Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you?
Galatians 3:5 - Paul’s rebuke of the Galatians should be a reminder for Christians to be humble in their works — it’s actually Jesus at work through them.
An image of the apostle Paul dictating his letter to the Galatians to an amanuensis. This image was created using DALL·E, OpenAI’s legacy image generation model.
“So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?”
Galatians 3:5 NIV
Paul’s epistle to the Church of Galatia is tough. It was probably tough for Paul to write, as he had to severely chastise the church for falling away from the Gospel so quickly after his teaching. And it was most likely very tough for the recipients, who probably felt that they were doing the “right thing” by falling back on Jewish rituals and practices when in reality they were losing sight of what their faith in Jesus Christ was all about.
Note: Barb did one of her excellent “full book” studies of Galatians in 2023 and early 2024. Search the HOW website for “An Exploration of Galatians” to read the entire series.
The apostle is quite confrontational in Chapter 3 of Galatians, starting out with Paul wondering why the church is not using what it had been taught earlier, then chastising it for starting to fall back on “works of the law” (the practices of the Mosaic law, such as circumcision, food laws, etc…) rather than relying on faith.
In this verse, he’s asking a question designed to stimulate the thinking of the Galatians so that they’ll wake up spiritually and throw out those in the church who desired a return to the old laws and practices. Paul’s question is simple and honest, and by making the Galatians think about Christ’s sacrifice and its purpose, he’s hoping that he can set the truth in their minds and hearts.
Let’s paraphrase the first part of this question: Did God give the Galatians the Holy Spirit because the men were being circumcised, or that they were following the Jewish dietary laws? The answer is rather obvious - No! The Holy Spirit was supplied to the Galatians by God in response to their professed faith in Jesus Christ.
Paraphrasing the second part of the question is equally instructive: Were Jesus, the apostles, and some in the fledgling Christian church able to perform miracles because of their works; their adherence to Mosaic law? Once again, NO! Miracles are the tangible result of faith. Sadly, the Galatians had fallen into the trap of believing that only by pursuing God through works would they gain spiritual riches.
In this verse, Paul is repeating the same question he asks in Galatians 3:2 in an attempt to drive home the fact that the Galatians had a decision to make. Did they believe that they were blessed by the works of the law, or blessed by the hearing of faith?
This is an important lesson! Some of the commentaries for Galatians 3:5 found on Precept Austin are especially instructive:
John MacArthur - “Paul’s argument is itself powerful: If a person has received eternal salvation through trust in the crucified Christ, received the fullness of the Holy Spirit the same moment he believed, and has the Father’s Spirit endowed power working within him, how could he hope to enhance that out of his own insignificant human resources by some meritorious effort?”
Don Anderson - “If the Holy Spirit comes in when we accept Christ by faith—and He does— then the obvious answer to our maturity in spiritual things is the in-living Christ who wants to be released to operate in our lives by the same faith....Whereas works can keep us from salvation in Christ, so even after we become a Christian works once again can keep us from spiritual growth. How subtle and easy it is for us as Christians to feel that any fruit that is going to come out of our lives in being changed is going to be something which we are going to do on our own efforts. And so we contribute greatly to hypocrisy and phoniness and real insincerity by feeling that Christian growth and development is dependent upon us. We need to recognize His analysis of things in John 15:5, and that is, without Him we can do nothing.”
Paul’s rebuke of the Galatians is relevant today as a reminder for Christians to be humble in their works and to realize it’s actually Jesus at work through them.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Today’s prayer comes from Knowing Jesus:
Heavenly Father, thank You that my salvation does not depend on what I do but on what Christ has done on my account. Thank You that I have been given new life in Christ, by faith. May I live that life to Your praise and glory. Keep me from attempting to do the work that only the indwelling Holy Spirit can achieve. May I grow in grace and mature in the faith, as I die to my own ego and live for Christ alone. In Jesus' name, AMEN.