 What do you do when there are passages that seem to say that you can lose your salvation or the passages that people bring up? Well one of those such passages happens to be Galatians 5-4. It is important to understand when you're reading that book as well as that particular passage it's important to understand why Paul is even writing this particular book to the Galatians. Galatia is an area, we're not sure which part of Galatia is he writing to Galatia as a whole we're not sure but he's writing because this is a place where he has planted some churches some in his first missionary trip as well but he has planted these churches and Paul is an apostle to the Gentiles however these Gentiles have been infiltrated by these Judaizers these people who are teaching that before you can first accept Christ as the Messiah you have to first become a Jew you have to go through all the different things that the law requires such as one being circumcised adhering to the dietary laws and so forth. Now because they're in this region and because Jews and non-Jews alike are familiar with the Jewish customs to them it might make sense it might seem logical that well since Jesus was Jewish himself and that he is the Messiah that if you're going to follow this Jewish Messiah then maybe it does make sense to convert to Judaism first follow the tenets and in doing so then accept what crosses on the cross but that goes counter to what Paul is saying as a matter of fact Paul is kind of out of his he's kind of shocked that as he says that you are leaving so quickly you are turning away from the gospel that you are listening to what these people are saying that he says who has bewitched you and so Paul wants to write to address this issue I just heard it recently put this way why would Paul warn someone about something that is an impossibility why would he warn them against possibly falling away if there was no possibility of falling away well the issue is if you take if you take a presuppositional position that these are people who are in Christ who have been justified who have found salvation that they're falling away well then I could see your point the problem is that's just not what Paul is doing Paul is not talking about people who have come to Christ and then have fallen away that's not what he's saying at all we're going to see that in just a second but again we need to remember what he's talking about the whole point of him writing this Paul is writing them to say or to warn them that if you attempt to be justified by the law then one you have to keep the entirety of the law not just certain elements of it and in saying so he says that you become a debtor to the law remember what the law teaches what the law requires not just adhering to the 10 Commandments and some of these other dietary issues better entailed in the law but they understand the Jews do as well as any any Gentile person who's familiar with their customs that the way that they become justified is one adhering to the the the rules of the law but also that they are justified every year on the day of atonement and so Paul warns them that if you attempt to be justified by the law then whatever Jesus has done is of no benefit to you because if you have decided that the way you are going to be justified is by doing these things on your own by keeping the law then what benefit would Jesus be to you I want to say something that might strike you as odd but hear me out there are two ways that a person can be justified two ways that a person can be saved if a person were to adhere to the law and to live perfectly well then that person is born perfect dies perfect and therefore does not need anything to help them to become justified before the Lord because the Lord has nothing against them the problem is there's no such person right well how were they justified before the cross the way they were justified before the cross was they had the day of atonement and so when they trust what happened that that God received the sacrifice then their sins would be atoned for for that one year and so this is all playing out in the mindset of some of these people well let's fast forward so now we've got this this this death bearing resurrection of Jesus Christ and people are still attempting to do it the same way well guess what Houston we got a problem because again there's still these two ways that you can get to heaven two ways to be saved two ways to be justified one being perfect however the problem that you'll have is since you can't be perfect you can't live perfect as a matter of fact you've already sinned so you have already got a blemish on your record there's nothing else to atone for you there is no day of atonement except for what Christ did so what you're doing is you're picking one of the two roads however the road that they're taking in a template to be justified by the law they're taking a dead-end road a road that has no salvation at the end of it no justification so this is what Paul is saying if you take that route well then this route that that that God has for you through Christ is of no benefit whatever he's on the cross is no benefit because you're going in a different direction so when we read Galatians 5 we're going to have to read it with that in mind with the whole idea of what justification really means and by the way justification means to be declared right and to be treated as such and so if you are attempting to be justified on your own then no good right no bueno you are in trouble and so let's go ahead and read the passage and let's see one where people make the mistakes and let's see how this passage does not teach in anyway that you can lose your salvation in the sense that people are attempting to use this passage to counter one saved always saved they're doing so thinking that these are people that Paul is talking about who are already justified but that's not what Paul is doing Paul is talking to people who have not been justified people who are not saved people who are not believers let's see if we can see that starting in verse 2 of chapter 5 Paul says look I Paul say to you that if you accept circumcision Christ will be of no benefit or no advantage to you I testify again verse 3 to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law so he's saying that anyone who was attempting to be justified by circumcision you're not just going to be justified by being circumcised only you're going to be justified by keeping the entirety of the law well we got a problem now as we said we're going to see this verse 4 he says you are severed from Christ you who would be justified by the law you have fallen away from grace well here comes the problem because someone is going to take it is that when he says that you are once severed from Christ and then the latter part says you have fallen away from grace if you presuppose that he's speaking to believers who are now severed from Christ who are who have now fallen away from grace well that kind of makes sense if that's what Paul is talking about if these are people who were believers or justified to begin with but let's look and see closely this is why I say it is extremely helpful to have a teacher or a pastor who was familiar with the Greek maybe not necessarily a Greek expert or a scholar but familiar enough to understand how Greek is put together understanding the tenses and so forth understanding the moves the voices all of that is important to understanding scriptures especially the Greek scriptures and if we know the Greek and I'm going to help you here we'll see what Paul is talking about and we'll know that you can't use this passage to refute once saved always safe so the three words that are in this passage in verse 4 are the three words we need to focus on the first word that we're going to look at is the word catter get their take which is where some versions may have severed it means severed it means cut off it means separated any one of those three words would be sufficient don't think of it though kind of the way we hear in Western America would think of some of these words we're trying to give the best definition of some of these words which is why sometimes you'll have multiple definitions sometimes words have definitions depending upon the tense the voice of the mood but in this case he says that you are severed or separated or cut off from Christ some will naturally think that to be cut off that must have been me that I was with and no that's not what that means at all you can be cut off or separated having never been with someone to begin with if I'm trying to get someplace and I'm cut off from getting there I'm separated or out or the road has been severed the line has been severed and I'm prevented from having this contact then then that's another way of looking at it it doesn't necessarily mean that I was I previously had a relationship with the person or with where I'm going it doesn't mean that I was that I was a part of something it's just generically meant to say that there's something between us now does that prove my point no it doesn't but the next word might or at least might help shine some light on exepesite which is the word where they get the the understanding of falling away it is in the heiress passive tense which is from the word ectecto which is to to fall from or to forfeit or to lose this is where some people hang their hat on saying that you can lose your salvation because when you say that a person can fall away from something how can you fall away from something unless you were in it well in English that's not always true either right let me give you examples matter of fact let me give you example that you all are probably familiar with every year in the NFL every football team and their fans are hopeful of going to the playoffs and then go into the Super Bowl for some reason even though it hadn't happened in eons the Dallas Cowboys and their fans think they're going to the playoffs and then to the Super Bowl right however in about a week or two maybe three weeks the Cowboys fall from playoff contention fall from Super Bowl contention does that mean that the Cowboys were ever in the playoffs or Super Bowl no you can fall from something in this case the Cowboys you can fall from the playoffs or fall from Super Bowl without having ever been there the same holds true here you can fall from something or forfeit something even though you haven't had that happened to you yet the definition of it doesn't necessarily mean that you could that you were involved with it or that you had something like the definition that I used before so how do I know that because the presupposition for some is that they had this grace they had been justified and so but my presupposition is and granted someone would say before you doing the same thing you're presupposing that these people were never justified well that's where the third word comes in and this will nail it for us it is the word the a caustic that's where we get the word it's derived from the word justified this word is to be understood as those who want to be justified this is what's called the cognitive or the true cognitive present tense meaning you would read it as someone who was hoping to do something someone who wants to do something however they haven't attained that or reached that yet Dr. Wallace writes in his book the present tense is used to indicate that an attempt is being made in the present time or the indicative mood it often it bears the connotation that the action will not be completed it is thus unsuccessful attempt in progress here we have these people who are unsuccessfully making an attempt to in this case the word is being used they are unsuccessfully making an attempt to be justified so if they are making an attempt to be justified what are they not they are not justified so you could not come back and say that these are people who have literally been justified and fallen away from it because this tense is used to let us know that they have not been justified they are attempting to do so and because they are attempting to be justified by the law then Paul says that these people have been cut off they have forfeited and they have fallen away from the possibility of being justified this word the kausthe remember it has to be taken in this true cognitive sense that's why some of your verses might say those who attempt to be or wish to be or who want to be justified and so you can't use this passage in any sense to say that this passage teaches a falling away that goes against what Paul's whole purpose of the letter is to begin with so because it uses a word that you might use in a certain sense that's not how the greek lets us use it that way because it's already told us that these are people who have not been saved and so if a person has not been saved if a person has not been in my house and he falls away from my door that doesn't mean that he's ever been inside the house especially if i tell you that he's never been inside the house similarly Paul says they've never been justified and so all of you who are attempting to be justified by the law by circumcision you have been cut off and you are falling away you are knocked out of contention from grace