Sovereign Grace Church

Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace

(GALATIANS 5:4)

My religious friend, if you believe that you are justified by the law, or by what you do in your flesh, and not by what Christ finished in His flesh alone, “Christ shall profit you nothing” and you’re a “debtor to do the whole law” perfectly [GALATIANS 5:2,3]. And so, if God should leave you to yourself and you continue in that way, what Christ accomplished for sinners, shall be “of no [saving] effect unto you!” My friend, that means judgement—indeed condemnation, for “whosoever of you [who vainly think] are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” Indeed, if that describes you, you’ve missed God’s grace in Christ entirely.

Friend, attempting to gain salvation by your works, by your deeds of the flesh to the law only brings bondage and “Christ shall profit you nothing,” indeed “Christ is become of no effect unto you.” If you’re trusting in what you are doing (or for that matter what you’re not doing), rather than what Christ has done, you’re under the bondage and curse of the law, and condemned before God right now. Beloved, our Lord Jesus declares in the gospel of John chapter 3, “He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Believing sinner, we know “that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (GALATIANS 2:16). And so my friend if you do anything [anything at all] with the religious idea that some how it would help or let God save you, or commend you to His favor…Christ is become of no saving effect unto you.