The gospel is not good advice to men, but good news about Christ; not an invitation to us to do anything, but a declaration of what God has done; not a demand but an offer! So why were the gentile believers in Galatians chapter 3:1 so ready to cash in grace for works?
Paul attempts to correct their vision of Jesus who Paul says was “clearly portrayed”. He questioned the Galatians’ on their own experience; they had experienced Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit all before they were indoctrinated into the idea that they need first to become Jews. What in their experience suggested that something was missing? What else could they add by works that they hadn’t already received by faith?
Their blurred vision had come about because the Judaizers had come in and told them falsely that they were “Made right before God based on what Jesus did for us, plus what we do for Him under the Law of Moses.”
In calling the Galatians “foolish” Paul is not saying that they are morally or mentally deficient, instead he uses a word that suggests a person who has the right answer but fails to use that answer.
The word “bewitched” reflects that they were behaving as if they were under some spell that has caused them to not respond to what they knew was true. The word was used of an ancient superstition where someone would place an “evil eye” upon another.
Martin Luther wrote, “Through the centuries, error after error arises, and we are well able to see some of the errors of the past, but many are blind to the errors of today.” One author put it this way: “It is wonderful to have a soft, tender heart before God. But some people have softer heads than hearts. Their minds are too accommodating to wrong, unbiblical ideas, and they don’t think things through to see if they really are true or not according to the Bible. They had become “spiritually dull” to the gospel that they had accepted from Paul which proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah who had been crucified.