Today’s sermon audio can be found on Castbox at 174 “Hearing with Faith” Galatians 3:1-5. These notes are just that. I use these notes as a guide during the sermon. But these notes are not a manuscript of the sermon. So you may find different material in the sermon versus in these sermon notes.

Our first reading for September 6th was Romans 10:14-17. Our text for September 6th was Galatians 3:1-5. We read Romans 10:14-17 because Paul uses the word ‘hearing’ (the gospel) in a similar way in both passages. He also writes about faith in both places. I think of verse 5 as a question and verse 6 as an assertion. So I have moved the question mark from the end of verse 6 to the end of verse 5.

Today's Text with Context

1O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

Galatians 3:1-5, ESV

Sermon Outline

"Hearing with Faith" Galatians 3:1-5

  1. The Argument
  2. The Question (3:2)
  3. The Questions (3:1-5)
  4. Hearing with Faith

Scripture References: Romans 10:14-17; Galatians 3:1-5;

1. The Argument

At a high level we are following Timothy George’s outline for Galatians1. This outline represents the basic flow of the argument.

  1. History: No Other Gospel (1:1-2:21)
  2. Theology: Justification by Faith (3:1-4:31)
  3. Ethics: Life in the Spirit (5:1-6:18)

In the beginning of Galatians Chapter 1 Paul has stated the problem in Galatia. False teachers were distorting the gospel. And the Galatian believers were tempted to abandon the true gospel for the gospel of the false teachers.

In the rest of Galatians Chapter 1 and in Galatians Chapter 2 Paul has argued against the position of the false teachers from history or we could say, from Paul’s personal experience. Paul has made this historical argument because the false teachers had attacked Paul’s apostleship and Paul’s gospel by distorting the historical record as well as by distorting the gospel itself.

So Paul begins his argument by correcting the historical distortions introduced by the false teachers. Paul demonstrates that his apostleship came from God, that his apostleship gives him equal authority with the other apostles, that the other apostles recognized Paul’s independence from them, and that Paul’s apostleship is for the Gentiles.

When Paul gets to the Antioch incident in his historical argument he starts to shift the argument to a more theological emphasis. Paul uses his confrontation with Peter to transition the argument from historical to theological. As is quite often the case, Paul had to confront Peter’s actions with sound doctrine. Peter actually agreed with Paul about the gospel but he was being hypocritical instead of acting in line with the gospel.

At the beginning of Galatians 3 Paul appeals to the experiences of the Galatian believers. We need to be careful about elevating experience above the Bible2. But here Paul is simply reminding the Galatian believers what had happened when the gospel had been preached to them. Crucially for the argument, the Galatian believers had received the Holy Spirit when they were converted.

Paul used five rhetorical questions to challenge the Galatian believers to remember their conversion experiences. The answers will have been obvious to the original readers as they are also to us reading the letter now. I have shortened these questions as follows:
Q1. Who Has Bewitched You? (3:1)
Q2. How Did You Receive the Spirit? (3:2)
Q3. How Are You Being Perfected? (3:3)
Q4. Did You Suffer in Vain? (3:4)
Q5. How Do You Live by the Spirit? (3:5)

2. The Question (3:2)

1O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

Galatians 3:1-5, ESV

Since verse 2 gives us the main question: ‘Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?’ I want to start with it. The other four questions support and extend this main question. Paul indicates that verse 2 contains the main question by his lead-in to that question. He wrote, ‘Let me ask you only this:’. The words ‘only this’ designate this question as the main question.

Note that Paul does not ask ‘Did you receive the Spirit?’. Paul knew and the original readers also knew that they had indeed ‘received the Spirit’. That issue was not in dispute. The original readers had ‘received the Spirit’ when they were converted just as we did when we were converted. Paul had preached the gospel (‘publicly portrayed Jesus Christ as crucified’) while he had been with them. That preaching had led to their conversions.

This second, but central question could be shortened to ‘How did you receive the Holy Spirit?’. Paul gives the readers two and only two ways to answer his question. This question is an ‘either-or’ question. You can pick one answer or the other answer. You can not pick both answers.

Had they received the Holy Spirit by means of doing works of the law? Or had they received the Holy Spirit by means of hearing with faith? Paul expected and in fact would have insisted that the answer was and is by means of hearing with faith. Essentially in this context works of the law indicates salvation by works. And hearing with faith indicates salvation by faith3. As one scholar put it, the Galatian believers received the Holy Spirit by ‘believing–not doing–’4. Receiving the Holy Spirit and justification both occur when we believe. We will return to this phrase ‘hearing with faith’ in our conclusion.

3. The Questions (3:1-5)

How do these five rhetorical questions relate to each other?

Q1. Who Has Bewitched You? (3:1)
‘Who has bewitched you?’ Paul begins this paragraph by calling the Galatians foolish. They were foolish in the sense that they lacked good judgment. They were too easily tricked into considering a negation of the gospel. They have let themselves be deceived, hypnotized, put under a magic spell. The rhetorical question asks who has tricked them into considering abandonment of the true gospel that Paul had proclaimed publicly as Christ Jesus crucified for our sins. The obvious answer is the false teachers of course. But Paul may also have had in mind Satan himself5.

Q2. How Did You Receive the Spirit? (3:2)
‘Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?’ This second question is the key question. It is put in the past tense (Did you receive …). It points back to the readers’ conversion. The fifth question is very similar but it uses the present tense (Does He who supplies …). Both questions remind the readers that they were not and are not (as of yet anyway) Jewish and yet they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Q3. How Are You Being Perfected? (3:3)
‘Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?’ Paul repeats the adjective foolish. The Christian life always begins by grace through faith. The Holy Spirit indwells all who savingly believe. Here with this question Paul shifts from justification by faith to sanctification by faith. In this case Paul means by ‘the flesh’ the old nature, the sin nature.

Q4. Did You Suffer in Vain? (3:4)
‘Did you suffer so many things in vain?’ The verb ‘suffer’ might also be translated ‘experience’. The verb ‘suffer’ suggests persecution for the sake of Christ. If the verb meant ‘experience’ then Paul would have been referring to all of the positive things they had experienced as Christians such as being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Either way the outcome might be that it had, after all, been a purposeless experience or trial. But Paul has not completely given up on the Galatians for he ends the question with ‘if indeed it was in vain.

Q5. How Do You Live by the Spirit? (3:5)
‘Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?’ As we have said, the fifth question is very similar to the second question. But the fifth question moves on from conversion to the current time. We note that the two verbs ‘supplies’ and ‘works’ are in the present tense. The Christian life begins with faith and the Christian life continues with faith.

4. Hearing with Faith

1O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

Galatians 3:1-5, ESV

Galatians 3:3 has been called ‘[o]ne of the most important verses for the Christian life’6 because of its importance for sanctification.

‘3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?’. The verb ‘being perfected’ indicates achieving completion. You began with the Holy Spirit but now you are going to finish by your own strength? Clearly that does not make sense.

We need to correlate question 2 with question 3. In particular we should note the following. ‘By the works of the law’ in question 2 corresponds to ‘by the flesh’ in question 3. Both of these phrases tell us how NOT to live the Christian life. They are closely related facets of self-righteousness. Therefore, ‘by hearing with faith’ as the opposite of ‘by the works of the law’ must be very important in the process of ‘being perfected’. So we say that we are justified through faith and we are sanctified through faith.

14How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 10:14-17, ESV

Romans 10:17 tells us, in a sense, how it is that we first believe: ‘17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.’. We hear7 ‘the word of Christ’ preached (Romans 10:14-15). And we respond in faith, we believe. So we say that the Holy Spirit ordinarily works in us in conjunction with preaching, causing us to be born again. Once we are born again we can and do exercise the saving faith that God has given us. We describe saving faith with the acronym KAT: knowledge, agreement, and trust. This same gift of faith continues to be our possession throughout our lives. We start the Christian life with God-given faith and we continue the Christian life with that same God-given faith.

The Gospel

3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

1 Corinthians 15:3-10, ESV

Footnotes

© 2026 Christian Life Church.

  1. Timothy George, Galatians, CSC, 2020, kp 108. ↩

  2. Some Christians put too much emphasis on experience. They elevate it above the Scriptures. This type of emphasis may be a reason why some Christians leave Evangelicalism for other branches of Christianity. Other Christians seem to put too little emphasis on experience. True believers are in fact changed by God when they are converted. ↩

  3. It was not possible that the Galatian believers had been involved with the works of the law because they were not Jewish. ↩

  4. Thomas R. Schreiner, Galatians, ZECNT, 2011, kp 183. ↩

  5. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul tells us that ‘the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ’. ↩

  6. Thomas R. Schreiner, Galatians, ZECNT, 2011, kp 187. ↩

  7. Even the deaf can experience cognitive perception of the gospel by American Sign Language or written material. Yet those of us with normal hearing may not experience cognitive perception of the gospel even when we hear it preached. Both groups need the illumination of the Holy Spirit to hear with understanding what God’s Word teaches. ↩