th bewitched you?

In this sentence Paul excuses the Galatians, while he blames the false
apostles for the apostasy of the Galatians.

As if he were saying: "I know your defection was not willful. The devil
sent the false apostles to you, and they tallied you into believing
that you are justified by the Law. With this our epistle we endeavor to
undo the damage which the false apostles have inflicted upon you."

Like Paul, we struggle with the Word of God against the fanatical
Anabaptists of our day; and our efforts are not entirely in vain. The
trouble is there are many who refuse to be instructed. They will not
listen to reason; they will not listen to the Scriptures, because they
are bewitched by the tricky devil who can make a lie look like the
truth.

Since the devil has this uncanny ability to make us believe a lie until
we would swear a thousand times it were the truth, we must not be
proud, but walk in fear and humility, and call upon the Lord Jesus to
save us from temptation.

Although I am a doctor of divinity, and have preached Christ and fought
His battles for a long time, I know from personal experience how
difficult it is to hold fast to the truth. I cannot always shake off
Satan. I cannot always apprehend Christ as the Scriptures portray Him.
Sometimes the devil distorts Christ to my vision. But thanks be to God,
who keeps us in His Word, in faith, and in prayer.

The spiritual witchery of the devil creates in the heart a wrong idea
of Christ. Those who share the opinion that a person is justified by
the works of the Law, are simply bewitched. Their belief goes against
faith and Christ.

VERSE 1. That ye should not obey the truth.

Paul incriminates the Galatians in worse failure. "You are so bewitched
that you no longer obey the truth. I fear many of you have strayed so
far that you will never return to the truth."

The apostasy of the Galatians is a fine indorsement of the Law, all
right. You may preach the Law ever so fervently; if the preaching of
the Gospel does not accompany it, the Law will never produce true
conversion and heartfelt repentance. We do not mean to say that the
preaching of the Law is without value, but it only serves to bring home
to us the wrath of God. The Law bows a person down. It takes the Gospel
and the preaching of faith in Christ to raise and save a person.

VERSE 1. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth.

Paul's increasing severity becomes apparent as he reminds the Galatians
that they disobeyed the truth in defiance of the vivid description he
had given them of Christ. So vividly had he described Christ to them
that they could almost see and handle Him. As if Paul were to say: "No
artist with all his colors could have pictured Christ to you as vividly
as I have pictured Him to you by my preaching. Yet you permitted
yourselves to be seduced to the extent that you disobeyed the truth of
Christ."

VERSE 1. Crucified among you.

"You have not only rejected the grace of God, you have shamefully
crucified Christ among you." Paul employs the same phraseology in
Hebrews 6:6: "Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh,
and put him to an open shame."

It should make any person afraid to hear Paul say that those who seek
to be justified by the Law, not only deny Christ, but also crucify Him
anew. If those who seek to be justified by the Law and its works are
crucifiers of Christ, what are they, I like to know, who seek salvation
by the filthy rags of their own work-righteousness?

Can there be anything more horrible than the papacy, an alliance of
people who crucify Christ in themselves, in the Church, and in the
hearts of the believers?

Of all the diseased and vicious doctrines of the papacy the worst is
this: "If you want to serve God you must earn your own remission of
sins and everlasting life, and in addition help others to obtain
salvation by giving them the benefit of your extra work-holiness."
Monks, friars, and all the rest of them brag that besides the ordinary
requirements common to all Christians, they do the works of
supererogation, i.e., the performance of more than is required. This is
certainly a fiendish illusion.

No wonder Paul employs such sharp language in his effort to recall the
Galatians from the doctrine of the false apostles. He says to them:
"Don't you realize what you have done? You have crucified Christ anew
because you seek salvation by the Law."

True, Christ can no longer be crucified in person, but He is crucified
in us when we reject grace, faith, free remission of sins and endeavor
to be justified by our own works, or by the works of the Law.

The Apostle is incensed at the presumptuousness of any person who
thinks he can perform the Law of God to his own salvation. He charges
that person with the atrocity of crucifying anew the Son of God.

VERSE 2. This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

There is a touch of irony in these words of the Apostle. "Come on now,
my smart Galatians, you who all of a sudden have become doctors, while
I seem to be your pupil: Received ye the Holy Ghost by the works of the
Law, or by the preaching of the Gospel?" This question gave them
something to think about, because their own experience contradicted
them.

"You cannot say that you received the Holy Spirit by the Law. As long
as you were servants of the Law, you never received the Holy Ghost.
Nobody ever heard of the Holy Ghost being given to anybody, be he
doctor or dunce, as a result of the preaching of the Law. In your own
case, you have not only learned the Law by heart, you have labored with
all your might to perform it. You most of all should have received the
Holy Ghost by the Law, if that were possible. You cannot show me that
this ever happened. But as soon as the Gospel came your way, you
received the Holy Ghost by the simple hearing of faith, before you ever
had a chance to do a single good deed." Luke verifies this statement of
Paul in the Book of Acts: "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy
Ghost fell on all them which heard the word." (Acts 10:44.) "And as I
began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the
beginning." (Acts 11:15.)

Try to appreciate the force of Paul's argument which is so often
repeated in the Book of Acts. That Book was written for the express
purpose of verifying Paul's assertion, that the Holy Ghost comes upon
men, not in response to the preaching of the Law, but in response to
the preaching of the Gospel. When Peter preached Christ at the first
Pentecost, the Holy Ghost fell upon the hearers, "and the same day
there were added unto them about three thousand souls." Cornelius
received the Holy Ghost while Peter was speaking of Christ. "The Holy
Ghost fell on all of them which heard the word." These are actual
experiences that cannot very well be denied. When Paul and Barnabas
returned to Jerusalem and reported what they had been able to
accomplish among the Gentiles, the whole Church was astonished,
particularly when it heard that the uncircumcised Gentiles had received
the Holy Ghost by the preaching of faith in Christ.

Now as God gave the Holy Ghost to the Gentiles without the Law by the
simple preaching of the Gospel, so He gave the Holy Ghost also to the
Jews, without the Law, through faith alone. If the righteousness of the
Law were necessary unto salvation, the Holy Ghost would never have come
to the Gentiles, because they did not bother about the Law. Hence the
Law does not justify, but faith in Christ justifies.

How was it with Cornelius? Cornelius and his friends whom he had
invited over to his house, do nothing but sit and listen. Peter is
doing the talking. They just sit and do nothing. The Law is far removed
from their thoughts. They burn no sacrifices. They are not at all
interested in circumcision. All they do is to sit and listen to Peter.
Suddenly the Holy Ghost enters their hearts. His presence is
unmistakable, "for they spoke with tongues and magnified God."

Right here we have one more difference between the Law and the Gospel.
The Law does not bring on the Holy Ghost. The Gospel, however, brings
on the gift of the Holy Ghost, because it is the nature of the Gospel
to convey good gifts. The Law and the Gospel are contrary ideas. They
have contrary functions and purposes. To endow the Law with any
capacity to produce righteousness is to plagiarize the Gospel. The
Gospel brings donations. It pleads for open hands to take what is being
offered. The Law has nothing to give. It demands, and its demands are
impossible.

Our opponents come back at us with Cornelius. Cornelius, they point
out, was "a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house,
which gave much alms to the people and prayed God always." Because of
these qualifications, he merited the forgiveness of sins, and the gift
of the Holy Ghost. So reason our opponents.

I answer: Cornelius was a Gentile. You cannot deny it. As a Gentile he
was uncircumcised. As a Gentile he did not observe the Law. He never
gave the Law any thought. For all that, he was justified and received
the Holy Ghost. How can the Law avail anything unto righteousness? Our
opponents are not satisfied. They reply: "Granted that Cornelius was a
Gentile and did not receive the Holy Ghost by the Law, yet the text
plainly states that he was a devout man who feared God, gave alms, and
prayed. Don't you think he deserved the gift of the Holy Ghost?" I
answer: Cornelius had the faith of the fathers who were saved by faith
in the Christ to come. If Cornelius had died before Christ, he would
have been saved because he believed in the Christ to come. But because
the Messiah had already come, Cornelius had to be apprized of the fact.
Since Christ has come we cannot be saved by faith in the Christ to
come, but we must believe that he has come. The object of Peter's visit
was to acquaint Cornelius with the fact that Christ was no longer to be
looked for, because He is here.

As to the contention of our opponents that Cornelius deserved grace and
the gift of the Holy Ghost, because he was devout and just, we say that
these attributes are the characteristics of a spiritual person who
already has faith in Christ, and not the characteristics of a Gentile
or of natural man. Luke first praises Cornelius for being a devout and
God-fearing man, and then Luke mentions the good works, the alms and
prayers of Cornelius. Our opponents ignore the sequence of Luke's
words. They pounce on this one sentence, "which gave much alms to the
people," because it serves their assertion that merit precedes grace.
The fact is that Cornelius gave alms and prayed to God because he had
faith. And because of his faith in the Christ to come, Peter was
delegated to preach unto Cornelius faith in the Christ who had already
come. This argument is convincing enough. Cornelius was justified
without the Law, therefore the Law cannot justify.

Take the case of Naaman, the Syrian, who was a Gentile and did not
belong to the race of Moses. Yet his flesh was cleansed, the God of
Israel was revealed unto him, and he received the Holy Ghost. Naaman
confessed his faith: "Behold, now I know that there is no God in all
the earth, but in Israel." (II Kings 5:15.) Naaman does not do a thing.
He does not busy himself with the Law. He was never circumcised. That
does not mean that his faith was inactive. He said to the Prophet
Elisha: "Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor
sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord
pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon
to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the
house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the
Lord pardon thy servant in this thing." What did the Prophet tell him?
"Go in peace." The Jews do not like to hear the prophet say this.
"What," they exclaim, "should this heathen be justified without the
Law? Should he be made equal to us who are circumcised?"

Long before the time of Moses, God justified men without the Law. He
justified many kings of Egypt and Babylonia. He justified Job. Nineveh,
that great city, was justified and received the promise of God that He
would not destroy the city. Why was Nineveh spared? Not because it
fulfilled the Law, but because Nineveh believed the word of God. The
Prophet Jonah writes: "So the people of Nineveh believed God, and
proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth." They repented. Nowhere in the
Book of Jonah do you read that the Ninevites received the Law of Moses,
or that they were circumcised, or that they offered sacrifices.

All this happened long before Christ was born. If the Gentiles were
justified without the Law and quietly received the Holy Spirit at a
time when the Law was in full force, why should the Law count unto
righteousness now, now that Christ has fulfilled the Law?

And yet many devote much time and labor to the Law, to the decrees of
the fathers, and to the traditions of the Pope. Many of these
specialists have incapacitated themselves for any kind of work, good or
bad, by their rigorous attention to rules and laws. All the same, they
could not obtain a quiet conscience and peace in Christ. But the moment
the Gospel of Christ touches them, certainty comes to them, and joy,
and a right judgment.

I have good reason for enlarging upon this point. The heart of man
finds it difficult to believe that so great a treasure as the Holy
Ghost is gotten by the mere hearing of faith. The hearer likes to
reason like this: Forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death, the gift
of the Holy Ghost, everlasting life are grand things. If you want to
obtain these priceless benefits, you must engage in correspondingly
great efforts. And the devil says, "Amen."

We must learn that forgiveness of sins, Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are
freely granted unto us at the preaching of faith, in spite of our
sinfulness. We are not to waste time thinking how unworthy we are of
the blessings of God. We are to know that it pleased God freely to give
us His unspeakable gifts. If He offers His gifts free of charge, why
not take them? Why worry about our lack of worthiness? Why not accept
gifts with joy and thanksgiving?

Right away foolish reason is once more offended. It scolds us. "When
you say that a person can do nothing to obtain the grace of God, you
foster carnal security. People become shiftless and will do no good at
all. Better not preach this doctrine of faith. Rather urge the people
to exert and to exercise themselves in good works, so that the Holy
Ghost will feel like coming to them."

What did Jesus say to Martha when she was very "careful and troubled
about many things" and could hardly stand to see her sister Mary
sitting at the feet of Jesus, just listening? "Martha, Martha," Jesus
said, "thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing
is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be
taken away from her." A person becomes a Christian not by working, but
by hearing. The first step to being a Christian is to hear the Gospel.
When a person has accepted the Gospel, let him first give thanks unto
God with a glad heart, and then let him get busy on the good works to
strive for, works that really please God, and not man-made and
self-chosen works.

Our opponents regard faith as an easy thing, but I know from personal
experience how hard it is to believe. That the Holy Ghost is received
by faith, is quickly said, but not so quickly done.

All believers experience this difficulty. They would gladly embrace the
Word with a full