CHAPTER 3
Lecture 2
2 This only would I learn of you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are you so foolish that, whereas you began in the Spirit, you would now be made perfect by the flesh?
4 Have you suffered so great things in vain? If it be yet in vain.
5 He, therefore, who giveth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you; doth he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of the faith?
Having given his rebuke, the Apostle goes on to show the insufficiency of the Law, and the power of the faith.
First, he proves the insufficiency of the Law;
Secondly, he raises a question and answers it (v. 19).
Concerning the first, he does two things:
First, he proves the deficiency and insufficiency of the Law by appealing to what they experienced;
Secondly, by authority and reasons (v. 6).
As to the first, he does two things:
First, he proves his proposition by appealing to something they experienced;
Secondly, by using something he himself experienced (v. 5).
With respect to the first, he does two things:
First, he discusses the gift they have received;
Secondly, the defect into which they have fallen (v. 3).
He discusses the gift they received by asking them from whom they received it. Hence, presupposing that they accepted the gift, he interrogates them and asks: Although you have been bewitched and are foolish, nevertheless you are not so deluded that you cannot explain to me something very obvious. Hence he says, This only would I learn of you, because this by itself is enough to prove my point; namely, it is evident that you have received the Holy Spirit. I ask, therefore, Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?
To elucidate this, it should be noted that in the early Church, by God’s providence, in order that the faith of Christ might prosper and grow, manifest signs of the Holy Spirit took place in the hearers immediately after the apostles preached the faith. Accordingly, it is said of Peter in Acts (10:44): “While Peter was yet speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word.” The Galatians, too, openly received the Holy Spirit at Paul’s preaching. The Apostle therefore asks them: Whence did they obtain the Holy Spirit? For it is obvious that it was not through the works of the Law, because, since they were Gentiles, they did not have the Law before they received the Holy Spirit. Therefore they had the Holy Spirit, i.e., the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by the hearing of faith: “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear,” which was given in the Law (for the Law was given amid tremors), “but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons,” (Rom 8:17). Therefore, if the power of the faith could do this, it is vain to seek something else by which we are saved, because it is more difficult to make the unjust just than to preserve the just in their justice. Hence if the faith had made the unjust Gentiles just without the Law, no doubt it could without the Law keep them just. Great, therefore, was the gift they had received through faith.
Then when he says, Are you so foolish that, whereas you began in the Spirit, you would now be made perfect by the flesh? he shows the defect into which they have fallen. And he amplifies a twofold defect, touching, namely, the gifts they had received from Christ and the evils they endured for Him (v. 4): Have you suffered so great things in vain?
Concerning the first, it should be noted that the Galatians, after they left what was great, namely, the Holy Spirit, adhered to something less, namely, the carnal observances of the Law—and this is foolish. Hence he says, Are you so foolish that, whereas you began under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, i.e., obtained the beginning of your perfection from the Holy Spirit, you would now, while you are more perfect, be made perfect by the flesh, i.e., do you seek to be preserved by the carnal observances of the Law from which you could acquire not even the beginning of justice? “The flesh profiteth nothing” (Jn 6:64). Thus do you pervert right order, because the path of perfection consists in going from the imperfect to the perfect. But you, because you are doing the opposite, are foolish: “A holy man continueth in wisdom as the sun; but a fool is changed as the moon” (Sir 27:12). They are as those who begin to serve God with fervor of spirit but afterwards desert to the flesh. Again, they are as Nabuchodonosor’s statute with head of gold and feet of clay (Dan. 11:32). Hence it is said: “They who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8); he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption (6:8).
Then when he says, Have you suffered so great things in vain? he amplifies their desertion by considering the evils they endured for Christ. For anyone who receives something without labor does not guard it as something precious; but that which is obtained by great effort, it is foolish to esteem lightly and not guard it. Now it was with labor and tribulation suffered at the hands of their fellow citizens that they had received the Holy Spirit. That is why he says, Have you suffered so great things in vain? As if to say: You ought not to despise so great a gift received with labor; else you have received it in vain, i.e., to no purpose, because you endured these things in order to attain to eternal life: “Tribulation worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not” (Rom 5:3). Hence, if you shut yourselves out from the door to eternal life by deserting the faith and seeking to be preserved by carnal observances, it is in vain , i.e., uselessly, that you have suffered. And I say, If it be yet in vain. He says this because it was still in their power to repent, if they willed, as long as they were alive. This shows that certain deadened works are revived: “Their labors are without fruit, and their works unprofitable” (Wis 3:11); I am afraid lest perhaps I have labored in vain among you (4:11). If this is applied to evil men who do not repent, it can be said that they suffered without cause, i.e., a cause that can confer eternal life.
Then when he says, He, therefore, who giveth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you; doth he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of the faith? he proves his proposition by appealing to his own experience. For they might say that although it is true that we received the Holy Spirit by the hearing of faith, nevertheless it was because of the devotion he had to the Law that we received the faith he preached. Hence he says: But even considering the matter not from your side but from what I have done in giving you through my ministration the Holy Spirit Who worketh miracles among you, do I do this by the works of the law or by the hearing of the faith? In truth, not by the works of the Law but by faith.
But can anyone give the Holy Spirit? For Augustine in On The Trinity (Bk. XV) says that no mere man can give the Holy Spirit, for the apostles did not give the Holy Spirit but imposed hands on men, who then received the Holy Spirit. What then does the Apostle mean when he speaks of himself as giving to you the Holy Spirit? I answer that in the giving of the Holy Spirit three things conspire in a certain order, namely, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the gift of grace and charity along with the other habits, and the sacrament of the New Law by whose administering He is given. Hence He can be given by someone in three ways.
For He can be given by someone as having authority with respect to all three, namely, in respect to the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, in respect to the gift, and in respect to the sacrament. And in this way the Holy Spirit is given by the Father and Son alone, inasmuch as they have the authority not of dominion but of origin, because He proceeds from both.
But as to the grace or gift and as to the sacraments, the Holy Spirit even gives Himself in the sense that the giving implies the causality of the Holy Spirit with respect to His gifts, because, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians (12:11): “He divides to everyone according as He wills.” But as far as the author of the giving is concerned, it is not appropriate to say that the Holy Spirit gives Himself.
But concerning the sacrament which is given by the ministry of the Church’s ministers, it can be said that holy men by administering the sacraments give the Holy Spirit. And this is the way the Apostle had in mind—the way mentioned in a Gloss. Nevertheless, this is not the usual way of putting it, and it ought not be exaggerated.
Again, a Gloss says that the performing of miracles is attributed to faith, which, because it believes in things that are above nature, operates above nature. Hence because the apostles preached the faith which contained things above reason, they should have adduced in support of their credibility some testimony that they had been sent by God—a fact which surpasses reason. Hence Christ gave them His own sign to prove thIs
Now there is a twofold sign of Christ. One is that He is the Lord of all; hence it is said: “Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages: and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations” (Ps 144:13). The other is that He is Sanctifier and Savior, according to Acts (4:12): “There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.” Accordingly, He gave them two signs: one was the power to perform miracles, so that they could show they were sent by God, the Lord of all creatures: “He gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases” (Lk 9:1). The other was that by their ministry they might give the Holy Spirit, in order to show that they had been sent by the Savior of all: “They laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:17). Of these two ways it is said in Hebrews (2:4): “God also bearing them witness by signs and wonders and divers miracles and distributions of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will.”