2 Give me an answer to this one question, Did the Spirit come to you through the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
And Peter said, Let your hearts be changed, every one of you, and have baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will have the Holy Spirit given to you.
And God, the searcher of hearts, was a witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit even as he did to us;
And he said to them, Did you get the Holy Spirit when you had faith? And they said to him, No, we have had no knowledge of the Holy Spirit. And he said, What sort of baptism did you have? And they said, The baptism of John. And Paul said, John gave a baptism which goes with a change of heart, saying to the people that they were to have faith in him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus. And hearing this, they had baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had put his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they had the power of talking in tongues, and acting like prophets.
So that on the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; in order that we through faith might have the Spirit which God had undertaken to give.
Who, when they came there, made prayer for them, that the Holy Spirit might be given to them:
While Peter was saying these words, the Holy Spirit came on all those who were hearing the word. And the Jews of the faith, who had come with Peter, were full of wonder, because the Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles, And they were talking in tongues, and giving glory to God. Then Peter said, Will any man say that these may not have baptism who have been given the Holy Spirit as we have?
And, while I was talking to them, the Holy Spirit came on them, as on us at first. And the words of the Lord came into my mind, how he said, The baptism of John was with water, but you will have baptism with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave them, when they had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the same as he gave to us, who was I to go against God? And hearing these things they said nothing more, but gave glory to God, saying, Then to the Gentiles as to us has God given a change of heart, so that they may have life.
But they have not all given ear to the good news. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has had faith in our word? So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
In whom you, having been given the true word, the good news of your salvation, and through your faith in him, were given the sign of the Holy Spirit of hope, Which is the first-fruit of our heritage, till God gets back that which is his, to the praise of his glory.
And God was a witness with them, by signs and wonders, and by more than natural powers, and by his distribution of the Holy Spirit at his pleasure.
For in it there is the revelation of the righteousness of God from faith to faith: as it is said in the holy Writings, The man who does righteousness will be living by his faith.
But to every man some form of the Spirit's working is given for the common good. For to one are given words of wisdom through the Spirit; and to another words of knowledge through the same Spirit: To another faith in the same Spirit; and to another the power of taking away disease, by the one Spirit; And to another the power of working wonders; and to another the prophet's word; and to another the power of testing spirits; to another different sorts of tongues; and to another the power of making clear the sense of the tongues: But all these are the operations of the one and the same Spirit, giving to every man separately as his pleasure is. For as the body is one, and has a number of parts, and all the parts make one body, so is Christ. For through the baptism of the one Spirit we were all formed into one body, Jews or Greeks, servants or free men, and were all made full of the same Spirit.
And it was made clear to those prophets that they were God's servants not for themselves but for you, to give you word of the things which have now come to your ears from the preachers of the good news through the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; things which even angels have a desire to see.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Galatians 3
Commentary on Galatians 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
The apostle in this chapter,
Gal 3:1-5
The apostle is here dealing with those who, having embraced the faith of Christ, still continued to seek for justification by the works of the law; that is, who depended upon their own obedience to the moral precepts as their righteousness before God, and, wherein that was defective, had recourse to the legal sacrifices and purifications to make it up. These he first sharply reproves, and then endeavours, by the evidence of truth, to convince them. This is the right method, when we reprove any for a fault or an error, to convince them that it is an error, that it is a fault.
He reproves them, and the reproof is very close and warm: he calls them foolish Galatians, v. 1. Though as Christians they were Wisdom's children, yet as corrupt Christians they were foolish children. Yea, he asks, Who hath bewitched you? whereby he represents them as enchanted by the arts and snares of their seducing teachers, and so far deluded as to act very unlike themselves. That wherein their folly and infatuation appeared was that they did not obey the truth; that is, they did not adhere to the gospel way of justification, wherein they had been taught, and which they had professed to embrace. Note, It is not enough to know the truth, and to say we believe it, but we must obey it too; we must heartily submit to it, and stedfastly abide by it. Note, also, Those are spiritually bewitched who, when the truth as it is in Jesus is plainly set before them, will not thus obey it. Several things proved and aggravated the folly of these Christians.
Gal 3:6-18
The apostle having reproved the Galatians for not obeying the truth, and endeavoured to impress them with a sense of their folly herein, in these verses he largely proves the doctrine which he had reproved them for rejecting, namely, that of justification by faith without the works of the law. This he does several ways.
Gal 3:19-29
The apostle having just before been speaking of the promise made to Abraham, and representing that as the rule of our justification, and not the law, lest they should think he did too much derogate from the law, and render it altogether useless, he thence takes occasion to discourse of the design and tendency of it, and to acquaint us for what purposes it was given. It might be asked, "If that promise be sufficient for salvation, wherefore then serveth the law? Or, Why did God give the law by Moses?' To this he answers,
The apostle adds that the law was given for this purpose till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; that is, either till Christ should come (the principle seed referred to in the promise, as he had before shown), or till the gospel dispensation should take place, when Jews and Gentiles, without distinction, should, upon believing, become the seed of Abraham. The law was added because of transgressions, till this fulness of time, or this complete dispensation, should come. But when the seed came, and a fuller discovery of divine grace in the promise was made, then the law, as given by Moses, was to cease; that covenant, being found faulty, was to give place to another, and a better, Heb. 8:7, 8. And though the law, considered as the law of nature, is always in force, and still continues to be of use to convince men of sin and to restrain them from it, yet we are now no longer under the bondage and terror of that legal covenant. The law then was not intended to discover another way of justification, different from that revealed by the promise, but only to lead men to see their need of the promise, by showing them the sinfulness of sin, and to point them to Christ, through whom alone they could be pardoned and justified.
As a further proof that the law was not designed to vacate the promise, the apostle adds, It was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. It was given to different persons, and in a different manner from the promise, and therefore for different purposes. The promise was made to Abraham, and all his spiritual seed, including believers of all nations, even of the Gentiles as well as the Jews; but the law was given to the Israelites as a peculiar people, and separated from the rest of the world. And, whereas the promise was given immediately by God himself, the law was given by the ministry of angels, and the hand of a mediator. Hence it appeared that the law could not be designed to set aside the promise; for (v. 20), A mediator is not a mediator of one, of one party only; but God is one, but one party in the promise or covenant made with Abraham: and therefore it is not to be supposed that by a transaction which passed only between him and the nation of the Jews he should make void a promise which he had long before made to Abraham and all his spiritual seed, whether Jews or Gentiles. This would not have been consistent with his wisdom, nor with his truth and faithfulness. Moses was only a mediator between God and the spiritual seed of Abraham; and therefore the law that was given by him could not affect the promise made to them, much less be subversive of it.