Galatians 3:1

It is folly to mix law and grace. The Galatians were behaving as though they were under some kind of spell and not in full use of their rational faculties. Paul had drawn graphic word pictures of Jesus Christ crucified as their substitute when he had been among them, and they had understood the gospel.

To bring them to their senses Paul asked four more questions of them in Galatians 3:2-5. He probably intended his introductory rhetorical question in this verse as a rebuke. [Note: F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, §146.2.] Fools in Scripture are people who disregard God’s revelation (cf. Psalms 14:1; Luke 24:25).

". . . Paul regards his Galatian converts as having unwittingly come under the spell-the hypnotic effect-of the false teachers . . ." [Note: Fung, p. 129.]

The public portrayal of Christ crucified (Gr. perfect participle estauromenos, crucified with continuing results) probably refers to the fact of Jesus’ death as the crucial event in salvation history. It probably does not refer to some description of the crucifixion that Paul or someone else had presented to them nor to Christ as presently still crucified in some sense. [Note: Ibid.] The Galatians would not have found false teaching attractive if they had truly appreciated the major significance of Jesus’ crucifixion.

"The suggestion is that anyone with spiritual perception ought to be able to see the impossibility of legal efforts to save a man. This idea Paul proceeds to develop." [Note: Guthrie, Galatians, p. 91.]