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FALLING FROM GRACE

“You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4).

I was reading this text recently and had one of those “I hadn’t seen that before” moments. First, some Biblical and historical background.

Paul was writing to a number of churches in south central and eastern Asia Minor or modern day Turkey. The letter is dated somewhere around A.D. 50. There is debate as to whether the letter was written before or after the conference in Jerusalem in Acts 15. These churches are a part of his first missionary journey into that area as the apostle to the Gentiles. After hearing the gospel, some Jewish people, who became known as Judaizers, came in and emphasized that these Gentile Christians must be circumcised to be true Christians and that they were to follow the Law of Moses. They also questioned Paul’s authority as an apostle, which he addresses in Galatians 1 and 2. In chapters 3 and 4 he emphasizes the difference between the Old and the New in Christ. Then in chapters 5 and 6 he makes practical applications to this, that we live and are led by the Spirit and not by any type of law, something he emphasized throughout the book. The contrast between the law, any law, and the Spirit plays a center role in the book of Galatians.

In churches of Christ, this text has played an important role in our debates with others about being saved and lost. There is a theology that says that once a person is saved, he can never be lost no matter how he lives, called once saved always saved. Along with other texts, we believe that a Christian can “fall away” from Christ, leaving the faith and follow after worldly activities (1).

There is more to this text however. We have attempted to define what it means to fall from grace as follows. We have drawn up our unwritten laws that must be followed. Part of it comes from the view that the church is an institution and has laws that govern it. Here are some. Attendance has become a law in this way: one is “faithful” if one comes every time the door is open, but if one misses any service when they could have been present, then they have been “unfaithful” and are falling from grace. Contributions can only be given on Sundays and at no other time. We must always sit facing forward with the Lord’s Table and the pulpit in the front. Handclapping is sinful and can lead to falling from grace. A choir or a solo is against the law. The one(s) who has/have the power has/have the right to determine what a text means and if anyone disagrees with that person, then the one who disagrees is in danger of falling from grace and can be labeled a false teacher or heretic. Playing a tape of a cappella singing between Bible class and the assembly is like having a choir and therefore wrong and leads to falling from grace. Singing during the Lord’s Supper or all taking the Supper in unison is against the law as well. The type of translation one uses can be made into a law; only the King James Version is authorized to be used in teaching, reading, and preaching.

Now I realize that some of the above are more serious than others but I have heard of all of them. These unwritten laws can be multiplied. Often we do not realize that we have violated a law until it happens and then we are told and questioned about our faith. Some fear this falling from grace, so the need for all these laws. What has this all to do with our text?

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Paul uses slavery as a metaphor for use of law, any law, that binds us. Jesus summed up the Law with two commandments; love God and love one’s neighbor. Moses brought down ten commandments from God. When all was said and done, the Law of Moses consisted of 613 laws. By Jesus’ day, and for “fear” of violating those laws, the religious leaders had detailed commentaries on each law so as not to violate any of them. For instance, there were laws on washing hands before eating, when to do it and how to do it. There were laws on passing bodies laying on the road, such as seen in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Humans have the basics but for any number of reasons, such as a better understanding of or restrictions to, laws are expanded so as not to violate them. The United States started with a Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, and over two hundred years added seventeen more. Yet today, law libraries are filled with books on laws including corporate, tax, driving, flying, ownership, and every area that lawyers can get their fingers into, and many more to come.

We should not be surprised that as Christians we too have developed unwritten laws. Our freedom in Christ isn’t meant to do anything we want, to sin so that grace may abound (Romans 6:1-2). No, our freedom is to be lived in the life of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-26). Yet we have turned our freedom back into slavery. Galatians 5:2-3 refers to the issue of Paul’s day: circumcision. Verse four is important for our discussion. While we have emphasized the last part, read it again. “You who are trying to be justified by the law…” Is that not what we are trying to do when we have all these written laws? It is one thing to say that I do not like to clap during an assembly or sing during the Lord’s Supper, but it is another to bind my opinion on others (2).

What we have done is changed from one law, the Law of Moses, to another law, the unwritten laws of many in the church. We have aligned ourselves, not with Paul, but with the Judaizers of Paul’s day that were disrupting the Galatians and with the religious leaders of Israel that opposed Jesus. Surprisingly some do not think this is a problem. One person told me after preaching from Galatians that if his following laws made him a legalists, then so be it; he was perfectly happy to be one. Of course, he could then judge everyone else as wrong when they violated his “laws.” A few that I have read have stated that Jesus was not condemning the Pharisees for there legalism but for their rejection of Him as the Messiah. The legalistic ideas were perfectly acceptable to Jesus. It is amazing how we can turn things around in scripture to “justify ourselves by the law.”

When we talk about someone falling from grace, we should understand that they were/are returning to the slavery of law, whatever law it was/is. We can look at Israel in the wilderness. In almost every example of disobedience in Exodus and Numbers, Israel wanted to return to Egyptian slavery rather than accepting the freedom they had with Moses. There is a lesson in there for us. I think we have read this text in light of our debates with “once saved always saved” and not in the context of Paul’s dealing with the legalistic views that were affecting the Galatians churches. Think about it.

George B. Mearns

(1) Among some texts worth looking at are Hebrews 6:4-6; 10:26-31; some of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3; Ezekiel 18 and the nation of Israel. This doctrine of “once saved always saved” has other components, as well as how one views God and continues to be debated today.

(2) I realize that there is more to this in how one interprets scripture which is an ongoing debate today. One aspect to this is in using older translations that have made each verse stand by itself such as seen in the King James Version. Newer translations have paragraphs that give context to the discussion. I think that Galatians 5:4 has been taken out of context so as to draw the opposite conclusion that Paul had in mind.