Galatians 3:3
fAre ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
οὕτως ἀνόητοί ἐστε; ἐναρξάμενοι Πνεύματι, νῦν σαρκὶ ἐπιτελεῖσθε;
Textual key: no entry
f:
Galatians 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Galatians 4:21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
Galatians 5:7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
Galatians 5:8 This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
Galatians 6:12 As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
Galatians 6:13 For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.
Hebrews 7:16 Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
Hebrews 7:18 For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.
Hebrews 7:19 For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.
Hebrews 9:9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
Hebrews 9:10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
The doctrine of their false teacthers was, that to faith in Christ, an obedience also to the law of Moses was necessary to justification; they did not deny Christ, or the doctrine of the gospel, only they pleaded for the works of the law as necessary to be superadded. The apostle calls this first owning of Christ, and embracing the doctrine of faith, a beginning
their adding the necessity of obedience to the law of Moses, a being
and argueth the unreasonableness of it, that their justification should be begun by a more noble, and made perfect by a more ignoble cause. He calls the doctrine of the gospel,
because (as he said in the former verse) they had received the Holy Spirit by the hearing of faith; that is, by hearing and receiving the gospel. The works of the law he calls flesh, because the ordinances of the law were (as the apostle calls them, Heb 9:10) carnal ordinances, imposed on the Jews till the time of reformation. He elsewhere calls them the rudiments of the world, Col 2:8,20; and in this Epistle, Gal 4:9, he calls them beggarly elements.
For though the ordinances of the law were in their season spiritual, they being commanded by God; yet they being but temporary constitutions, never intended by God to continue longer than the coming of Christ, and the law being but a schoolmaster to lead to Christ; Christ being now come, and having died, and rose again from the dead, they became useless. Besides that God never intended them as other than rudiments and first elements, the end of which was Christ; and the observance of which, without faith in Christ, was weak and impotent, as to the noble end of justification.
It spake great weakness, therefore, in the Galatians, to begin with what was more perfect, (the embracing of the gospel, and Christ there exhibited for the justification of sinners), and to end in what was more imperfect, thinking by that to be made perfect; or else the apostle here chargeth them with a defection from Christ, as Gal 4:9-11, and Gal 5:4: and so calleth them foolish, for beginning in the Spirit, (the Holy Spirit inwardly working in them the change of their hearts, and regenerating them), and then apostatizing from their profession to a carnal life. But I had rather interpret Spirit in this text, of the doctrine of the gospel, dictated by the Spirit; and with the receiving of which the Holy Spirit was given.
And so their folly is argued from their thinking to be made perfect by the beggarly elements and worldly rudiments of the law, whenas they had first begun their profession of Christianity with embracing the more perfect doctrine of the gospel.