Gal. 5:4-6; Eph. 2:14-16, Falling from Grace

Continuing seven consequences if I try to grow in Christ by law-keeping.

3.    5:4: You become estranged from Christ.  In the NKJV the term “estranged” may not be best to convey the meaning.  The Greek word means “to render idle, unemployed, to inactivate, to be inoperative.”  Rom. 4:14 speaks on a similar theme, using this same word: For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect.  In Romans Paul is saying that, if law-keeping is the way to receive the promise, then faith becomes empty and the promise won’t work.  If we grow by law-keeping, then we are in a system of work and wages; we are not receiving a promise.  In Galatians it is just as profound: if we are justified by law-keeping, then Christ came for nothing; His death and resurrection did nothing. 

a.     Before we move on, Paul uses the same word to tell us why Christ did, in fact, come.  In Rom. 6:6 he says, our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.  In other words, faith in the crucified and resurrected Lord results in the body of sin being rendered ineffective.  Thanks to Christ, who came to destroy the works of the devil, He has taken away our sins (1 John 3:5-8).

b.    And here is another glorious thought.  According to Eph. 2:14-16 Christ abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commands that separated Jew and Gentile from God.  The term “abolished” is this same word: He rendered it ineffective.  By reconciling both to God the two could be reconciled to each other also.

4.    5:4: you have fallen from grace.  We are considering people who advocate law-keeping as essential to spiritual growth.  Paul says the way you are justified (i.e. by faith) is the way you grow spiritually; there are no two ways.  Those who are profited nothing by Christ and who render Christ ineffective can also be said to have fallen from grace; they are not seeking to be saved by faith but by works.  If you “fall” you fall out of or down from somewhere.  The churches to whom Paul writes, whom he knew well, had received Christ by faith; faith is how one is saved by grace (Eph. 2:8-9).  If they adopt law-keeping to grow in their salvation they are no longer living by faith; thus they have fallen from grace. 

a.     This phrase is often used by believers who teach you can lose your salvation, that if you commit enough sins or disavow Christ, that you lose it.  That is not what Paul is saying here.  “Falling from grace” is something a believer does when he turns to the self-effort of the flesh as his plan for spiritual growth.

There is much room for reflecting on the nature of our own approach to daily living for Christ.