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Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified?
Verse 1. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ.… crucified among you. [1] The common exposition is, that Saint Paul had before described and set before them Christ crucified. Others, that it had been clearly foretold by the prophets that Christ was crucified for them. Witham.
I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?
Verse 2. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law? As if he said, you esteem it a great favour to have received those spiritual gifts of working miracles, and so forth When you were made Christians, had you these favours by the works of the law, or was it not by the hearing of faith, and by the faith of Christ, that you had such extraordinary graces? and when you have begun thus happily by the spirit of Christ and his spiritual gifts, are you for finishing and thinking to make yourselves more perfect by the exterior works of the law, the circumcision of the flesh, and such like ceremonies? Witham.
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh?
Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain?
Verse 4–5. If yet in vain: that is I have still good hopes, that what you have already suffered by persecutions and self-denials, since your conversion, will not be in vain; as they would be, if you sought to be justified by the works and ceremonies of the law of Moses, and not by the faith and law of Christ, by which only you can be truly sanctified. Witham.—S. Jerom, Saint Augustine and others, suppose that the power of working miracles still remained in the Galatians, notwithstanding what had passed; but S. Chrysostom and several others, explain it of a power they had formerly possessed. Calmet.
He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you and does miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?
Verse 4–5. If yet in vain: that is I have still good hopes, that what you have already suffered by persecutions and self-denials, since your conversion, will not be in vain; as they would be, if you sought to be justified by the works and ceremonies of the law of Moses, and not by the faith and law of Christ, by which only you can be truly sanctified. Witham.—S. Jerom, Saint Augustine and others, suppose that the power of working miracles still remained in the Galatians, notwithstanding what had passed; but S. Chrysostom and several others, explain it of a power they had formerly possessed. Calmet.
Even so, Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”
Verse 6. As it is written: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. See Romans 4:3. They only who imitate the faith of Abraham shall be blessed with him, and are his spiritual children, whether Jews or Gentiles, whom God promised to bless by the seed of Abraham; that is by Christ, who descended from Abraham. Witham.—The apostle thus argues with the Galatians; Abraham, who was never under the law, still received the grace of justification in reward of his faith, even before he had received circumcision. Now, if a person can be justified without the law, the law can be no ways necessary to salvation. Calmet.