Galatians 5:4 “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”
There is much theological debate over whether a preacher can believe wrong
concerning salvation and still be saved. I say NO, because if a preacher
believes wrong, he trusts wrong! John Wesley believed that salvation could
be lost, which seriously leads me to question whether he was saved or not,
because if your mindset is that you have to live above sin to keep God's
salvation, then you've never really COMPLETELY RESTED IN CHRIST!
Don't make the grave mistake of making this a trifle issue of semantics. Either you have to try to stop sinning as a requirement to be saved (Chip Ingram errantly says YES), or you don't (Dr. Harry Ironside correctly says NO). It can't be both! Romans 11:6 plainly teaches that salvation CANNOT be by both grace and works. Ephesians 2:8-9 says salvation is by grace alone, without works.
Our text verse from Galatians 5:4 speaks of FALLING FROM GRACE. This simply means that if you're trying to get to Heaven by keeping the law, then Christ's payment for your sins cannot help you! If you're trying to earn your own way to Heaven by your own self-righteous WORKS, then you haven't accepted Christ's payment yet for your sins. You have fallen (the Greek word ekpipto means “to be driven off course”) away from grace. Remember, when a born-again believer sins, they always fall “IN GRACE,” never “FROM GRACE.”
If you are trusting in your own works (human effort), you have literally driven past your destination of Christ and are lost, having gone off course. Romans 10:3-4, “For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” If we can be right with God by keeping the law, then Christ died on the cross for nothing. The truth of the matter is that Jesus paid a debt that He did not owe, because we owed a debt of sin that we could not pay.
Satan's favorite deception is to place only partial faith in Christ, plus some amount of human effort, which is a false Gospel. Satan's greatest weapon is to con people into living the Christian life, without ever being born-again. This is exactly what Seventh-day Adventists are doing, and sadly, many Baptists today. I am an independent fundamental Baptist myself, but I don't like what I see in many Baptist churches today; such as, false Bible versions (the Alexandrian text), the heresy of Lordship Salvation (aka, the “turn away from sins” to be saved heresy), the hoax of Dispensationalism, the fraud of Zionism (manmade Israel), 501c3 licensing (which cripples the churches' freedom of speech), et cetera. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!!! I want off this insane planet!
The trustworthy King James Bible reads:
Galatians 5:4, “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”
Now take a look at what the corrupt new modern Bibles say. Galatians 5:4 in the “ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION” (ESV) reads . . .
Galatians 5:4, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified[a] by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”
The word
“severed” means to “DETACH BY CUTTING.”
Since the unsaved person has never been attached to Christ, there is no way
they can be severed. The ESV is foolishly teaching that salvation can be
lost, which is a lie of the Devil. IF SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED! Salvation cannot
be lost! It is God's salvation (John 1:13-14).
Now if someone puts a gun to your head and says to deny Christ or they're going to murder you, and you lie and deny Christ, this in NO WAY affects your salvation. If you are saved, YOU ARE SAVED, and can never lose what God has given you freely by faith. It's what is in your heart that determines whether you are saved, not what comes out of your mouth. Romans 10:10 says, “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” In other words, you are saved when you believe the Gospel in your heart. You confess with your mouth because you are already saved. The religious group in Matthew 7:21-23 professed with their mouth to know Christ, but they were not saved, because they were trusting in their “MANY WONDERFUL WORKS” instead of resting in Christ alone for salvation. We are saved by BELIEVING!!!
The English Standard Version (ESV) is of the Devil. END
