Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Galatians · About this commentary
Did You Suffer for Nothing
Galatians 3:4-5
4 Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain? · WEB
Two verses, and the second repeats the first question of the chapter — because Paul is willing to be told he is wrong if they can answer it.
Verse 4 asks about cost. Did you suffer so many things in vain? — and the record is that they had suffered; something had been paid for this gospel before the troublers arrived.
Then the clause that gives the verse its edge, added almost under his breath: if it is indeed in vain. Paul will not quite pronounce the sentence. He raises the possibility that everything they endured was wasted, and then declines to close it, which is more unsettling than a verdict would have been. The same hesitation appears later when he fears he may have labored over them for nothing Galatians 4:11.
Verse 5 restates the question of verse 2 with the tense moved into the present. He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you and does miracles among you — supplies, present; does, present. This is not a memory of their conversion but a description of what God is doing among them while the argument goes on.
And the question is put again in the same two terms: by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?
Repeating it is the point. Paul has not introduced new evidence between verse 2 and verse 5; he has simply asked the same thing twice, because the answer is available to anyone in the room and it settles the case. A man confident of his position can afford to ask a question he does not control the answer to.
What follows the second asking is not another question but a proof from Scripture, and it begins with Abraham.
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