Galatians 3.1
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.”
Paul gets very emotional at this point in the letter and calls the Galatians foolish for abandoning the gospel of grace. He then openly asks, “Who has bewitched you?” Paul senses the manipulative work of the enemy, the great deceiver, for certainly no reasonable person would reject grace in favor of legalism. Are there nefarious spiritual forces at work here?
It is noteworthy that Paul uses the singular “who” in this verse, because behind the false teachers is the activity of the devil himself, the deceiving spirit, whom Jesus called “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Much of Christian foolishness and stupidity is the result of the spirit of darkness, distortion, and deceit that the enemy casts. Satan hates the truth, and always seeks to distort. He seeks to disrupt Christians into wrong thinking and wrong behavior.
2 Corinthians 11.3: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 11.13-15: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.”
Ephesians 6.10-12: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
1 John 4.1: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
1 Timothy 4.1: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.”
The Galatians had capitulated to the false teaching of the Judaizers, and the ultimate source of the false teaching was the devil. Even though the Galatians embraced the truth of the gospel of grace at the beginning, under pressure from the Judaizers they have now adopted the view that circumcision and the works of the law are also necessary for justification.
Paul is shocked at their foolishness because Jesus Christ had been “publicly portrayed as crucified” to them. The way the text is written suggests that Paul is making a further reference to the Galatians having been bewitched. He seems to be asking how some sorcerer could have put them under a distorting spell, when before their very eyes Christ had been proclaimed as crucified.
The gospel is not simply a story about the history of Jesus; it is a proclamation of Jesus Christ as crucified. We are justified before God and by God, not because of any works of our own, but because of the sacrificial death of Christ; not because of anything we have done or could do, but because of what Christ did on the cross. The gospel is a declaration of what God has done to rescue sinners, not a demand for what sinners must do to rescue themselves.
For the Galatians to turn away from the gospel was foolishness; it was as if they had been beguiled into embracing the false teaching of the Judaizers. The message to us today is to stand strong against the deceptive schemes of the devil. We must have the wisdom to recognize false teaching and reject it.
It is for this reason the Lord warns us in Matthew 7 to “beware of false prophets who are wolves in sheep’s clothing.” There are false teachers who disguise their true intentions by outwardly speaking and acting like Christians, but who inwardly are agents of darkness. These false teachers exist in every generation, including our generation today. It is for this reason that we must know the truth of God’s Word and be very discerning with respect to what teachers and preachers we listen to.
When Jesus says beware, he means exactly that. The enemy is powerful, wicked, and cunning. In our battle against him we must have the discernment to recognize his schemes and the discipline to defeat him.
