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The answer, of course, is that this is not what the phrase “fallen from grace” means.

She was afraid that her daughter had “fallen from grace” and might perish. She believed that the daughter would not be taken to heaven. “What if the Lord should return while my daughter is at a movie?” she asked. The daughter was a Christian, but she had been going to the movies, which this woman thought was sinful. I remember a prayer meeting in which one of the women was crying about the behavior of her daughter. They were afraid that they might lose their salvation. But if that is true, how can Paul speak about falling from grace in Galatians? Doesn't that mean that a believer's salvation can be lost? I grew up in an evangelical church where people thought that way. They have been justified, and having been justified, nothing can remove them from it.

The point of that study was that Christians have been given a new standing before God because of grace. It is the phrase “fallen from grace.” Perhaps it came to your mind when I was writing about “standing in grace” last week. In the fifth chapter of Galatians there is a reference to grace that has assumed an importance in some people's thinking far beyond the Apostle Paul's use of it and entirely out of keeping with his context. This week’s lessons teach us what the idea of falling from grace really means, and that the freedom of God’s grace in Christ produces a holy life.