Falling From Grace

“Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by law; you have fallen from grace”,
Galatians 5:4.

Think about that for a minute.  Have you wondered about the exact meaning of this scripture?  What could Paul be talking about here?  Keep in mind, when interpreting scripture we need to know what happened before and after a particular verse.  In this case, Paul starts off with Galatians 5:1 by saying, “Stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made you free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage”.  So we can see from this that Paul starts off talking about freedom.  Keep this in mind as we dig deeper into the issue of Grace.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor. My favorite definition of grace is God giving us something that we do not deserve. When we hated God, He loved us and poured out his grace on us by sending his son Christ Jesus to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. (John 3:16)  We did not deserve his grace, but he gave it to us anyway.  “Even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved;” Ephesians 2:5.”By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God”, Ephesians 2:8.

Grace is motivated by love. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich,” 2 Corinthians 8:9.  Grace is an attitude and it results in giving.  Grace is an action word.  Another definition of grace is God’s ability.  “My grace is sufficient”, God told Paul when he was suffering with a thorn in the flesh.  God’s power is what we desire in our lives and that power is his grace.  When we are weak, then He can be strong in us when we allow his grace, his ability to take over. Our strength comes from him.  We can experience this strength only when we humble ourselves.

Grace comes when we realize how helpless we are, and we cry out to God for grace.  Often times we ask for mercy.  Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve, and we need mercy.  But we need to learn to ask for grace.  Ask God for his ability to handle life’s circumstances.  God your grace is sufficient for me while in the storms of life.  You can handle this, I cannot.  Grace has nothing to do with your ability.  It is all God.  If  your ability was all that, then you would not need God’s Grace.  Either we utilize God’s grace or we utilize our own ability.  We can’t have them both.  “But he giveth more grace.  Wherefore he saith God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble”, James 4:6.

Now back to Galatians 5:4.  When we enter into the kingdom of God, we have accepted the grace of God, in the person of Christ Jesus.  Only a person that is saved by grace can fall away from grace.  Fallen mean you have given up grace.  In verses 2 and 3 Paul is talking about keeping the law.  When we try to keep the law we turn our backs on grace.  The law brings bondage because we are not able to keep it. “…the strength of sin is the law”, 1 Corinthians 15:56a.  Freedom comes with the grace of God.  Falling away from grace is moving from freedom in Christ Jesus to being bound by the law again.  We should live as free men and women and not as slaves to the law. The Galatians wanted to go back to the old way of pleasing God but it was displeasing to him because they were ignoring the new and improved way to please him.