Galatians 3:5

The appeal by which the Apostle sought to check the defection of his thoughtless converts was not only an appeal to their past experience, when first they listened to his own preaching, but also to their present experience of facts that they saw actually going on among them. The first great outpouring of the Spirit, both in its miraculous and non-miraculous forms, though checked, had not entirely ceased; and the Galatians might thus see, simply by looking around them, that the channel which God chose for conveying His gifts was not that upon which the Judaisers insisted — the Law — but rather the preaching of faith. Where the faith implanted by the Apostle’s preaching still showed signs of vital growth, there the gifts of the Spirit were seen in connection with it; but not amongst the Judaisers and their party.

Therefore. — This word takes up again the question which had been started in Galatians 3:2, but brings it down, as it were, to the present time. The opposition between the effects of faith, on the one hand, and works, on the other, was conspicuous when the Galatians were first converted; it is as conspicuous still. The argument is the same, whichever standpoint is assumed.

Ministereth. — The notion contained in this word is not only that of “supply,” but of “liberal supply.” At Athens it was the custom for wealthy citizens to bear the cost of bringing out the chorus — which was practically equivalent to putting a play upon the stage — at the great public feasts. The word translated “ministereth” was the technical term for this. The same word is used in 2 Corinthians 9:10; Colossians 2:19; 2 Peter 1:5; 2 Peter 1:11. In three out of the four places it is rendered by the same word “minister;” in 2 Peter 1:5 it appears in the phrase “add to your faith virtue” (rather, furnish forth in your faith virtue — i.e., “let your faith prompt you to abundant acts of virtue”). “He that ministereth” is, of course, God.

Worketh miracles among you. — The Greek means not so much “causes miracles to be wrought in your midst” as “implants in you miraculous powers.” The power to work miracles is regarded as a special faculty bestowed by God upon individual Christians. The means by which they become receptive of it is that enthusiastic condition aroused in them by faith. Mere formal obedience to a written law had no such efficacy.