Galatians 5:4
"Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."
What does it mean to fall from grace? Does it mean that a person can lose their salvation? Not at all!
When trying to understand any portion of Scripture, you must look at all of the Scriptures to see what a phrase means. When looking at the Scriptures as a whole, you understand that once a person is saved they will always be saved. God promised to give us eternal life at salvation. If God would have promised conditional life, then we would understand that our salvation is based upon conditions that God set up. But, God said that He gave us eternal life at salvation, that means no matter what we do after salvation we will always be saved.
The word "fallen" means, to drop away or to be driven out of one's course. In other words, when a person falls away from grace, that means they stop living the Christian lifestyle and start living a life of sin. Verse 7 probably explains this phrase the best when it says, "Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" Notice, to fall from grace mean someone stopped obeying the truth. To fall from grace means to drop away from living the Christian life. To fall from grace means to get off course. It means something sidetracked the Christian from living the way they were supposed to live. In other words, they stopped living the Christian life to live some other lifestyle. Yes, they are still saved, but they fell away from the life that grace gave.
Christian, when you got saved, you were saved from a life of sin to a life of freedom in Christ. Why would you ever want to go back to bondage? Why would you ever think another life would give you more freedom? God saved you to live a life of freedom. His grace is given so that you no longer have to be in bondage to sin. You must be careful that nothing sidetracks you from living the Christian life.
Throughout my lifetime I have had many dogs as pets. In recent years my dogs have been trained. Whenever my dog listens to me, they earn the freedom to be off leash when we take walks in the morning. As long as the dog obeys my voice and doesn't get sidetracked from other dogs or people, it has the freedom to not be restrained by a leash. The freedom does not permit the dog to do whatever it wants, but rather to enjoy life under the guidelines that I set forth. At any time the dog stops listening to my voice, it is put back on the leash until it learns to obey the voice of its master.
As long as a Christian listens to the voice of Jesus Christ, they will experience the freedom of grace. The only thing that will cause a Christian to fall away from the graces of God is to start disobeying His voice. Whenever you leave the life of obedience to Christ, you fall away from God's grace to God's judgment.
Christian, be careful about listening to any voice that tries to pull you away from serving the LORD. Verse 7 says it was a "who" that hindered someone and caused them to fall away from grace. Any voice but God's voice will lead you away from God's graces. Don't let the voices of the world sidetrack you from serving God. They may seem inviting, but freedom is only experienced by obeying Christ. Keep your eyes on God and live the life He commands you to live, and in that life you will find the greatest freedom. Sin always leads to bondage, but obedience to God's voice allows the Christian to enjoy the freedom of God's grace.