15 Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. 16 So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
Poignant questions, the two in our passage for today. Paul had a proclivity to penetrating, challenging interrogations. He recalls to them the “sense of blessing” they had experienced when he was with them for the first time—the joy of salvation, their first love (see Rev 2:4). Their overwhelmingly positive experience at Paul’s ministry among them was such that they would gladly have sacrificed their own eyesight for his.
What’s that all about? One suggestion is that Paul may have had noticeably weak eyesight. We do know that he had some sort of limitation, a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7). Although he never reveals what exactly that was, it may very well have been damaged eyes from his many beatings. After all, he had been whipped five times, beaten too often to count and stoned frequently (2 Cor 11:23-24). One time was so severely they left him for dead. (Acts 14:19). Surely he must have had lingering physical effects.
Whether or not poor eyesight was the cause for their sacrificial attitude toward him, Paul was calling them back to their first joy in the message of salvation and their love for him. He was the source of their blessing, that is, he was the beloved messenger that brought the good news of the fulfillment of God’s promise to bless the whole world through Abraham’s descendant. The promise came before and apart from the Law of Moses. There was salvation for the Gentiles with the supreme Creator God of the universe. And they didn’t have to become Jews in order to receive the blessing of salvation!
Despite their initial experience, the Galatians had come to think of him as their enemy. How could this have happened? Evidently, someone had “bewitched you” (Galatians 3:1). Who were these people? On the face of it, Peter (whom Paul calls Cephas) influenced them by his example. Paul had charged him, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2:14). Actions speak as loud as words! Yet, Peter himself was influenced (bewitched?) by “certain men from James …the party of the circumcision” (Galatians 2:12). Paul had not changed, the message had not changed. But the circumcision party was trying to change the gospel and the Galatians believed that lie. Their enemy was not Paul, but those who taught a different gospel.
Lord, I am still holding on to the message of salvation that brought me forgiveness, restoration and eternal life—by grace alone, through faith aline.
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