Galatians 5:4-5 4You are alienated from Christ, you who are justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Paul does not blur the issue in v. 4. He continues to develop his dichotomy between faith and human effort. Seeking to be justified by the law alienates one from the way of grace. This is where law and grace are opposites. In God’s plan, there is no contradiction law and grace. The law is a form of grace to us because it is the wonderful guide to holiness. The psalmist declares the awesomeness of God’s law in Psalm 119. The problem is when we insert the human element and try to make the law the means by which we prove ourselves holy before God. We try to become righteous on our own power. The deeper problem is sin, which distorts our desires and entices us away from loving God and loving others. Seeking to please ourselves, even in something as subtle as legalistic righteousness, goes against what Christ wants to do in us. For the Galatians, their pursuit of works of the law through circumcision was shoving them away from faith and trust in Christ. They were becoming strangers to the true gospel of grace Paul preached to them.
Verse 4 contains a challenging phrase: fallen away from grace. This phrase shows that it is possible to turn one’s back from Christ and face judgment. Many passages in the New Testament warn readers of the danger of turning back to sin, the world, and the flesh. Temptation is real and powerful and can come in many forms. For the Galatians, their temptation was instigated by the false teachers who were trying to get them to be circumcised and follow various Jewish practices. This approach was being taught as the way to be justified and considered righteous before God. They had started off well and had experienced the power of the Holy Spirit, but something had happened along the way to pull them back into the world. Seeking to please God through human effort would only open the door to more fleshly desires.
Verse 5 begins with two prepositional phrases that show how the Galatians could have assurance of the true righteousness provided by God. Righteousness is our hope. This word is inclusive of salvation and eternal life. If we are righteous, we will be able to be in God’s presence and experience all the rewards and benefits this brings, namely, eternal life. First, the righteousness comes through the Spirit. Paul will describe this more in the last part of this chapter. The Holy Spirit was an important topic of Paul’s preaching and found in many places in his correspondence with the churches. It is through the Spirit that our dead spirits are made alive. The Holy Spirit is the one who transforms us into Christ’s likeness and empowers us to live out this relationship in love and holiness. The Spirit connects the theory of theology and the words of the gospel to real life practices and our every day decisions. The Spirit is the very presence of God and source of all our spiritual life.
We experience the Spirit by faith, and this faith grows and confirms our hope of righteousness. Faith is the key that unlocks all that God has planned for us. Faith at its essence is trusting in what Christ has done for us on the cross. Faith results in our justification. Returning to the key verse of 2:20, we recall that faith is lifestyle of the crucified. Faith requires that we cease the struggle to make ourselves righteous by our own actions and efforts and embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord. This verse is a call to the Galatians to return to the foundation of their believe in the message that Paul had preached to them.
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