It was funny but not funny. A woman, who will remain nameless in case she is reading this, regularly visited the Apple Store for one-on-one help learning how to use her new MacBook. She loved her computer. It was powerful and did all she needed. On one occasion, she walked out of her appointment with another fully loaded computer—the latest iMac with all the bells and whistles. She was all smiles. My wife asked her, “What did you get that for?” She shrugged and said, “The guy at Apple made it sound like I needed it to do things better.”
My personal opinion is that you can never have enough Apple products. (No, that is not biblical nor sound advice.) She really didn’t need it. Her MacBook was more than enough. This is what sales guys do. They seduce you to buy things you don’t need to buy. This is also what Judaizers do. In fact, this is what they did to the churches in Galatia. They had all they needed in Christ, but they were being seduced into adding more. Concerned, Paul writes to them:
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.”
Galatians 3:1
Paul already sounded the alarm, “O foolish Galatians!” (Gal. 3:1). By this, he was proverbially grabbing them by shoulders and shaking them. “You know the truth! Why are you not using the truth?” Now, he presses into them further with his first of many rhetorical questions. “Who has bewitched you?”
The word “bewitched” appears only here in the New Testament. But, that doesn’t mean it was an uncommon word. In ancient times, it carried the idea of casting an evil eye on someone, charming them, or bringing them under a spell. Later, outside the Bible, the idea became associated with the “evil eye,” and some connected it with the way a snake supposedly fixed its prey with a stare before striking a deadly bite.
Paul wasn’t using the word to suggest that there was some kind of magic over them. But, he is suggesting that they are acting like they are put under a spell. They were mesmerized. Something about the false teachers and their message fascinated them enough that they stopped applying the truth to what was being taught. They turned their thinking faculties off and accepted the teaching without hesitation.
The Galatian believers heard the gospel, believed the gospel, received the Spirit, and then somehow became captivated by a message that added human works to Christ as if the gospel wasn’t enough. Paul was essentially asking them, “What in the world happened to you?”
The question itself is obviously rhetorical. Paul knew the “who” that was bewitching them. They were legalistic Judaizers. They were promoting a “different gospel” that included human works necessary for salvation (Gal. 1:6-9). Paul calls them “false brothers” having the goal to enslave the true brothers into bondage (Gal. 2:4). They taught the Galatians to observe “days and months and seasons and years” like the Jews (Gal. 4:10-17). They required “circumcision” to be “justified by the law” (Gal. 5:2-4). And they wanted to make them Jewish-practitioners so that they could avoid Jewish persecution (Gal. 6:12-13). Paul knew exactly who these kinds of people were.
Paul was emphasizing the bewitching, not the bewitchers. He wanted the Galatians to think about the seduction itself. What was so attractive about the message of these false teachers that they were willing to move away from the sufficiency of Christ? To answer that question, we need to look straight into the evil eye. But don’t worry, we won’t be hypnotized.
The Appeal of Legalism
Legalism is attractive because it gives us the impression that we can control our standing with God. Faith tells us to rest in what Christ has done. Legalism hands us a checklist. It gives us scorecards, measurements, rules, and visible accomplishments that make us feel like we can prove where we stand. We can count church attendance, Bible reading, giving, serving, ministry, discipline, knowledge, or whatever else makes us feel spiritually successful.
The problem is not that those things are bad. Most of them are good and necessary parts of Christian living. The danger comes when we ask them to carry the weight of our assurance. The moment our standing with God rests on our performance, our confidence becomes as unstable as our performance. A good week makes us feel close to God. A bad week makes us wonder whether He wants anything to do with us. Success feeds pride. Failure feeds fear. Either way, our eyes have moved from Christ to ourselves.
That is why the Galatians were in such danger. They were being tempted by something deeply religious. The Judaizers talked about obedience, holiness, circumcision, law, and belonging to the people of God. Their message sounded serious. It sounded disciplined. It probably sounded more spiritual than simple faith in Christ.
Legalism seduces us by making Christ seem like a good beginning instead of a sufficient Savior.
False teaching often works that way. Dangerous errors rarely introduce themselves as threats to faith. They arrive sounding responsible, careful, biblical, or spiritually mature. They offer what feels like an improvement. Christ is presented as a good beginning, then something more is added as the way to become complete. Paul calls that bewitching.
The gospel gives us a very different kind of assurance. Christ justifies us before God. Our confidence rests in His obedience, His righteousness, His death, His resurrection, and His promise. We obey because we belong to Him. We pursue holiness because He has saved us. We serve, give, pray, read Scripture, gather with the church, and put sin to death because we are His. Those things are the fruit of our acceptance with God, never the foundation of it. Christ remains the foundation.
So Paul asks, “Who has bewitched you?” It is a question worth asking ourselves. What kind of religious message tempts you to move your confidence away from Christ? What makes you feel more secure than the promise of God? What scorecard are you tempted to keep? What performance do you quietly use to reassure yourself that you are doing well with God? Those questions expose where our confidence is resting.
The seduction of legalism begins when something makes Christ seem insufficient. That is why Paul immediately reminds the Galatians of what had been placed before their eyes, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Gal. 3:1). The answer to legalism is to look again at Christ. That is where we will go next.