Argument from Experience (Gal 3:1-5)

Translation & Textual Criticism

Structure:

• Rebuke (1a)
• What are your eyes on? (1b)
• How did you begin? (2)
• How will you finish? (3)
• Have you suffered in vain? (4)
• Does God work by works of law or by faith? (5)

Purpose: Having defended his gospel at length, Paul now argues that the Galatians have moved a long way from that which was preached at first. He asks a series of rhetorical questions that appeal to the Galatians’ own experience, knowing the response they must give.

Gal 3:1. The insult here (Ὦ ἀνόητοι Γαλάται) is typical of Hellenistic and Jewish diatribe,¹ and should not be taken too seriously. Paul’s intent is to motivate the Galatians to a response, and to direct their attention to what is to follow. In particular, it is clear that the antitheses to be presented next are no mere minor distinctions; one side is to be considered ‘foolish’, and Paul leaves no room for doubt which it is.

The link between the two clauses that make up the rest of the sentence is the eyes. βασκαίνω meant to ‘exert an evil influence through the eye’² and to ‘be resentful of something enjoyed by another’³. Paul thus, at one fell swoop, characterises the agitators as envious (cf. Gal 2:4?) and evil. Over against this, Paul reminds the Galatians of Christ crucified. Had they kept their eyes on him as they ought, they would have been proof against the ‘evil eye’.

Gal 3:2. In using μαθεῖν (‘to learn’), Paul ironically casts himself as a student desiring to learn from the ‘wise’ Galatians. Again, the question he asks of them relates to their own experience, this time what they heard, rather than what they saw. The Galatians had received the Spirit, the undeniable proof of the fulfilment of God’s eschatological promises to Abraham and his descendants. That this occurred before their newfound desire to submit to works of the law, and so the latter must be superfluous to entering covenantal relationship with God (cf. 3:14).

The antithesis between Spirit and law is found only in Paul, and then only in Galatians and Romans (Rom 7:5-6; 8:2-3; Gal 3:2, 5, 12-14; 5:18),⁴ but would have been unusual to his Galatian audience. This unfamiliarity he resolves by appeal to the more familiar antithesis between πνεῦμα and σάρξ, to which Paul next appeals.

Gal 3:3. Paul draws out his implication more fully with a further question: If you have begun with the Spirit, why expect to finish by the flesh? Whilst cast in the interrogative, when coupled with the insult in 3:1 (note the repeated ἀνόητοι) this constitutes an accusation.

In shifting the contrast from πνεῦμα/νόμος to πνεῦμα/σάρξ, Paul has inseparably identified the law with the flesh. That the specific issue at hand is one of observance of the law by a mark of the flesh may be deliberate on Paul’s part, but is probably coincidental as circumcision is not specifically in view here.

Gal 3:4.

Gal 3:5

Translation & Textual Criticism

Endnotes

1. FIXME?
2. BDAG, “βασκαίνω” 1
3. BDAG, “βασκαίνω” 2
4. cf. Especially Rom 8:2, where Paul can speak of ὁ νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος, almost as a ‘rival’ law, though he clarifies this a few verses later in 8:6, where Spirit implicitly allows one to satisfy the requirements of the law (cf. Gal 5:22-3).
5. cf. BDAG s.v. ὅμως.
6. cf. Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC 41; Accordance/Thomas Nelson electronic ed. Waco: Word Books, 1990), 145. According to Longenecker, this is a ‘prepositional phrase’ meaning “before the coming”.