"Falling from Grace" in Galatians 5

“Once saved always saved” (along with “perseverance of the saints,” “preservation of the saints) is a widely shared view among evangelicals. Most of us know what it is—the idea that once a person is truly saved, it is impossible for them to ever be lost again. In Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia, we find him passionately warning them about “falling from grace” (5:5). I believe it can be easily established from context that this is when a believing Christian forsakes the true Gospel, forfeiting salvation.

The Galatian Christians were mostly non-Jewish, but some false teachers were persuading them that justification came through the Law of Moses. They were taught that a person needed to be circumcised and become a Jew to be saved (cf. Acts 15:1). Paul begins his letter condemning this teaching as a false gospel (1:6 - 9). Thus the gist of the letter is simple enough. Paul is cautioning these Christians that forsaking what they have learned from the Gospel in an attempt to gain righteousness by the Old Law is nothing but a return to condemnation. It is within this context that Paul tells them,

Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace (5:2 – 4).

The statement is plain enough. If they become converts to Judaism in order to be justified, they give up the salvation by grace that they had found in the Gospel. They would be once again under the condemnation of their sins. And evidently, some among them had already been persuaded.

The only way to be justified by law (any law, but here the Law of Moses) is to keep it perfectly, always (because the moment you break it, you become a sinner). This is why Paul says to those wanting to be circumcised (become a Jew) that they are “under obligation to keep the whole law” —the whole system stands or falls together. A man can be righteous by law only when he is living by the entire law flawlessly, keeping every single rule and regulation. Nobody has ever done this. This is why forgiveness in Christ is the only way to be justified. So the phrase “fallen from grace” becomes obvious. They were deserting the forgiveness they had in Christ in order to be justified “by law,” which was a hopeless endeavor.

At this point, those who do not believe in the possibility of apostasy have only one option left when reading this text. They must believe Paul is referring to false believers. That is all their theology allows. Never in the text does Paul ever say this, however. Just the opposite, in fact. We don’t have to go back far in the context to read this explicitly. Just verses earlier, Paul exhorts them to “keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (v. 1). Who does he have in mind? Those already standing; not those who have not yet stood at all. Paul grants that they are actually Christians. The “yoke of slavery” is something they would be subject to “again,” meaning a second time. They were not false believers still in slavery.

We can back up a bit more and see this is even more apparent. In chapter 4, Paul writes:

Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again (vv. 6 – 9)?

Paul supposes that the very ones to whom he writes are “sons,” and we know from John 1:12 that only those who receive Christ and believe in His name are given the right to be called the “children of God.” Remember, the verse and chapter numbers were added many centuries after Paul wrote this letter. He is writing to the same people in chapter 5 that he is in chapter 4. Furthermore, he acknowledges they are “no longer a slave” (v. 7). This is the same “slavery” already noted in 5:1. No pseudo Christians here.

According to verse 9, those “turning back again” are those who are “known by God,” i.e., real Christians. The English text (the NASB quoted here) communicates well the original language’s clarity that the “turning” is to something they were no longer in (because they left it to become saved Christians). Paul asks how they “again” [πάλιν], “turn” [ἐπιστρέφω]). Epistrepho (“turn”) itself means to return. Then he says this return is to enslavement “again” (same slavery in context as 5:1). These are not false professors of the faith. They are not merely external Christians who are really still in bondage. No, the bondage for these “sons of God,” and these whom “are known by God,” is a thing of the past, and they are currently in the freedom of Christ, but they are being persuaded by false teaching to be enslaved as before. To conclude that those “falling from grace” are not actually true believers is “eisegesis”—reading a theology into the text.