"You all have been nullified from Christ, whoever in law is being justified, of the grace you all have fallen [away]."
-Fallen from grace. Severed from Christ. Strong words. Serious situation. What is Paul saying exactly? The word translated as 'severed' in the Greek actually means 'to nullify', 'to make of no effect'. You literally 'were nullified from Christ'. Jesus Christ and His gift of grace was made of no effect in your life as soon as you began trying to earn God's unearnable favor by keeping the law. You fell away from grace, in other words. You were dancing with Jesus, a beautiful waltz of grace and divine undeserved favor, and then the law cut in (you let it!), and the result is something rather atrocious. A sight NOT to be seen. Truth is, you (and I) were nothing to look at to begin with. A filthy mess of bloody rags, a lifeless corpse in fact, and Christ came along, He picked you out of the long line of spiritual wallflowers, offered this dance, and though you were dead, as you took hold of His outstretched, nail-scarred hand, He breathed into your soul of His Holy Spirit, covered you with His robe of righteousness and gave you a complete makeover, spiritual head to toe. You (and I) deserved not one bit of it. We were rescued from death as a totally free undeserved gift. And we began to dance with Jesus, every step (and even our woeful missteps) bathed in the beauty of grace, this unearned divine favor. But the moment you Galatians decided you needed to be circumcised, Paul says, you stepped away from all of that. He is not saying that Christ stepped away from you. On the contrary. No, but you have stepped away from His grace, and by trying to earn His continued favor through self-effort you are for the time being nullifying His finished work of grace on the Cross on your behalf. Talk about 'no effect' - here we have the quintessential complete waste of time. Also a sight not to be seen, this...
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