Galations 5:4-7
- Thread starter Jorge
- Start date
- Status
Jorge,
I am going to use your outline by way of reply.
Grace according to Paul is God's benevolent bestowal of a right-relation with him, through the ministry of Christ, by means of covenant, whereby those so enfolded in his love are adopted and made permanent citizens of his kingdom, who deserved nothing at all but his wrath and curse. These he will shepherd and convey into his presence with joy on account of their union with Christ, his perfect righteousness being the sole ground of their reception from the moment he justified them through faith. Such sanctification as they know in this life will vindicate them before men and angels; but cannot change his regard for them who are already loved "in him," Eph.1:3-14.
Those who have fallen from grace are they who, after acquaintance with the "God saves helpless sinners" doctrine of the Bible, and possibly professing delight in it and acceptance of it for a time, nevertheless end up abandoning it by any defection--from total denial of helplessness; to adding "helpful" efforts to God's work, by which they aim to earn a measure of his favor.
Here are some other thoughts (sermon notes) of mine on the passage (excluding v7)
I am going to use your outline by way of reply.
A. Paul is addressing the Galatian church, which body should ideally be all believers; but realistically contains some settled believers and some who may be moving in one direction or another, either toward or away from true faith in Christ. Some of those latter might better be called true but weak (unsteady, immature) believers; but we can't tell the quality of such faith, until it appears more settled and well-rooted, or gone clean away.
B. This church was under a strong assault by false teaching, and from the human perspective--our perspective--no one is "safe" from all effects of error. Paul writes to defend and recover as much of the body of the faithful as he is able.
C. For the predominately Gentile church of Galatia to adopt as necessary-to-a-proper-relationship-with-God the rite of circumcision: would be to add work to faith. It would also be the camel's-nose-in-the-tent for urging the whole Law of Moses upon Christians. For the Judaizers, it was fine for the Gentiles to begin by faith, but those same Gentiles needed to finish by works, by aligning to one degree or another with Moses. Paul regarded this or any corruption of the pure gospel-of-grace as "falling away," as apostasy from Christ. Jesus+ is not trust in Jesus alone, and therefore equals not-trusting-Jesus, period.
D. The question of how apostasy happens, or what apostasy means, is one of the deep questions of our religion, and it contains mystery that imposes limits on how far even the most penetrating mind can venture safely. The Galatian church's original, Pauline doctrine was salvation by grace alone. This is the pure "grace" from which a new doctrine would be a "fall." Now, those who stayed true to the doctrine of pure grace would show themselves (on this point) to be true believers. While those who fell away from the truth would show themselves to lack a firm, unwavering commitment to the doctrine Paul taught them.
The benefit of good doctrine is that its effect is to make over time even more firm the faith of those who hear it. It is God's means of preserving his elect in their faith, so that it will not be blown about by every wind of false teaching. The harm of bad doctrine is that its effect is to erode faith in the truth, preventing strengthening of faith and undermining commitment to full and exclusively biblical religion. If those who succumb to bad doctrine are not recovered (and recovery was Paul's aim toward some who heard his letter), they will "lose salvation," a salvation which they had only half-grasped in the first place.
E/F. (your letters jump) Here, I find the most difficulty with your formulation. In the first place, the "umbrella" analogy does not do justice to the salvation and protection we have in Christ. Biblical analogies include the ark of Noah and passing through the Red Sea--moments that, once a person was safe in or through, were not reversible. The ark's door was open, until God shut those few in who were called aboard. The Red Sea closed over the enemies of Israel, while those who came through on dry ground were delivered. The "umbrella" analogy invites the thought experiment: How convenient, if I should simply step out of this shelter.
In the second place, your proposal (as stated) ties salvation to individual performance, to "following" Christ's guidelines or tenets. A prior question now presents: guidelines/tenets, are they laws, and commandments? Are they doctrines, and practices? In other words, is the choice of the term "guidelines" already a softening of the biblical demand for PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS and CONFORMITY to the divine will? See, if we consider Christ's NT words to demand anything less than absolute fidelity, we are claiming that the NT standard is lower than the OT standard. But Jesus, Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews (to name a few) all enforce one, irreducible, holy standard.
In fact, it is central to Paul's argument for the whole book of Galatians that salvation is not to be tied to individual works of any kind, neither before faith nor after it, Gal.3:3. In fact, it is later in ch.5 where, as he moves to a brief discussion of the place of works in a believer's life, he explicitly defines them as "fruits of the SPIRIT," as opposed to essentially human works. Grace is not divine provision of the way of life whereby, by finding one's way in and then minding the limits (be they viewed as generous or narrow), one must make his way to the gate of heaven. Under those rules, only once arrived is one judged worthy of glory. We need to understand: they who are "fallen from grace" have not simply lost their way. They've given up salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.
B. This church was under a strong assault by false teaching, and from the human perspective--our perspective--no one is "safe" from all effects of error. Paul writes to defend and recover as much of the body of the faithful as he is able.
C. For the predominately Gentile church of Galatia to adopt as necessary-to-a-proper-relationship-with-God the rite of circumcision: would be to add work to faith. It would also be the camel's-nose-in-the-tent for urging the whole Law of Moses upon Christians. For the Judaizers, it was fine for the Gentiles to begin by faith, but those same Gentiles needed to finish by works, by aligning to one degree or another with Moses. Paul regarded this or any corruption of the pure gospel-of-grace as "falling away," as apostasy from Christ. Jesus+ is not trust in Jesus alone, and therefore equals not-trusting-Jesus, period.
D. The question of how apostasy happens, or what apostasy means, is one of the deep questions of our religion, and it contains mystery that imposes limits on how far even the most penetrating mind can venture safely. The Galatian church's original, Pauline doctrine was salvation by grace alone. This is the pure "grace" from which a new doctrine would be a "fall." Now, those who stayed true to the doctrine of pure grace would show themselves (on this point) to be true believers. While those who fell away from the truth would show themselves to lack a firm, unwavering commitment to the doctrine Paul taught them.
The benefit of good doctrine is that its effect is to make over time even more firm the faith of those who hear it. It is God's means of preserving his elect in their faith, so that it will not be blown about by every wind of false teaching. The harm of bad doctrine is that its effect is to erode faith in the truth, preventing strengthening of faith and undermining commitment to full and exclusively biblical religion. If those who succumb to bad doctrine are not recovered (and recovery was Paul's aim toward some who heard his letter), they will "lose salvation," a salvation which they had only half-grasped in the first place.
E/F. (your letters jump) Here, I find the most difficulty with your formulation. In the first place, the "umbrella" analogy does not do justice to the salvation and protection we have in Christ. Biblical analogies include the ark of Noah and passing through the Red Sea--moments that, once a person was safe in or through, were not reversible. The ark's door was open, until God shut those few in who were called aboard. The Red Sea closed over the enemies of Israel, while those who came through on dry ground were delivered. The "umbrella" analogy invites the thought experiment: How convenient, if I should simply step out of this shelter.
In the second place, your proposal (as stated) ties salvation to individual performance, to "following" Christ's guidelines or tenets. A prior question now presents: guidelines/tenets, are they laws, and commandments? Are they doctrines, and practices? In other words, is the choice of the term "guidelines" already a softening of the biblical demand for PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS and CONFORMITY to the divine will? See, if we consider Christ's NT words to demand anything less than absolute fidelity, we are claiming that the NT standard is lower than the OT standard. But Jesus, Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews (to name a few) all enforce one, irreducible, holy standard.
In fact, it is central to Paul's argument for the whole book of Galatians that salvation is not to be tied to individual works of any kind, neither before faith nor after it, Gal.3:3. In fact, it is later in ch.5 where, as he moves to a brief discussion of the place of works in a believer's life, he explicitly defines them as "fruits of the SPIRIT," as opposed to essentially human works. Grace is not divine provision of the way of life whereby, by finding one's way in and then minding the limits (be they viewed as generous or narrow), one must make his way to the gate of heaven. Under those rules, only once arrived is one judged worthy of glory. We need to understand: they who are "fallen from grace" have not simply lost their way. They've given up salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.
Grace according to Paul is God's benevolent bestowal of a right-relation with him, through the ministry of Christ, by means of covenant, whereby those so enfolded in his love are adopted and made permanent citizens of his kingdom, who deserved nothing at all but his wrath and curse. These he will shepherd and convey into his presence with joy on account of their union with Christ, his perfect righteousness being the sole ground of their reception from the moment he justified them through faith. Such sanctification as they know in this life will vindicate them before men and angels; but cannot change his regard for them who are already loved "in him," Eph.1:3-14.
Those who have fallen from grace are they who, after acquaintance with the "God saves helpless sinners" doctrine of the Bible, and possibly professing delight in it and acceptance of it for a time, nevertheless end up abandoning it by any defection--from total denial of helplessness; to adding "helpful" efforts to God's work, by which they aim to earn a measure of his favor.
Here are some other thoughts (sermon notes) of mine on the passage (excluding v7)
RJ Spencer
Puritan Board Freshman
This seems to be a text that Presbyterians will rightly understand and many Credo folks will miss. Paul is writing to the visible church in Galatia, not to the invisible church. Therefore what he writes here is in regards to those that are externally a part of the Church, they are not in the church externally. This verse is not about "losing salvation", it is a warning to those that are externally in the covenant that if they continue down the path that they are heading that they will never be admitted into the internal covenant.
Rev. Bruce nailed it again!
Rev. Bruce nailed it again!
Thank you, Jorge, for (I trust) that mutual aim we share of understanding the Word of God, and proclaiming and teaching it to others.
I appreciate the challenge of internet communication, and what can happen when we try to put our thoughts into written form, for strangers to read, when we are most used (perhaps) to the familiar and conversational vocal exchanges that occur when face to face. So, I grant your intent was better than your attempt.
That said, please do consider how certain doctrines, so firmly established besides vital and foundational, even though they have the clearest expression in some other passage still helpfully guard us from serious errors of interpretation in another place such as lies before us.
But God never had that mistaken impression: i.e. that he thought he held them so they might never slip his grasp (Jn.10:28-30), but yet they somehow wriggled free. No, God remains completely free of all illusions, as to knowing who his sheep are and which sheep know him, Jn.10:27. All whom the Father gives the Son will come to him, he will lose none of them (to falling away, or stolen away), but will raise every one of them on the Last Day to everlasting life, Jn.6:37-40.
But we don't have an unmistakable impression, but a very fallible one. So what we deal with are the members of Christ's church. We treat with those who make profession of faith. What faith? Faith in the saving gospel of divine grace for helpless sinners. We deal with the outward expressions of the claims men make to possessing the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And when they corrupt their expression of the faith, then we see and judge it cannot be the pure, incorruptible faith. They fall away from the purifying vision, 1Jn.3:2-3, in order that they should manifest the fact they did not belong with us who remain, 1Jn.2:19.
This is the best most consistent way, then, to regard Paul's sense when he uses the term "fallen from grace." Those who embrace "justification by law," if they should continue unchecked in any such dangerous, heretical theology (no matter the form), have separated from the true gospel, meaning they have separated from Christ who is God's Gift to us, our righteousness/justification (1Cor.1:30), apart from the law, Rom.3:21, cf. Jer.23:6. Previous to this apostasy, we had every hope their embrace of justification by faith was the genuine article.
Perhaps they deny they have fallen from grace. They redefine grace so their corrupt version sounds acceptable, even preferable to the pure apostolic definition. They smear the pure definition as an antinomian counterfeit, ala the accusation against Paul, reported in Rom.6:1&15. When we reply, "No, but you have fallen away," it is not a claim that they just seem to have apostatized; they really have done so. We aren't intending to make a claim about their existential condition, or whether they are elect or not. We are saying: Compared to an objective definition of the doctrine of salvation by grace, to embrace any alternative is a defection, a separation from grace as the answer to man's need.
And, of course, if someone should really maintain that position, and fail to come back (repent) and hold fast to the pure gospel of grace--since we are forced to judge of what we can see, not of what we cannot, we have to conclude (unless the Day of Christ shows otherwise to our happy surprise) that this person has no part of the Jesus-alone who saves us to the uttermost, all by himself. But this is an inference from the original observation that a "fall from grace" is a logical deduction entailed by accepting another gospel, here a legalistic gospel. Such a stance leads to church discipline, or else to schism (formal judgments).
Do you see how that is a different sort of evaluation, than to regard what Paul says in Gal.5:4 as if it was directly an assertion about the state of the souls of his readers? Paul doesn't have to assume anything about their individual souls, or the general state of the church in Galatia (how far gone is it?), in order for what he says to be objectively the case, no matter what. To the visible church of Galatia he writes (v4):
Any of you, who aim in the least at acquiring a legal basis for your justification before God predicated even a little on your own righteous contribution, are by virtue of that effort cut off (passive verb) from Christ--the gate is slammed, a wall erected, a chasm opened without a bridge over--you have fallen from (active verb)--separated, dropped/lost away, driven yourself off to abandon--the gospel of grace.
He's saying not so much, "What kind of believers or 'believers' are you?" But "What sort of church are you going to be? A church of those who proclaim the true gospel of grace in Christ alone? Or a false-church of those who mix grace and works into an unsavory mash?" Those who want the true gospel will reject the import of the Judaizers; and those who are attracted to the legalism of the Judaizers will go off to erect their own pseudo-churches, or whatever they will.
I appreciate the challenge of internet communication, and what can happen when we try to put our thoughts into written form, for strangers to read, when we are most used (perhaps) to the familiar and conversational vocal exchanges that occur when face to face. So, I grant your intent was better than your attempt.
That said, please do consider how certain doctrines, so firmly established besides vital and foundational, even though they have the clearest expression in some other passage still helpfully guard us from serious errors of interpretation in another place such as lies before us.
I'm speaking of such doctrine as "perseverance of the saints." Not quite the same formulation as one finds sometimes in churches who teach, "once saved always saved" (OSAS), yet the doctrine of perseverance is integral to Reformed soteriology, recognized in Dordt's "Fifth Head of Doctrine," or the 5th of the "five points of Calvinism." We have always affirmed that God's elect cannot lose their salvation, once it is truly their possession by faith (Php.1:6); and that such persevering faith inevitably "bring(s) forth fruit unto God," Rom.7:4, and cannot be a dead faith, Jas.2:17, without being false. And if false, then it could never take hold of the salvation only to lose it.
So, to use the words "loss of salvation" (as you did in D.) invites the impression that you might be open to affirming the least-consistent interpretation of Paul in this passage--consistent, we mean, with the rest of the Bible's teaching. Even "temporary faith" is in the end false, for its grasp of the truth is slippery; and it is slippery because it lacks the firmness of a saving faith which is a gift only God can give, Eph.2:8.
My point is this: when we consider the real phenomenon of apostasy, "falling away," we must regard it as an effect of the present evil age (Gal.1:4) in which we and all men operate. We describe what we see; while at the same time we understand it must so appear to us given our limitations and finite perspective. Such persons speak and act to lead us to believe they have possession of a salvation from which then they separate, they abandon the faith.So, to use the words "loss of salvation" (as you did in D.) invites the impression that you might be open to affirming the least-consistent interpretation of Paul in this passage--consistent, we mean, with the rest of the Bible's teaching. Even "temporary faith" is in the end false, for its grasp of the truth is slippery; and it is slippery because it lacks the firmness of a saving faith which is a gift only God can give, Eph.2:8.
But God never had that mistaken impression: i.e. that he thought he held them so they might never slip his grasp (Jn.10:28-30), but yet they somehow wriggled free. No, God remains completely free of all illusions, as to knowing who his sheep are and which sheep know him, Jn.10:27. All whom the Father gives the Son will come to him, he will lose none of them (to falling away, or stolen away), but will raise every one of them on the Last Day to everlasting life, Jn.6:37-40.
But we don't have an unmistakable impression, but a very fallible one. So what we deal with are the members of Christ's church. We treat with those who make profession of faith. What faith? Faith in the saving gospel of divine grace for helpless sinners. We deal with the outward expressions of the claims men make to possessing the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And when they corrupt their expression of the faith, then we see and judge it cannot be the pure, incorruptible faith. They fall away from the purifying vision, 1Jn.3:2-3, in order that they should manifest the fact they did not belong with us who remain, 1Jn.2:19.
This is the best most consistent way, then, to regard Paul's sense when he uses the term "fallen from grace." Those who embrace "justification by law," if they should continue unchecked in any such dangerous, heretical theology (no matter the form), have separated from the true gospel, meaning they have separated from Christ who is God's Gift to us, our righteousness/justification (1Cor.1:30), apart from the law, Rom.3:21, cf. Jer.23:6. Previous to this apostasy, we had every hope their embrace of justification by faith was the genuine article.
Perhaps they deny they have fallen from grace. They redefine grace so their corrupt version sounds acceptable, even preferable to the pure apostolic definition. They smear the pure definition as an antinomian counterfeit, ala the accusation against Paul, reported in Rom.6:1&15. When we reply, "No, but you have fallen away," it is not a claim that they just seem to have apostatized; they really have done so. We aren't intending to make a claim about their existential condition, or whether they are elect or not. We are saying: Compared to an objective definition of the doctrine of salvation by grace, to embrace any alternative is a defection, a separation from grace as the answer to man's need.
And, of course, if someone should really maintain that position, and fail to come back (repent) and hold fast to the pure gospel of grace--since we are forced to judge of what we can see, not of what we cannot, we have to conclude (unless the Day of Christ shows otherwise to our happy surprise) that this person has no part of the Jesus-alone who saves us to the uttermost, all by himself. But this is an inference from the original observation that a "fall from grace" is a logical deduction entailed by accepting another gospel, here a legalistic gospel. Such a stance leads to church discipline, or else to schism (formal judgments).
Do you see how that is a different sort of evaluation, than to regard what Paul says in Gal.5:4 as if it was directly an assertion about the state of the souls of his readers? Paul doesn't have to assume anything about their individual souls, or the general state of the church in Galatia (how far gone is it?), in order for what he says to be objectively the case, no matter what. To the visible church of Galatia he writes (v4):
Any of you, who aim in the least at acquiring a legal basis for your justification before God predicated even a little on your own righteous contribution, are by virtue of that effort cut off (passive verb) from Christ--the gate is slammed, a wall erected, a chasm opened without a bridge over--you have fallen from (active verb)--separated, dropped/lost away, driven yourself off to abandon--the gospel of grace.
He's saying not so much, "What kind of believers or 'believers' are you?" But "What sort of church are you going to be? A church of those who proclaim the true gospel of grace in Christ alone? Or a false-church of those who mix grace and works into an unsavory mash?" Those who want the true gospel will reject the import of the Judaizers; and those who are attracted to the legalism of the Judaizers will go off to erect their own pseudo-churches, or whatever they will.
- Status
