The Spirit Received by Faith

Paul asks the Galatians to remember their own experience. Christ crucified had been publicly portrayed before them, they had received the Spirit, and God was still supplying the Spirit and working power among them. His repeated question is whether this came from “works of the law” or from “the hearing of faith.” The argument shifts from Paul’s biography to the Galatians’ own story: what God began by the Spirit cannot be completed by returning to the flesh.