Galatians 3:1
1 O [o] foolish [anoetos] Galatians, [Galates] who [tis] hath bewitched [baskaino]
you, [humas] that ye should [peitho] not [me] obey [peitho] the truth, [aletheia]
before [kata] whose [hos] eyes [ophthalmos] Jesus [Iesous] Christ [Christos] hath been
evidently set forth, [prographo] crucified [stauroo] among [en] you [humin]?KJV-Interlinear
1 You foolish Galatians, who has
bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as
crucified? NASB
Paul has already explained that pursuing a
spiritual life by means of some type of your own effort, is a false
pursuit.
The example was circumcision. But the expanded example explained in the
previous chapter was in maintaining two standards to live by. The first was the standard of the Jewish
tradition or any cultural or emotional tradition, and the second was the
standard taught by Christ, which is living by means of faith.
Faith comes in two forms that complement each
other. The first is the learning and use
and therefore understanding developed by means of doctrine or the detailed
content of the scriptures. The second is
the faith of confidence that is developed by the understanding and therefore
wisdom produced by that same doctrine.
But here Paul addresses the Galatians as foolish,
‘anoetos,’ which means lack of knowledge and therefore void of understanding. In other words, naïve or foolish or stupid,
which is the absence of functional knowledge in the soul.
The Bible is very clear that the spiritual life is
by means of faith. And this includes
both concepts just mentioned. If you do
not learn doctrine, then you will never have faith.
Faith is not an unsubstantiated hope or wish or
even luck.
Faith has to have substantive content behind it to
support it and to develop it. Faith is
confidence through knowledge and understanding of reality through the facts of
reality.
Truth is the perfect matching up of facts with
reality. It is not interpretation. It is not consensus. It is not developed from compromise or
convenience. And, it certainly does not
originate from the emotions or feelings.
To pursue the spiritual life by disregarding the
work of Christ on the Cross, to pursue the spiritual life by disregarding the
accumulation of knowledge developed only through a daily study, is to be void
of truth, naïve, ignorant, stupid, foolish.
It is to be bewitched, misled by pretense, to be fascinated by the charm
of others or the charm of ones own ego.
This then is the disobedience of truth, by yielding
your mind to the errors and falsehoods of life.
And this is done in the full sight of the work and
intent of Christ.
As Christ has set forth. Set forth, means to have been written down,
to write before, to be presented. And
the life and death of Christ have been presented clearly and the purpose of His
life and death and resurrection has been made clear.
And the work here is, crucified. This is the dramatic effort of Christ that is
intended to be made clear. That it was His work, not mans, which provides the
way for salvation and the fuller life, and by no other means.
