Many Christians seem troubled by the idea of “falling from grace.” It is a fairly common phrase; at any rate, I seem to have heard it a lot. Funnily enough, though, I was able to find it in only two Bible verses, both from Paul:
“You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” (Galatians 5:4 (NIV))
That was the NIV translation. The KJV translation gives the actual phrase, without the “away”:
“Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:4 (KJV))
Hebrews 6:6 (NIV) comes close in talking about “those…who have fallen away.” It does not specify what is fallen away from, but my bet would be Paul again meant “from grace.”
“Falling” (to me at least) conjures up images of walking a high wire or climbing a tree or ladder or cliff face or any inherently risky object from which we can slip and plummet.
I’m going to argue that grace is not a risky object. There is absolutely no risk in grace. It is impossible to fall from it. We in this class seem to agree that grace is the unmerited favor of God. How could there be any risk in the unmerited favor of God? What could be the downside? I can’t think of a single one.
Grace surrounds us from birth, and the only way we might seem to lose it or to fall from it is by closing our eyes to it; and even then, we only seem to fall, but we don’t, really.
We’ve discussed many times the idea of unmerited divine favor towards every human individual, regardless of faith, non-faith, or culture. Scriptures from various faiths plainly state that we are all immersed in grace. Jesus, in speaking of people being “thrown into outer darkness,” was in my view referring to those who choose to shut their eyes to this divine gift. That is, if he actually used that phrase at all.
It is true that the New Testament Greek for the phrase (ἐκβληθήσονται εἰς τὸ σκότος τὸ ἐξώτερον—ekblēthēsontai eis to skotos to exōteron) does mean physically thrown. But the phrase appears only in Matthew’s gospel, and while we can’t know how accurately Matthew translated the original Aramaic or possibly Hebrew that Jesus would have used, the fact that the other three gospel writers did not use the Greek phrase Matthew used suggests that his translation, or his recollection, of Jesus’ words could be unreliable.
I realize that that will sound heretical to those who believe in the literal truth of every word of the Bible, no matter the translation. Personally, I simply cannot bring myself to believe that the man born to save every single sheep of every single fold would condone the physical throwing of anyone into outer darkness. Although the physicality of the Greek phrase is unquestionable, I prefer to think of “thrown into” as bearing the same sense as used in “He was thrown into confusion.”
Although the foregoing is my personal view, I think there is some scriptural evidence for the proposition that people are never thrown into outer darkness but, rather, consign themselves to inner darkness when they put a bushel over the eternity, the inner light, the holy spirit, the grace inside them—when they ignore or smother their conscience.
Scripture provides several examples of people who fought against their conscience but remained in God’s grace because they did not close their eyes to it. But it also gives examples of some who initially did close their eyes, but eventually opened them to see the grace all around them.
As I’ve implied, the phrase “falling from grace” is so common that most Christians would not bat an eyelid at the notion that Adam and Eve “fell from grace” when they disobeyed God. That Adam and Eve fell is surely not in contention, but was it actually grace from which they fell?
The Roman Catholic St. Augustine believed that in their original, pre-Fall state of righteousness, Adam and Eve did not need grace in the sense of unmerited forgiveness or redemption. They needed grace only after the Fall, when they were in a state of sin and were doomed without it—they would “surely die” as God put it. Martin Luther and John Calvin also saw grace only in the context of sin and redemption, believing that before the Fall, Adam and Eve did not require forgiveness or redemption because they were righteous and had not fallen.
But the fact that they did not need grace does not mean that it was not there.
Thomas Aquinas believed grace was there both before the Fall—he called it “sanctifying grace”—and after the Fall, as the unmerited redemption we all agree on.
As far as I can discover, no other theologian of note has addressed the question. Ellen G. White does not seem to have focused on it in her writings, as far as I can tell from searching her works on a webpage devoted to them (egwwritings.org). Like most of us, she seems to have used it loosely to cover a variety of divine attributes—love, mercy, etc., and she recognized Christ-centered salvation by grace as freely given and independent of works.
As a sidebar: In two of her works (Eternity Past, p. 86.4 and Reflecting Christ, p. 194.2) Ellen White used the interesting phrase “the grace of life.” That phrase would make scriptural sense if she meant the grace of everlasting life, but she was writing about the mortal lives of Abraham and his household. She did not make the argument that mortal life—life on earth—is itself a gift of grace, but her phrase suggests just that, and it makes me for one wonder… Is it? Genesis makes no bones that if Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they would surely die, but in the event, they did not—not right away, anyway.
However, Genesis also made no bones that post-Fall life on earth would be pretty miserable. It would be a life of unremitting toil and pain. But honestly, how many of us can say we have actually experienced such a life? Indeed, all of us have suffered from toil and from pain at several times in our lives, some sadly more than others; but many of us can claim to have led “blessed” lives, with enough goodness and joy to make up for the bad times. In that sense, it seems to me, life itself might indeed, as Mrs. White seemed to suggest, be considered a gift of the grace of God, who softened his original condemnation of us all to a hard life.
But back to falling.
Various faiths and philosophies around the world have narratives that echo the themes of the Biblical story of the Fall of Man. There is an original state of harmony or innocence, then a transgression or disobedience, and then there are consequences. Here are prominent examples:
- In the ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, a wild man called Enkidu, created by the gods, lives harmoniously with nature until he is seduced by Shamhat, a temple prostitute. As a result, he loses his innocence and becomes wise and self-aware (as Adam and Eve became knowledgeable and aware of their nakedness). He also lost his connection to the animals, as did Adam and Eve. [Postscript: You can find an astonishing rendition by Peter Pringle of this story at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPcB7NlI3fo]
- In Greek mythology, Pandora—the first woman created by the gods—was given a box and told not to open it, just as Eve was told not to eat the forbidden fruit. Pandora’s curiosity led her to open the box and out of it flew all the evils into the world, leaving only one thing—hope—left inside it. That seems pretty close to the Adam and Eve story, to me.
- According to some Hindu traditions, Manu and Shatarupa were the first humans. They were created by Brahma. They lived in a state of purity and devotion. There is no direct equivalent to the Biblical Fall, but some interpretations of the story involve disobedience and subsequent redemption and reincarnation.
- In Zoroastrianism, a man was given dominion over a garden of Eden-like world. We might consider this an act of grace by his creator. But he became proud and disobeyed his creator’s commands, so he fell from favor (we might rightly say here that he fell from grace) and his realm suffered as a result.
- While not a direct parallel to the Fall, the Norse creation myth involves the transformation of the world from a state of chaos to order, with gods creating and then overseeing humanity. The subsequent introduction of evil and the ongoing struggle between order and chaos have thematic similarities to the consequences of the Fall in the Biblical narrative.
- The Mayan creation myth known as the Popol Vuh describes how the gods created humans from maize. They were initially perfect and (unlike Adam and Eve) were already endowed with great knowledge, but the gods became worried about their growing power (shades of the Tower of Babel) and so the gods put some limits on human vision and understanding.
So there seems to be a universal human theme of transition from an original state of everlasting purity and joy—supported by a sanctifying grace, to use Aquinas’ term—to a state of suffering and mortality. The transition is triggered by an act of disobedience. But the notion of a redeeming grace does not figure in all of them—it is not a universal theme.
There is, however, another universal theme: It is the theme of people who seem to want to fall from grace, but grace will not let them go. To me, this again suggests that grace is always there, whether you want it or not. Examples include Jonah, who initially disobeyed God’s command to go to Nineveh, yet was given a second chance after being swallowed by a great fish. He finally obeyed and delivered God’s grace to the Ninevites, but he did so grudgingly.
Balaam was essentially a con-man (or so it seems to me). He had been paid to put a curse on Israel, but God in a sense conned him back, using a talking donkey and an angel to persuade him to bless Israel instead of cursing it. So here’s an unworthy con man graced by God against his will to pass on grace to others.
In his former life as Saul, the Apostle Paul was, like Balaam, also highly unworthy in the Christian sense. He was a “Pharisee’s Pharisee” who hounded and persecuted Christians. But it was no mere donkey nor even an angel, who confronted him. It was Jesus. And (unlike Balaam and Jonah) he was truly transformed, and began to distribute God’s grace joyfully and freely. Don’t just take my word for all this: Take it straight from the horses mouth, in Galatians 1:11-16:
I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.
The whole passage has intense significance, but notice in particular the phrase: “God…was pleased to reveal his Son in me…” What does he mean by “in me”?
The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) was not quite as bad as Paul—he didn’t go around persecuting people. He was just a disobedient brat, a juvenile delinquent who squandered his father’s grace. Yet when he slunk home in abject misery he found—much to his own surprise and the annoyance of his obedient elder brother—that he remained wrapped in his father’s grace. The prodigal thought he’d left his father’s grace behind when he took off for the flesh pots, but on his return he discovered that his father’s grace had never left him.
It is really, really hard to shake off God’s grace, never mind to fall from it.
One of the criminals crucified alongside Jesus found that out as well. Acknowledging his sinful life and assuming he had no hope of an afterlife, he merely asked Jesus to remember him in paradise. (Luke 23:39-43) But Jesus did more than that: He graced the criminal with an assurance of eternal life there too. Grace had not abandoned him. (Personally, I believe that the other criminal was graced as well, but he might not have realized it until the point of death.)
King David was another major sinner—a murderer, no less—who (the Bible shows) never lost the grace of God. Like Paul, he too repented most sincerely (read Psalm 51), but I don’t think he had to. When the Prodigal Son tried to repent, his father shut him up. God’s grace was not conditional on David or the Prodigal’s good behavior going forward. It would be around them whatever they did.
It is noteworthy, however, that the Abrahamic accounts of sinners who received grace and repented (or not) is not reflected in other faiths, except perhaps the Hindu woman Ahalya, who was turned to stone due to her infidelity but was redeemed by the touch of Lord Rama’s feet—an act of grace.
So while the fall from grace is a universal theme, the individual rejection of grace seems to be only an Abrahamic theme. But I would argue that the reason we don’t hear similar stories everywhere is that other cultures and faiths already know that grace surrounds everyone always. The Way of Daoism is ultimately impossible to resist. You can kick and scream and rail against it all you like, but it will still take you where you need to go, in the end.
To summarize, grace is not something that we can fall from as if it were a precarious perch. It is the unmerited, ever-present favor of God that surrounds us, regardless of our actions or faith. The only way we might seem to “fall” from grace is by closing our eyes to it, by choosing to live in a way that separates us from its light.
No matter where we are in life or what we have done, God’s grace is always there, embracing us, whether we embrace it in return or not. That, to me, is ultimate love, ultimate goodness, God.
That is what I believe, but there is a question related to this that I am not sure how to answer, and I’d appreciate your help. It has a bearing on the book about Grace that some of us are trying to write. The question is this: How do you explain to the people of Gaza, or (if you could go back in time) the Jews in the concentration camps, that they are surrounded by grace and can never lose it? Where is the “unmerited favor”? What is the favor, exactly? How do we explain it to a Gazan mother holding her dead child in her arms? Is there an explanation, in English, or in Arabic?
Donald: I’ve said many, many times in this class that words matter. Maybe the word we should be looking at is “falling.” What does it mean to fall? I think we would all agree on the concept of falling from grace as somehow separating. Now, separating seems horizontal, but falling from grace seems vertical. But the fall of man doesn’t seem to be quite vertical to me. The opposite of falling is to rise, to get up. We know that Christ used that language: “Get up and walk.” Is it important here?
What does grace look like to me? It surrounds me. I visualize it as kind of like an airbag. It protects you. If you fall from grace, there’s a net under you that protects you. The airbags will go off automatically, unlike a seat belt, which has to be locked in. Is it locked in at birth, or do we have to lock it in? Do we have to accept Christ in order to have the grace of God?
C-J: Whenever I have fallen, two things happen: One, I lose my sense of where I am in space (I think proprioception is the correct word). And two, I lose my balance. So when those two things come together, I’m not going to be able to recover. It’s inevitable I will fall because if I’m unaware of where I am in space, I don’t know what to grab if I’ve lost my balance. I have to find out at what point I lost my balance and find stability in my footing.
I think that is true with my relationship with God; both those things can happen. I think I know where I am and what’s going on, and then I realize, maybe I don’t. Or perhaps I haven’t been mindful of God, I haven’t been in an active relationship with God, for a couple of days. I’m just in my own head thinking, you know, what should I do? What would God want me to do, and how can I represent God in my choices so that I don’t have to preach it; rather, my behavior will speak of it.
I grew up in a house where there was order, but it could become chaotic and very dangerous quickly. But God’s grace was ever-present. He is in control, whether you believe it or not, whatever the context for your faith, such as “it’s a good day, God was here” or “It was a terrible day, where was God?” I believe that God is the Creator, and nothing happens without His foreknowledge and present understanding of how it will be received by the finite person.
Don: Falling is not something that you do volitionally. It is an error, an accident, or a result of carelessness or a surprise event, I think. But Galatians 5:4 says: “You have been severed from Christ. You who are seeking to be justified by the law, you have fallen from grace.” This is not an accident. This is not something that occurs without premeditation. It seems there has to be a premeditated, deliberate, unambiguous attempt to fall from grace. And so the word “fall” is probably not a very good translation. It’s not a very accurate one spiritually or theologically, because the definition that Paul is using is intentional. You have to put a bushel over the inner light in order to become separated from grace.
I agree that grace is ever-present otherwise. It’s in infinite supply. It’s free, and there’s enough for everyone to have what they need. In the theological and the spiritual sense, “falling from grace” seems to be something that has to be deliberate, premeditated, and mindfully done.
C-J: Even on the cross, when Jesus said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” I think that we could be caught in freefall, even if it’s willful freefall. Who can understand the immeasurable love of God? I don’t think we can really fall. We may turn our back, but even then, it’s written in our heart, and even if we’ve done things that have damaged our body, our brain, or we’re limited when we’re born, I believe grace is there.
David: I’m really taken by Donald’s notion of airbags and seatbelts. You don’t feel airbags unless they go off, and they don’t go off unless you need them to. Like grace, they are all around you. You know it, but you don’t feel it and you don’t keep it in mind all the time. That begins to answer the question I’ve been struggling with: Isn’t grace supposed to be comforting? Maybe it’s not comforting until, like the airbags, you need to feel it. The knowledge that it’s there is comforting, but not in the sense that you can feel it patting your shoulder or giving you a hug.
It answers my question about where is the comfort from grace for the Gazan woman whose house has been bombed, and she’s holding a dead child in her arms? Grace is around her, the airbag will inflate, but quite how and when is unfathomable.
Michael: I grew up in a white suburb and was sometimes looked upon as a traumatized victim. But I did not feel that. I enjoyed my childhood, even though it might look very different from that of a white boy in the white suburb. I think the best way to answer David’s question is to listen to the people you presume to be suffering. To hear people in Gaza, visit We Are Not Numbers, where they share their stories. The stories are horrific, but they invariably end with a message of hope.
David: That brings to mind Pandora’s box: Hope was the one thing left in it when all the evil had flown out of it.
Donald: Grace provides hope and protection. Many things around us give us hope. I don’t worry that the ceiling over my head will fall down because I know it’s been well engineered. Knowing that I have an airbag provides hope as well as protection. Cars used to have metal dashboards, which were very dangerous in a crash. There was no protection. We didn’t know any better. We did all kinds of things that were stupid, but we have a better understanding now, and things have been provided that offer protection. I’ve never been in an automobile when the airbags went off, but I know they surround me.
As for the idea of freewill: It’s true that some people do actually go up in a plane and jump.
[An irreverent postscript: That reminds me of the old adage: “If at first you don’t succeed, don’t attempt skydiving!” 🙂 —David]
Reinhard: I think the term “fall from grace,” by definition, is to lose a position of power or honor. Probably, the phrase “fall from grace” is from our human viewpoint, our human definition. God is never short of grace, as we know. The televangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker committed sin. They were human. When we transgress, when we go against God’s will, we feel that we fall from grace. But it’s a human term. Satan fell from grace when he was thrown out of heaven. Samson transgressed by telling Delilah his secret.
We describe a fall from grace in human terms, but we all know God never stops having grace. That doesn’t stop us, when we commit sin, when we go against God’s will, from feeling that probably the grace is not there. But the grace is always there, as it was for Jonah. I think when we repent and come back to God, that’s the key. Grace never stops. God always makes grace available to us all the time.
Don: The metaphor of seat belts and airbags makes me think that grace is like insurance. It doesn’t prevent catastrophe, but in some way it mitigates it. Seat belts and airbags won’t prevent a crash, but when a crash occurs, there’s redemption, there’s the prevention of death.
I’ve heard that airbags are actually quite painful when they deploy, yet they have ultimate, consequential support for life. We want grace to surround us and prevent us from having any difficulty, but that’s not its purpose. It’s not to remove all adversity—it’s restorative. It mitigates adversity.
C-J: It may be insurance, but it comes with a deductible, meaning there are consequences. Whenever something happens where I need God’s grace to show up ASAP, it reminds me that there comes a time in my life when God says, “I want you to come up higher on the mountain. You’re too comfortable where you are. It’s time that you understand this.” That’s when I realize I have reached a point in my life where it’s pretty predictable. If I don’t want something in my life, then I can just cut it out. I don’t have to do much that I don’t want to. But sometimes I intentionally put myself in a situation where I will have to grow. I will have to rethink my strategy, and I will have to be vulnerable in order to do that. I think that’s how God works.
When we are most vulnerable, it’s like hearing a voice say, “Stop. Know where you are, know where you’re going, know what you have, know what you will need. This moment in time is filled with intentional purpose. Don’t miss it.” Sometimes I’m in this space a long time, and sometimes I’m like, “Well, I survived!”
Donald: Is it the unpardonable sin that causes separation, that cancels your insurance, that disables your airbags, so you’re not protected? Can you separate yourself? Or is that impossible?
C-J: We perceive it that way, as the fact that we’re discussing it reveals. But I wonder, is anything really unforgivable? I can say, “Let’s just move on.” But is that really forgivable? We understand that we made a bad choice, but the grace of God knew that this day would come, and uses it as a teachable moment. “You will move forward, and you will learn through my faithfulness that I’ve always loved you,” just like a child who’s disciplined and told to go and think about her naughtiness and comes back crying “I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, Daddy. I know I love you. Do you want to talk about it?” So I humanize God. I think that’s part of the nature of our species.
But really, we cannot begin to define the intensity, the energy, the profoundness of creation, which is new and renewed daily, even if we say, “Oh, it’s a good day.” But I think every day God renews us in spirit. It’s like when you fall in love. I had a dream last night about an athlete whose parents had divorced, but the reason this child grew into such a phenomenal athlete was not that the two parents loved each other, it was that both of them loved this child. And I thought about that, and I said that is really profound. It isn’t about two adults loving each other. It’s putting themselves aside to make sure that this child won’t just survive but thrive and really become outstanding—the very best that the child’s potential can become.
God is like that: “I created within you, not just a seed, but a hope, a promise, and provision.” And when we come into an understanding of that, I can set my childhood aside and look at what God has given me that I could never have accomplished on my own, even if I had all those networks in place. It really was my relationship with God that made me keep on going, and I don’t think there’s anything like that when two parents don’t really want to be together but do so for the sake and love of their child and will do anything for it. To me, it’s profound.
* * *
Sources and References
- Augustine, De Civitate Dei (City of God), Book 14, Ch. 15. New Advent:
Therefore, because the sin was a despising of the authority of God — who had created man; who had made him in His own image; who had set him above the other animals; who had placed him in Paradise; who had enriched him with abundance of every kind and of safety; who had laid upon him neither many, nor great, nor difficult commandments, but, in order to make a wholesome obedience easy to him, had given him a single very brief and very light precept by which He reminded that creature whose service was to be free that He was Lord, — it was just that condemnation followed, and condemnation such that man, who by keeping the commandments should have been spiritual even in his flesh, became fleshly even in his spirit; and as in his pride he had sought to be his own satisfaction, God in His justice abandoned him to himself, not to live in the absolute independence he affected, but instead of the liberty he desired, to live dissatisfied with himself in a hard and miserable bondage to him to whom by sinning he had yielded himself, doomed in spite of himself to die in body as he had willingly become dead in spirit, condemned even to eternal death (had not the grace of God delivered him) because he had forsaken eternal life. Whoever thinks such punishment either excessive or unjust shows his inability to measure the great iniquity of sinning where sin might so easily have been avoided. [Bold and underline added.]
ChatGPT paraphrased and summarized these remarks as follows:
“For as soon as they had transgressed the commandment, divine grace forsook them, and they were left to themselves; and, because they had not kept their happy estate, which they could have done so easily, they were condemned to a life of toil and misery.”
- Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica”: Available in various translations and online platforms.
- John Calvin, “Institutes of the Christian Religion”: Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Ellen G. White
This passage appears in the works listed below, according to a search on EGWwritings.org :
Others, also holding that “the elect cannot fall from grace or forfeit the divine favor,” arrived at the still more hideous conclusion that “the wicked actions they commit are not really sinful, nor to be considered as instances of the violation of the divine law, and that consequently they have no occasion either to confess their sins or to break them off by repentance.” Therefore, they declared that even one of the vilest of sins, “considered universally an enormous violation of the divine law, is not a sin in the sight of God,” if committed by one of the elect,“because it is one of the essential and distinctive characteristics of the elect, that they cannot do anything which is either displeasing to God or prohibited by the law.”]
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