Christ and the Spirit
Verses:
Galatians 3:1-5
1 O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed crucified.
2 This only I wish to learn from you, did you receive the Spirit out of the works of law or out of the hearing of faith?
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
4 Have you suffered so many things in vain, if indeed it was in wain?
5 He therefore who bountifully supplies to you the Spirit and does works of power among you, does He do it out of the works of law or out of the hearing of faith?
Galatians 3:13-14
13 Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law having become a curse on our behalf; because it is written, “cursed is everyone hanging on a tree”;
14 In order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Galatians 3:2 footnote 1 and 2
When the believers believe into Christ, they receive the Spirit. It is a serious misunderstanding to consider Christ as separate from the Spirit. At the time of regeneration we believed into Christ, and we also received the Spirit and were sealed with the Spirit (Eph. 1:13). At that very moment an organic union took place – we were grafted into the Triune God (Rom. 11:17), and the Spirit as the pledge (Eph. 1:14) became the ultimate blessing of the gospel to us (v. 14). After this, receiving the Spirit is a lifelong, continuous matter. God is supplying the Spirit to us continuously.
The Galatians, through the hearing of the gospel, believed in the crucified Christ, but they received the Spirit. The One who was crucified on the cross was Christ, but the One who entered into the believers was the Spirit. In His being crucified for the believers’ redemption He was Christ, but in His indwelling the believers to be their life He is the Spirit. This is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, who is the all-inclusive and ultimate blessing of the gospel. The believers receive such a divine Spirit by the hearing of faith, not by the works of the law. He enters into the believers and lives in them not by their keeping of the law but by their faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ.
In the first two chapters of this Epistle there is Christ in the divine revelation as the focal point of God’s economy, but in the last four chapters there is the Spirit in our experience for us to have the divine life (ch. 3), to be born of God (ch. 4), to live and walk by the regenerated life (ch.5), and to take the divine purpose as our goal (ch.6). Thus, we enjoy Christ continually as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (v.5a).
The Holy Bible Recovery Version with Footnotes, LSM, 2003
Questions:
1. Why can we say that chapter 3 is the center, the inner core of Galatians?
2. What is the relationship between Christ and the Spirit?