<p>3:1- see on Rom. 1:18; Gal. 4:16.</p><p><i>O foolish Galatians Who has bewitched you?</i>- Literally, 'cast the evil eye over you'. Paul didn't surely believe in such things, but like the Lord Jesus, he uses the language of the day without as it were footnoting the fact he doesn't literally believe in those things. Paul is writing to those who thought they were now going to be saved by obedience to the Jewish law. But Judaism taught that obedience to the Law shielded Judaists from the 'evil eye' and magic spells. Paul is saying that the opposite is, as it were, the case. They had been &quot;bewitched&quot; to return to the Law, and were thus under, as it were, the curse which comes to those who seek justification by it. He goes right on to talk about the &quot;curse of the law&quot; and how believers in Christ are saved from this (Gal. 3:10,13). His references to salvation from this &quot;curse&quot; must be read in the context of this opening play on the idea of being bewitched or under a curse.</p><p><i>It was before your own eyes that Jesus Christ was openly</i><i> displayed as crucified</i>- Gk. 'placarded'. When Paul preached to the Galatians, he placarded forth Jesus Christ crucified in front of them: his preaching of the Gospel involved a repeated and graphic portrayal of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth as a historical event (Gal. 3:1). We are &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; to the extent that we <i>are</i> Christ to this world. In this sense He has in this world no arms or legs or face than us. Paul was a placarding of Christ crucified before the Galatians; to the Corinthians he was &ldquo;the face of Christ&rdquo; (2 Cor. 2:10 RSV). It was this marred visage of Paul which had impressed the Galatians with how much Paul was Christ-manifest: &ldquo;Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus&rdquo; (Gal. 4). He could truly say in Gal 2:20: &ldquo;I am crucified with Christ&rdquo;, and that before their eyes &ldquo;Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth &lsquo;placarded&rsquo;, crucified among you&hellip; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus&rdquo; (Gal. 3:1; 6:17). Thus to preach through cross carrying means sharing in the Lord&rsquo;s sufferings. It may mean being crucified by our brethren for it as He was, physical hardship and pain&hellip;&nbsp; but this is the ground of credibility for our witness.</p><p>It seems that Paul had gone through the process of crucifixion with them so realistically, that it was as if Christ had suffered before their eyes. If you have seen that, Paul says, and the vision remains with you, how can you turn away? And this is a powerful motivator for us too. The man who sees, really sees, something of the Lord's agony, simply won't turn away, doctrinally or practically. But if we turn away from the consideration, the motivation will not be there to keep on responding. In this sense the crucifixion record <i>almost</i> has a mystical power in it, if it is properly apprehended. Thus Paul could tell the Galatians that in him they had seen Jesus Christ placarded forth, crucified before their own eyes (3:1). Paul knew that when people looked at his life, they saw something of the crucifixion of the Lord. The Galatians therefore accepted him &quot; even as Christ Jesus&quot; (Gal. 4:14). He could describe his own preaching as &ldquo;this Jesus, whom I preach unto you&hellip;&rdquo; (Acts 17:3), as if Jesus was right there before their eyes, witnessed through Paul. As the Lord was Paul&rsquo;s representative, so Paul was Christ&rsquo;s. The idea of representation works both ways: we see in the Gospel records how the Lord experienced some things which only we have; and we show aspects of His character to the world which nobody else can manifest.</p><p>If we can rise up to all this, placarding forth the Lord's crucifixion sufferings in our lives, then there will be a power and credibility to our preaching which will be hard to resist. It was before the eyes of the Galatians that they saw in Paul, Jesus Christ crucified (Gal. 3:1). But the only other reference to the eyes of the Galatians is in Gal. 4:15- where we read that they had been so transfixed by Paul's preaching that they had been ready to pluck out their eyes. And where's the only other reference to plucking out eyes? It's in the Lord's teaching, where He says that if our eye offends us, we should pluck it out Mt. 5:29- same Greek words used. The connection is surely this: Paul's personal reflection of the crucified Jesus was so powerful, so compellingly real and credible, that it motivated his hearers to rise up to the spirit of the very hardest demands of the moral teaching of that same Jesus. Insofar as we genuinely live out the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, our preaching of His radical moral demands will likewise be heeded. The crucified Christ that Paul placarded before their eyes was &quot; the truth&quot; (Gal. 3:1; 4:14-16); and the integrity and reality of that truth was confirmed by the congruence between the example of Paul, and the reality of the crucified Jesus whom he manifested to them. In Paul's body language, in his character, in his response to problems and frustrations great and small, in the way he coped with physical weakness, his audience somehow saw the crucified Christ. In the same letter, Paul reminds the Galatians how they had initially seen him preaching to them in a weak bodily state, and had seen Christ in him then (Gal. 4:13,14). He says in Gal. 3:1 that they saw Christ crucified in him. Perhaps the way Paul handled a sickness or bodily weakness which he then had, somehow reflected to his audience the spirit of Christ crucified.</p><p>The effort we should consciously make to allow the life of Christ to be lived in us, is a natural outflow of the basic doctrine: that Christ was our representative. If we love Him and the record of His life, we will see in Him and His living the essence of our own: the same betrayal, barriers with His family and all close relationships, the pouring out of the love of God to a world and people who misunderstood, who thought they understood but didn&rsquo;t, who were blind, who thought they saw, who only broke from the petty materialism of their lives to listen to Him because they thought they might get some personal benefit&hellip;all the time, He poured out His grace and the Father&rsquo;s love. And He kept on to the final unspeakable, unwriteable, unenterable agony at the end. And even there, we sense He was not gritting His teeth trying to be patient, trying not to sin&hellip;He was pulsating with a love for men, a care for Pilate (comforting him that another had a greater sin); concern for the women who wept crocodile tears, that they might really repent; praying for forgiveness for those who knew not i.e., fully what they did; preaching to the thieves in whispers, each word taking an agony of pain, heaving Himself up on the nails to get the air to speak it&hellip; To love one&rsquo;s neighbour as oneself is to fulfil the law (Gal. 5:14; Rom. 13:10); and yet the Lord&rsquo;s death was the supreme fulfilment of it (Mt. 5:18; Col. 2:14). Here was the definition of love for one&rsquo;s neighbour. Not a passing politeness and occasional seasonal gift, whilst secretly and essentially living the life of self-love and self-care; but the love and the death of the cross, for His neighbours as for Himself; laying down His life &ldquo;for himself that it might be for us&rdquo; in the words of Bro. Roberts. In Him, in His time of dying, we see the definition of love, the fulfilment of the justice and unassuming kindness and thought for others which was taught in the Mosaic Law. And we through bearing one another&rsquo;s burdens, through bearing with their moral and intellectual and spiritual failures, must likewise fulfil the law, in a voluntary laying down of our lives for each other (Gal. 6:2). And in this, as with the Lord, will be our personal salvation.</p><div align=center><table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=100%>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td>                        </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table></div><p>1 Cor. 11:26 AVmg. makes the act of breaking bread a command, an imperative to action: &ldquo;As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, shew ye the Lord&rsquo;s death, till he come&quot;. If we are going to eat the emblems, it is axiomatic that we will commit ourselves to shewing forth His death to the world, like Paul placarding forth Christ crucified in our lives (Gal. 3:1 Gk.). The Passover likewise had been a &lsquo;shewing&rsquo; to one&rsquo;s family &ldquo;that which the Lord did unto me&quot; (Ex. 13:8), the redemption we have experienced.</p>