Have You Fallen From Grace?
Paul is speaking to the Christians in the church at Galatia. They have run into religious thinking. When I say religious, I mean it in its simplest root: to return to bondage. Religious thinking is a form of bondage.
What had happened in the church at Galatia was this, some Jewish people wanted to retain the customs and rules of the Old Covenant and apply them to the New Covenant believers. Jesus had taught that you couldn’t put new wine into old wineskins, but that was what they were trying to do.
They wanted the men to be circumcised. They wanted people to keep the food rules, to observe the feast days, to continue in repetitious coming to God seeking forgiveness, and so on. Keeping the Old Law.
Let’s see what Paul told them.
Why did the Law come?
The problem in the church today is that many are still trying to keep the Law and the rules.
We have put together this code of conduct and said that this is how a Christian should act, and this is what you are to do and not do. And if you are a “real Christian,” you won’t break the rules.
The trouble is – no one can keep the rules. Just like no one could keep the Law.
So here we are with these rules, and we judge each other by them. Then when someone doesn’t keep them, we’ve said that they are backslidden – and if they are really bad, we say they have “fallen from grace.”
In other words, they are so bad in their actions that God has given them up, and they are bound for hell. The quality of grace has been strained too far – and there is no hope for them.
We look around us and see people who have been in the church and seemed to be going along just fine in the “church game,” Then, they suddenly dropped out. They just don’t act like we think Christians should act.
I don’t know if many of you remember a TV campaign from a few years ago, but it involved an elderly lady who had fallen down in her house and was calling out, “Help! Help! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” Do you remember that one? A lot of humor was taken from it.
The commercial then told you about a signal devise you could get so that if you were to fall, you could just push the button, and help would be on its way. It was a great idea.
Another kind of incapacitation has occurred in the body of Christ today. It is not, however, a physical condition. It is a condition of the heart and the mind in those who, of all people, should know better.
These afflicted have also “fallen” like the elderly woman in the TV commercial, only theirs is not a tumble to the ground but rather a fall from grace.
When we hear that expression, we think of falling from grace as falling out of favor with God because of our sinful actions but falling from grace does not mean losing our right standing or our son-ship before God.
To say that God’s grace can be taken away from you, or forfeited by you through your actions and deeds, is to contradict the very definition of the word.
Grace is no longer grace if it is initially attained or perpetually kept through our performance.
Grace is a gift!
We didn’t earn it and can’t keep it by acting nice.
So what does it mean to fall from grace? The answer lies not in religion, not in tradition, not in how you feel about it, but in the Word of truth.
Who are these people that have fallen?
The KJV puts it this way:
Paul tells us who these people are who have fallen from grace. He declares, “when you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you fall out of grace.”
Who is it that has fallen from grace? Is it those who are not living as we think they should? Are those folks the church so frequently condemns and points the finger at? Are they the ones who have fallen?
It may surprise you to know that the answer is NO. It is the opposite.
Those who have fallen from grace are “seeking to be justified by the law”!
In other words, you’ve fallen or stopped trusting in grace.
It is a foolishness that so many have fallen into at one time or another, and it is the greatest deception that the body of Christ has ever faced.
If the grace of God is undeserved, unmerited, unearned favor with God, how can you lose it? The answer is you can’t. His grace
It was never something He rewarded you with because of your great performance. It was a gift that He lovingly bestowed upon you and then asked for nothing in return other than your thanks.
And yet the gift is much more than that. There is life and power in God’s grace from one moment to the next as we rest in it. It is His grace that is “instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age…zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:11-14)
Paul’s letter to the Galatians was not dealing with their embracing a lifestyle of illicit sex, drugs, and booze. Just the opposite was the case. These dear folks had drifted backward, thinking about the gospel to which they had once so gratefully responded. The road they were sadly traveling back down again was the road of law-keeping for righteousness.
Paul, therefore, was disappointed and perplexed.
As you read this letter to the Galatians, you will quickly see the common theme.
| Galatians 2:1212Here’s the situation. Before certain persons came from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That’s how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that’s been pushing the old system of circumcision. |
Even Peter had fallen for this trap.
So like a tenacious bulldog, Paul presses on with his mission of dispelling any notion that a man can be right with God through his performance. He reminds the people in
He feared them because they might think he was enjoying his freedom in Christ too much. He was eating non-kosher food and enjoying his fellowship with the Gentiles, all of which Law-abiding Jews were not supposed to do.
Now when Peter did that, it in turn, put others back into bondage:
| Improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.21I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, Christ died unnecessarily. |
He asks several rhetorical questions contrasting the works of the law against faith in Christ, perhaps to wake the Galatians from their foolish state of mind.
Under the Old Law, if you broke just one rule, you were guilty of them all.
| Verses 11-1211The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in the right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God is set right by God–and that’s the real life.” 12Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.” |
Think about it. Why would Paul be bringing these things up if the Galatians were standing confidently in the finished work of Calvary?
If their falling from grace was tied to sex, drugs, and booze downfall, why doesn’t he address these issues?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because it had nothing to do with their behavior. It’s because they were not standing firm in the faith. Their bondage was to work for righteousness and not to break the rules of holiness.
The deception that the Galatians had fallen for was the same one that has plagued the saints throughout history. They doubted the testimony of Paul concerning the righteousness they had in Jesus Christ.
Like so many through the ages, they were going back to the law, back to their works, in
an attempt to justify themselves before the Lord. That mindset puts you, me, and anyone else into the miserable condition of having fallen from grace.
If we don’t accept grace and it’s freedom, then we have fallen from it, we’ve missed out on its liberty.
Paul’s impassioned plea to these confused saints in the first century is his same plea to us today: 1Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. (Galatians 5:1).
Trying to work for right standing with God will do nothing but knock you down, put you on your back, and make you feel like there is no way to get up out of your misery. You’ll be like that elderly lady who said, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”
If you fall for that trap, you get right back up on your feet by renewing your mind once again on the most comforting and reassuring message ever proclaimed…the gospel of the grace of God!
| Ephesians 2:6and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, |
Because of what Christ has done for you, you are now seated on the highest mountaintop of all God has to give you. You reside on the peak of the “grace” mountain, seated in heavenly places.
no recalls. You’re stuck with the gift whether you choose to believe it, enjoy it, or not.
| $UH <RX $IUDLG 2I<RXU )UHHGRP” Freedom is frightening for those who have never known it. Paul proclaimed freedom from the law, but many have used the law as a method to control their sin (and others) for years. From our years under the law, we were conscious of our propensity to sin. But now we are pardoned and free, not only of guilt but also of shame. We are conscious of a new identity in Christ. The Word never refers to us as “sinners saved by grace”; rather, we are the saints, “holy ones” saved by grace. Will some take advantage of such generous grace? I hope so because that’s what it’s there for. We must all take advantage of it, or we have no hope of righteousness. Grace isn’t a substitution for righteousness; rather, it establishes God’s favor and acceptance for those who don’t deserve it. A sin consciousness indicates we are not walking in the truth of God’s grace. Are you still busy being conscious of your sin? You need to be conscious of God’s grace by which you enjoy unashamed fellowship with Him. Romans 6: 14 You know well enough from your own experience that some acts of so-called freedom destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God, and the freedom never quits. All your lives, you’ve let sin tell you what to do. |
Have you fallen from grace? I hope not. But if you have, you will know it because your confidence will have switched from what Jesus has done to what you are doing.
The peace and joy you once knew will be replaced by fear, anxiety, and condemnation day after day.
Why? Because your doing can never measure up to the law’s righteous requirements. You can’t even measure up to your own standards, much less those of your neighbor!
So what is the solution?
It is to believe the gospel and to rest in knowing that –
Continually remind yourself of the righteousness that is now yours in Christ Jesus. Do not give in to the temptations around you to work your way into or maintain your right standing with God through your actions.
Get up and stand fism in tke tsutk.
You ase fsee!
He has made you right, and to try to add to what He has done is to say you think He did not complete the task…and that would be what the Word calls “fallen from grace.”
There is no loftier position a person can enjoy. Your righteousness is a gift that is now yours forever. There are no exchanges, no refunds, and