Are you so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
All Commentaries on Galatians 3:3 Go To Galatians 3
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Here again he seasonably interposes a rebuke; time, he says, should have brought improvement; but, so far from advancing, you have even retrograded. Those who start from small beginnings make progress to higher things; you, who began with the high, have relapsed to the low. Even had your outset been carnal, your advance should have been spiritual, but now, after starting from things spiritual, you have ended your journey in that which is carnal; for to work miracles is spiritual, but to be circumcised is carnal. And after miracles you have passed to circumcision, after having apprehended the truth you have fallen back to types, after gazing on the sun you seek a candle, after having strong meat you run for milk. He says, made perfect, which means not initiated merely, but sacrificed, signifying that their teachers took and slew them like animals, while they resigned themselves to suffer what those teachers pleased. As if some captain, or distinguished man, after a thousand victories and trophies, were to subject himself to infamy as a deserter, and offer his body to be branded at the will of others.
