Concerning Galatians 5:4

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

Last week I encountered a stumbling block in our sermon text that threw me for a loop and upset my weekly preaching routine. I spent much more time in prayer and study and conversation with others than I typically do around a particular text. And I still don’t know if I adequately addressed it on Sunday.

We are preaching through Galatians here at GCR Church and for the past two months I’ve been comparing the circumcision issue that was dividing those Christians then to the legalistic lines we draw in the sand around our own issues that separate Christians and groups of Christians today. In Galatia, the Jewish Christians were telling the Gentile Christians that if they truly want to be saved, if they really want the full benefits of God’s salvation and citizenship in God’s Kingdom, they have to become like Jews. All Christians have to be circumcised, they must keep the Jewish holy days and feasts, they have to observe the food laws and cleanliness codes–they must become “like us.” That is the issue the apostle Paul is addressing in Galatians. He goes to great lengths in lots of different ways to assert that no one is saved by observing the law, we are all only saved by God’s grace and our faith in Jesus Christ. We are saved by Christ alone. If you add anything to Christ alone, if you require anything more than faith in Christ alone, Paul writes that you are “turning to a different Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all.”

So, I’ve used plenty of examples in our sermons the past two months from my own experiences with the legalistic and sectarian churches of my upbringing. Our insistence that all Christians must worship like us and believe like us and baptize like us and eat the Lord’s Supper like us in order to be authentic Christians is divisive at best and, at worst, heresy. I’ve been comparing the first century Jewish food laws and circumcision rituals to our current day church structures and practices, our distinct worship styles and baptism methods and Lord’s Supper frequency, and our denominational names and titles and furnishings in our buildings.

If those comparisons are accurate–I absolutely believe they are–what do we do now with Galatians 5:4?

“You who are trying to be justified by law have been separated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” 

I know tons of Christians who are legalistic and sectarian. I’m related to a lot of these people; I love all these people. These wonderful people still insist on their Church of Christ distinctives and still enforce their Church of Christ traditions as part of what saves people. They believe and practice their rules and laws as critically connected to their salvation and their standing with God. So they still judge and condemn those outside their distinctives and traditions as unsaved. They refuse to call other Christians brothers or sisters in Christ. They don’t acknowledge their place in “The Church.” So, what about legalistic Christians? Are they not saved?

“You who are trying to be justified by law have been separated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” 

I really wrestled with that verse last week. I had a very tough time with it. I read what the apostle writes here by the Holy Spirit and it sounds really cut and dried, very clear. But I know God’s matchless love and his amazing grace is more than enough to cover me in my continued missteps and misunderstandings. I certainly don’t have everything all figured out. I’m not doing everything exactly right. And all of it is covered by God’s grace. Praise him!

I know God’s character. I know God’s history and his will and his heart. That same divine love and mercy and grace that covers me in my mistakes covers all those who confess Jesus as Lord in their mistakes. I know that. Yes!

But Galatians 5:4 is hard.

I consulted twice as many commentaries as I normally do during the week, but few of them even acknowledged my question. The couple that did referred back to Galatians 1:8-9 in which Paul writes that anybody preaching something other than Christ alone should be eternally condemned. He says it twice!

Well, yeah, I’ve known Paul was serious about this from the opening lines of the letter. This is a big salvation issue. If you’re insisting that others follow the law by keeping your traditions and the law’s rules in order to be saved, you’re not preaching the Good News. You’re distorting the truth. You’re dividing God’s Church. You’re condemned. Severed from Christ. Fallen from grace. Damned. Is Paul saying the same thing in both places? It’s the same letter to the same people about the same issue. I remember being very gung-ho about it during the first two sermons and since. But it just hit me differently last week.

I think maybe we’ve spent the past two months applying this to some of our specific issues: church structures, worship styles, denominational differences, women’s roles, spiritual gifts, baptism methods–all that stuff. And I think maybe I’ve preached myself into a corner so that legalism is an unforgivable sin. Legalism puts a Christian outside the grace of God. But, particularly my definition of your legalism. Your legalism according to my understandings. So, that can’t be right. I know there are plenty of sincere Christians who would view my “Gospel convictions” on things like the necessity of baptism or the sacramental function of the communion meal as “legalism.” So, how do we understand Galatians 5:4? And how do I preach it?

In addition to my extra prayers and study last week, I discussed this with just about anyone who would listen. I spent two full innings talking about this with Barry Thomas at a RockHounds game on Tuesday. I ambushed a lunch with Greg Anderson on Thursday to get his opinions. I changed the subject in a conversation with Jim Tuttle last week from the Cowboys to Galatians 5:4!

Here are the things we considered:

This verse is in the context of the freedom we have in Christ. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. This freedom is a gift, it’s a grace. Unmerited, undeserved, impossible to earn grace. Grace is something that’s given to us that we, in turn, must receive. And, the phrase “fallen from grace” might mean something different to us and me in our Church of Christ settings than it does to other Christians. I instinctively understand “fallen from grace” as no longer saved. Other Christians in many other traditions understand grace as extra blessings not directly tied to one’s salvation. Maybe. Either way, the very next verse affirms that the righteousness we seek only comes from God’s Spirit and it won’t arrive in its fullness until the day of glory. We’re waiting. If you seek righteousness or salvation by observing the rules and laws, you are cutting yourself off from the freedom that God desires for you. God’s not separating from you, you are separating from him or, more specifically, his gift of freedom.

Here’s how I preached it:

Paul says if you go down that path, you’re cutting yourself off from Jesus, from his gift, from his grace, from his freedom. When you’re holding on to the rules and the laws, your hands can’t be open to receive God’s grace, your heart can’t be open to receive this freedom in Christ. The rules and laws can’t save you. So, when you hold on tight to the rules and laws and you base your salvation on the rules and laws, you live with a guilt you were never meant to have. You carry a burden you were never intended to carry. You experience an uncertainty you were never meant to have. All that is the exact opposite of freedom! Or, even worse, you get real judgy about people who don’t keep your rules and laws or they don’t keep the rules and laws the way you keep the rules and laws and it hardens your heart and, eventually, sucks all the love right out of your soul. 

Praise God, we have been freed from all that! You and I have been freed from a tight-fisted, closed-minded, hard-hearted religion! God has freely lavished on us his amazing and matchless grace that saves us. We respond to his grace in faith, a complete and unreserved confidence in the goodness of God and his eternal promises. And the result of that grace and faith is freedom–freedom to love, freedom to serve, freedom to give and forgive, freedom to accept others and worship God and live every hour of every day with supreme assurance and joy! To seek justification by observing the law or keeping the rules just right separates you from that very life of freedom Christ died to provide for you. 

That’s how it ended up Sunday. Again, I’m still not sure I fully addressed it. But I praise God for his grace and I trust every Sunday that he places his proclaimed Word exactly where he needs it to go.

Peace,

Allan