The Crucified Christ and the Spirit Received

O foolish Galatians! I do not soften it, for I love you. "Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified" (Galatians 3:1). I set the cross plainly in front of you when I came — and now some would draw your eyes away to the law, as though a spell had been cast. So I ask the one question that settles it: "Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?" (Galatians 3:2). You know the answer. You were not circumcised when the Spirit came upon you; you heard, you believed, and God gave himself to you. Then hear the folly of turning back: "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:3). What grace began, grace will finish. You cannot climb by law to a height you were carried to by faith.

Do not think this is my private notion. It is written into the story from the beginning. "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness" (Galatians 3:6) — long before the law was given, long before he was circumcised. So the true sons of Abraham are not those of the bloodline or the knife, but "those of faith" (Galatians 3:7). And the Scripture, seeing ahead, preached the gospel to Abraham in advance: "In you shall all the nations be blessed" (Galatians 3:8). You Gentiles who believe are not latecomers scraping in at the edge — you are the very promise God made to Abraham, come home.

Then why not the law? Because the law does not offer a lower blessing; it pronounces a curse. "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them" (Galatians 3:10). All things — not most. One thread pulled and the whole garment comes apart, and there is no man who has kept it whole. The law never said, believe and live; it said, "The one who does them shall live by them" (Galatians 3:12). Set your feet on that road and you must walk it perfectly or perish under it.

Here is where I want to leave you, because here is where the whole letter breathes. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'" (Galatians 3:13). The curse you earned, he wore. The tree that should have held you held him. He did this "so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith" (Galatians 3:14). Do you see the exchange? He takes the curse; you receive the Spirit. That is the gospel I portrayed before your eyes.

So live as people who have already received. When the old voice whispers that you must add something — some discipline, some record, some proof of your own — to make God's acceptance secure, remember how the Spirit came to you. Not by your doing. By hearing, and believing. Rest there today. The One who was hanged on the tree has settled your account, and the Spirit in you is the promise kept. Grace and peace to you.