Become of No Effect

Galatians 5:4 NASB
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

What does Paul say has happened to those who are seeking to be justified by law?

We're going to spend some time carefully studying this verse. Today let's look at the meanings of some words, specifically "severed" and "fallen from." Since I use Strong's, I need to know what the King James Version uses. Does it use those exact words or some other words? Here's the KJV:
Christ is become of no effect upon you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

Who has no effect upon those who are justified by the law?
What have they fallen from?

What does it mean to "become of no effect"? Does it mean what we might take it to mean, or does it mean something different? Let's check it out. I looked up "effect" in Strong's and discovered that this same word is also used in Galatians 3:17. So, we might want to look at that verse later to see if it would help us to better interpret what Paul means when he uses this word in this verse. I found that the number for "effect" in Gal. 5:4 is #G2673. I looked that up and discovered that the Greek equivalent is "katargeo," and it means "to be (render) entirely idle--useless."

Then I looked up "fallen" and found that its number is #G1601. The Greek equivalent is "ekpipto," and it means "to drop away, specifically to be driven out of one's course; figuratively to lose, become inefficient."

Curious, I looked this verse up in Wuest's translation to find out his word for word translation from the Greek, and it reads:
You are without effect from Christ, such of you as in the sphere of the law are seeking your justification. You have lost your hold upon (sanctifying) grace.

This word study brought to my mind an image of someone who was floundering in the water. Someone had thrown a life ring to this person, and he or she had reached out for it. Then, that person decided that he or she could make it on his or her own, so that person let go of the life ring. It's still there in the water, but it has no effect on that person.

We'll think more about this verse in another blog.