Thoughts on Galatians 5

Today’s reading: 2 Samuel 16; Galatians 5

I know I have talked about this quite a few times already in this series, but can you really talk about the gospel too much? So even though we just talked about this topic a couple days ago, we’re going to talk about it again today because I feel a burden that many in the broader Christian community would come to a more accurate understanding of the gospel.

This is the paragraph I want to talk about today:

“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision not uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”

There are a number of wrong views of salvation that are held by various portions of Christianity today that are varying levels of problematic.

There are some who see Christ’s death as opening the door to salvation and allowing our sins to be forgiven, but teach that it is our works that ultimately get us to heaven or keep us from it. Yes, Jesus opened the door and allows us to be forgiven, but if we have unconfessed, and therefore unforgiven, sin that is too bad when we die, we are eternally condemned. It is not so much a question of the state of our heart and faith before the Lord as it is the state of our sinfulness or sinlessness at that moment. To be fair, I have heard proponents of this view argue that this is not so much because of the sin but because the willingness to sin betrays the faithless state of your heart, but I think Biblical teaching on sin and the fallen condition of our hearts would disagree that there is necessarily a one-to-one correlation there.

But despite how it is attempted to be argued, Paul says here in Galatians 5 that if you are relying on your works for salvation, you are severed from Christ. And remember, if you’ve been following along, the context Paul is dealing with is not people who are abandoning the cross as their entrance into salvation, it is people who are teaching that you start with the cross and then need the works of the law to complete or maintain that standing before the Lord. These are the ones, those starting from faith in Jesus’ death on the cross but then moving to the works of the law to complete their justification, that Paul says are severed from Christ and have fallen away from grace. How harsh of language Paul uses here! And his point is clear, if you are relying on the law, then you are not relying on faith, and you better keep the whole law (and have always kept the whole law), because Christ’s death is not covering you. If you look to your works rather than faith for your salvation, then you will be judged by your works just like everyone else who does not place their faith in Jesus, and you will be found wanting. Paul uses such strong language because he does not want people to fall into this trap of seeking to be justified by their works after turning to Christ by faith, and as a result, turning from that very faith.

There are many others who consider and teach salvation more as “fire-insurance” than anything else: Pray a sinner’s prayer at some point in your life and you will go to heaven when you die no matter what. I consider this view significantly less dangerous as it does properly teach that salvation is purely a question of faith and not dependent on our works, but I do think it falls short of the biblical gospel and can leave people with an unwarranted sense of assurance. One of the problems with this perspective is highlighted by how "turning away" is handled. If someone comes to faith at one point in their life and later turns away from it as an avowed atheist, what happened? Some would say the person must never have had true faith to begin with or else they never could possibly have turned away, and others would say that if they were truly saved initially, they are still saved now, even if they don't believe it and don't want it. The first response seems to fly in the face of biblical teaching that you can know you are in the faith. If it is possible to believe you have saving faith in Christ, and exhibit fruit in keeping with your faith, only to later find out you didn't actually have the faith you thought you did, can any of us actually be sure that our faith is "genuine enough" to cut it? The second response, likewise, seems to fly in the face of Scripture, only passages like this one saying if you turn from the faith you are again obligated to the law, or like the many others we have discussed over the course of this series like in Hebrews and Colossians where it is said that we will be saved if we maintain the hope of our salvation in Christ through to the end.

Instead, the picture of the gospel Paul, and the rest of the New Testament, paints is one in which we are saved by faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross apart from our own works. If our faith is in Christ we are saved and on our way to Heaven, simple as that. However, if we, like the Galatians Paul is addressing here, started by faith and are now turning to our works to complete or maintain that salvation, our faith is no longer in the finished work of Jesus, we have been severed from Christ and have fallen from grace. If this is us, the remedy is simple, repent of turning from grace to dead works and turn back to the cross. Paul makes this clear in the next verses after what I quoted above where he says to those who "are severed from Christ," and "have fallen away from grace," that he is confident in the Lord that they will take no other view. Paul is confident that they will hear him, accept his correction, and turn back to the faith they had at first.

We cannot add works to the gospel without making it no longer the free gift of grace that Jesus offers us through the cross, but we also cannot strip faith out of the equation as though a magical "sinner's prayer" incantation spoken at some point in life is all that is required for salvation. The biblical gospel is a question of faith, nothing more, nothing less. Will God grant you entrance to eternal glory on the basis of nothing other than the finished work of Jesus on the cross? Then praise God, we will spend eternity with Him in glory! But if you are counting on your goodness, your sinlessness, or a prayer prayed during an altar call as the means by which you expect God to welcome you into heaven, I'm afraid for you that you are going to be sorely disappointed in the worst possible way, and I beg you, in the name of Jesus, to turn to Him and let His death on the cross be enough for you.