evil arts or juggling tricks, deceive their sight, and make objects seem to appear which do not, or in a different form than they really do, so these deceitful workers, who had transformed themselves into the apostles of Christ, as Satan sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light, had set this doctrine in a false light before them, thereby to corrupt their minds from the simplicity (emphasis mine) that is in Christ.  Though the apostle reproves the Galatians for their folly and weakness in giving in so easily to such deceptions, yet he imputes the chief fault unto, and lays the greatest blame on the false teachers; whom he represents as sorcerers and enchanters, and their doctrine, particularly that of justification by works, as witchcraft; (emphasis mine)” (2)

When Paul uses the word “bewitched”, undoubtedly it is for the purpose of awakening the Galatians from their foolish and undiscerning spiritual stupor.  The Judaizers are not literally using witchcraft, but they have led the Galatian believers astray into a false gospel so easily, and so quickly, and so effortlessly, that he is likening them to sorcerers and enchanters who practice witchcraft upon unsuspecting people.

And those sorcerers are still around today, as you well know.  Yesterday, police in Phoenix raided the Phoenix Goddess Temple and arrested 33 people on charges of prostitution.  A 23 year old man who goes by the name of Zander began to cry when he was asked if he was a prostitute.  He said, “At my church, I'm labeled a practitioner, at my church I'm labeled a shaman.  No, I do not charge for sex, I work off donations, I work off of what people can leave me as offerings.”  A woman by the name of Amanda Twitty said, "There are many seekers who come who don't donate.  They come and they get their healing and they leave and that's fine." (3)

I anticipate this “church” will begin to see a lot of growth in the months and years to come.

Thus the need to study and submit ourselves to the truth of the Scriptures, and the book of Galatians in particular.  In doing so, we avoid the foolishness of believing the lies of false teachers.  The Judaizers were considerably more subtle in their lies than Shaman Zander.  How people can fall for such ridiculous nonsense and call it a religion and a church is difficult to comprehend.  How can people who might otherwise appear to be reasonably intelligent follow someone who is so transparently perverted?  It is as though they cast a spell over people like a magician to cause them to lose all common sense.

However, Paul doesn’t begin this paragraph talking about the bewitching Judaizers.  Rather, he starts by saying, O foolish Galatians! They have been fools to listen to this prattle from the Judaizers, PARTICULARLY in light of what they had already seen and heard and experienced.  The ease with which the Judaizers had deceived them is shocking to Paul because he knows from his own personal, first-hand witness all the things which the Lord had done for them and in them.

It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. How does he know this?  Because he was there!  Because he was the one who first taught them of the Lord Jesus and His crucifixion.  He witnessed first hand their introduction to the gospel message because he was the first person to ever preach it to them.  And he preached the Lord Jesus “so fully, and in such a lively manner expressed, that it was as if Christ was personally and visibly present with them; yea, he was so described in his sufferings and death, as hanging, bleeding, dying on the accursed tree, that he seemed to be as it were” (4) crucified in their midst rather than hundreds of miles away in Jerusalem.

They had grasped the truth and the wonder of the gospel message and of God’s grace in bringing that message to them!  They had experienced the miraculous power of God in their midst.  They had seen the working of the Spirit of God confirming their faith in the Lord Jesus.  That is why Paul is so dumbfounded over their current state of deception.  They have been both foolish and fickle.  How could they depart from the truth and embrace such wicked heresy so quickly and easily?  That is why he follows with verse 2:

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

How is it that God granted you His Spirit?  How did that happen?  Was it after the Judaizers came and instructed you in the finer points of Old Testament Law?  Were the Judaizers responsible for introducing you to the Spirit of God?  Or did you receive the Spirit when you heard me preach the gospel, and God granted you faith to believe it?  (So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17 ESV)

And then, to be just a little bit more user unfriendly, Paul says in verse 3 -Are you so foolish?  Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? “Do you mean to tell me that you need to now perfect and improve upon the spiritual work of God among you by being physically circumcised?  Can you really be that dull?  You can now do in the power of the flesh what God could not do by the power of His Spirit?  Now you have the ability to complete your salvation through obedience to the Law of Moses?  Are you serious?”

Then in verse 4 he asks, Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? It may be that, as is common among all Christians when they turn from the world to follow the Lord Jesus, the Galatians also had suffered for their faith.  That is the common understanding of the Greek word used here translated as suffer.  But another legitimate English interpretation of this Greek word is the word “experience”, which makes much more sense in this context: Did you experience so many things in vain?

What had the Galatians experienced?  The preaching of the gospel, the impartation of the Holy Spirit, and salvation from the condemnation of their sins.  Then notice verse 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—

They had experienced miracles in their midst.  Not the special effects TV version of miracles, but actual miraculous works of God.  Had all of these things happened before their eyes to no effect?  Had they experienced these wonders first hand for naught?  And were all of these things which God did in their midst the result of their observance of the Law of Moses or in conjunction with the preaching of Paul’s gospel of salvation by faith alone?  It is a rhetorical question.  What is obvious to Paul seems to have escaped the Galatians entirely!  “What happened to you when you believed?”

Then in verse 6, Paul makes this comparison: He compares the miraculously gracious experience of the Galatians with that of Abraham: just as [or, in the same way that] Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

Abraham!  The patriarch of the Jewish people and the hero of the Judaizers, was declared righteous by God when he believed God’s word to him way, way back in Genesis 15.  And on top of that, he was declared righteous by God and justified in God’s sight PRIOR to his circumcision.  Abraham was a Gentile when God granted him salvation!  In other words, Paul is saying to the Galatians, “Abraham’s salvation wasn’t dependent upon circumcision, and neither is yours!”  Turn with me to Romans, chapter 4.

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. (Romans 4:1-12 ESV)

To the Galatians, Paul is saying what he says here in Romans: “Were you saved before or after you were circumcised?  Before or after the sorcerers arrived?  Before or after you were told you had to keep the Law of Moses?  Were you justified the same way Abraham was, and the same way David was, and the same way all the Old Testament saints were (i.e. by faith), or by your own works and your own efforts?”

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Who are the sons of Abraham?  The true, spiritual, justified, declared-righteous-by-faith descendants of Abraham?  Those who have the same faith as Abraham, whether they be Jews or Gentiles.  And this is not Paul’s theory, but it is the teaching of the Old Testament.  God said to Abraham, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” And Paul says to the Galatians, Know this! Forget what the magicians with their “sleight of hand” theology are telling you.  If you have the faith in God that Abraham had, (which was a faith in God before there was any talk with God about circumcision), then you are more sons of Abraham than these judaizing deceivers are!

Beloved, you and I are sons of Abraham.  There is not a single unbelieving Jew in all of Israel now, or in all the history of Israel since the days of Abraham, that has a closer relationship with God than the least of us here in this room with the weakest of faith in Jesus Christ.  In fact, the only relationship the unbelieving Jew has with God is the relationship of God as his Judge.  That is the “personal relationship” the Lord Jesus has with all unbelievers everywhere, whether Jew or Gentile.  In this way, God is no respecter of persons.  He is their Judge who sits upon His throne to mete out the wrath of God against all who do not believe because their rebellious unbelief is their condemnation:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36 ESV)

That is the relationship every man, whether Jew or Gentile, has with Jesus Christ apart from faith in Him alone for salvation.  The Jews don’t get a pass because they have Abrahamic DNA.  They don’t get some kind of special treatment in their unbelief simply because there genes look like Abraham’s.  They don’t get a waiver on Judgment Day because they followed Abraham in circumcision.  Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life. Whoever includes the Jews.

But when God said to Abraham, “In you shall all the nations be blessed”, that included us.  That included whoever believes in Him (John 3:16 ESV) which includes Gentiles like us.  They are the ones who have eternal life, whoever they may be.  They are the ones who are justified in the sight of God like Abraham was.  And so they are called sons of Abraham.

Once again, this is why Paul says what he does in Romans 9: 6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

The spiritual children which God produces in keeping with His promise to Abraham to do so, only those children are the children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13 ESV).

I know a man who once spoke about his own salvation, and when he was asked when that happened and how that happened, he said something like this: “It dawned on me one day that if God were to ask me what hope I have of going to Heaven when I die, I didn’t have an answer.  I could say that I was a good person (but I knew that wasn’t true), or that I lived the best life I could (which also was not true), or that I grew up going to church, or that my Dad was a pastor, or that I got baptized, or that I prayed a prayer to ask Jesus into my heart when I was three.  But I knew none of that meant anything.  And suddenly I understood that the only hope I had of gaining eternal life was if my faith was in Jesus Christ alone.  So my answer to God would be to point to the Lord Jesus and say, ‘My only hope of forgiveness and of life in Heaven is in Him.  My faith is in Him.  If Jesus cannot or will not save me, I have no other hope.’”

Beloved, do not allow anyone to ever bewitch you to believe that Jesus cannot or will not save you if you “only” have faith in Him.  Don’t believe them when they say, “That’s too easy!“  Or ”It’s more complicated than that!”  Or, “That’s too simplistic!”  Their predecessors were the Judaizers of Galatia, and their ranks are legion today.

On the last day, all the nations of the world, Israel included, will be separated into two groups: those whose faith was in Christ alone, and those whose faith was not.  To the former the Lord Jesus will say, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And to the latter He will say, Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Which group we find ourselves in on that day is dependent upon our relationship to Christ.  Are we trusting in Him and Him alone to save us?  Or are we leaning on some idea in our heads that tells us God should accept us for some other reason?  ANY other reason than Jesus Christ alone?

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1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gill_(theologian)

2. http://studylight.org/com/geb/view.cgi?book=ga&chapter=3&verse=1

3. http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/justice/accused-prostitute-calls-himself-a-spiritual-warrior-09092011

4. http://studylight.org/com/geb/view.cgi?book=ga&chapter=3&verse=1