There's an old adage that says, "It's not how you start but how you finish." In these verses, Paul says that doesn't apply to the life of a disciple of Jesus.
Apparently certain false teachers have duped the Galatians into believing that while God gets us started, it's up to us to finish the job.
The apostle lets us know that this is a load of hooey. Jesus doesn't begin the race by giving us a big, divine shove and leaves it all to me to finish.
The way He started us is the very same way He'll finish us. By His Holy Spirit.
Paul has gotten his recipients' attention by calling these knuckleheads "O foolish Galatians!" (Gal 3:1). He reminds them that he made it VERY clear that Jesus died on a Roman cross for their sin.
That's important to what he writes here. The crucified Christ cried out, "It is finished!" (Jn 19:30). He had completed the job. He had done all the work. There was nothing left to do. Nothing left for you. Nothing left for me.
At this point, Paul asks the Galatians a question in his letter. "Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?" (v2). Let's go back to the beginning of your relationship with Jesus. How did that begin? When you got saved, who did that? When you received God's Spirit, how did that happen?
The Galatians would think back on Paul's two visits to see them during his first missionary expedition with Barnabas (Acts 13:14-14:23). They not only stopped by once but hit them up again as they were headed back home. No one could forget those crazy days.
It began in Pisidian Antioch with Paul's sermon in the synagogue. God did a crazy work of opening the hearts of both Jews and Gentiles.
He obliterated ethnic walls. Jesus used Paul and Barnabas to perform mind-blowing miracles while they were in the region. The Gospel raised such a stink with the Jews that they even tried to kill Paul.
But Luke's account of the visit in Acts includes a key point: "And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 13:52). That's important to Paul's point here in his letter.
How did they receive the Spirit? Well, let's see. They were filled with the Spirit. The grammar of the passage from Acts tells us that they didn't do anything. The Galatians were simply on the receiving end.
So the apostle rhetorically asks if this was something they handled by obeying the rules or simply by hearing and believing what Jesus had done for them. "Works of the law." Hmm, does that sound familiar? Just flip back a few verses to Gal 2:16.
Nobody is made right with God "by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ." In case we missed it the first time, Paul grabs us by the shoulders and gets our attention: "By works of the law no one will be justified" (Gal 2:16).
We come to faith in Jesus by "hearing with faith" (v2). That's the point Paul makes to his Roman readers. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom 10:17).
Radical things happen when we tell others about Jesus. "It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Rom 1:16). When people hear about what Christ has done in their place on their behalf and place their trust in His finished work, God's Spirit roars into their lives.
So we didn't do a dad blame thing to get saved. We simply trusted in what Jesus did FOR us. No works. Only faith. And Paul says that's EXACTLY how this thing's gonna finish.
Once again, the apostle plays the "fool" card. "Are you so foolish?" (v3). Again, the Greek term here doesn't describe someone who is uneducated.
Actually quite the opposite. A fool is someone who does know the truth and should no better than to fall for half-baked version of the Good News that is actually not Good News at all.
My personal opinion is that you could translate this phrase: "Hello, McFly!!!" OK, not literally. But Paul's trying to get his Galatian audience to engage their brains and understand what blatant mistake they've made in believing this self-salvation idea.
If the Holy Spirit began the project of making us like Jesus, then is it now up to us to bring it home? That's the question on the table. The Greek verb here is επιτελεω/epiteleo. It means to accomplish, finish or complete.
God is not some mediocre starting pitcher that needs help from the bullpen. What He starts, He finishes. Paul is absolutely certain about that. "And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6).
Jesus doesn't start anything that He's unwilling to finish. That includes the work He's doing in your life and in my life.
He started it. He'll finish it.
©2012
Jay Jennings
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