9. For a righteous man. The apostle does not teach that the Christian is no longer obligated to obey the Ten Commandments (see on Rom. 3:31). Jesus did not come to release men from commandment keeping, but to show man the possibility of obedience and to provide the necessary power for complete victory over sin (see on Rom. 8:4). However, the law no longer condemns the justified man, although it remains as his standard of conduct (see on Rom. 6:14). SDA Bible Commentary
The position some take, that Paul here affirms the arbitrary withdrawal of God’s grace because of certain acts of sin, is without scriptural support. The loss of divine favor results from the voluntary act of the one who forfeits it. God bars no one from the blessings of salvation except those who bar themselves (see Eze. 18:23, 31; 33:11; 2 Peter 3:9; see on John 3:17–20; Eph. 1:4–6). The context of the statement shows clearly that the responsibility rests wholly with those who deliberately reject salvation by faith for salvation by works. It is not a matter of God forsaking men, but of men turning away from Him and rejecting to all who will turn from their willful ways (see John 3:16; 1 John 1:9). One who has fallen from God’s grace is always—and only—one who has willfully chosen a course of conduct he knows to be contrary to the will of God. This is the deplorable state of many professed Christians today. This condition is the result of a desire to follow the natural inclinations of the human heart—to enjoy the pleasures of sin—instead of heeding the promptings of God’s Spirit. Until such persons commit the unpardonable sin by persistent rejection of the promptings of the Spirit (see on Matt. 12:31, 32, 43–45), there is hope that they may be restored to grace.
Paul here specifically and emphatically denies another popular but altogether unscriptural teaching commonly expressed in the words, “once in grace, always in grace.” This, in turn, is based on another unscriptural teaching, according to which God has predestined certain persons to be saved and others to be lost, irrespective of their own choice in the matter. For a discussion of the true nature of Biblical predestination see on John 3:17–20; Eph. 1:4–6. According to the popular concept of predestination, those whom God has elected to salvation cannot possibly fall from divine grace because their right to it has been guaranteed by God. By a parity of reasoning those whom God has foreordained to damnation can never attain to divine grace, and consequently can never fall from it. Corollary to this is the conclusion that those who appear to have fallen from grace only appear to have done so, since they have never actually attained to it. Suffice it to say that only by taking the words of Gal. 5:4 completely out of their context is it possible to make them appear to sustain such a conclusion (see on vs. 1–4). In reality, this theory—the theory of so-called divine decrees—ignores all the plain statements of Scripture that point to the human will as the decisive factor in the salvation of any and every man. See such passages of Scripture as Isa. 55:1; Eze. 18:21–30; 33:12, 13; Luke 5:32; John 6:37; cf. John 7:37; 12:32; Rom. 10:13; 11:20–23; 1 Cor. 9:27; Rev. 22:17. The doctrine that God foreordains some men to salvation and others to destruction, irrespective of their choice in the matter, is clearly incompatible with these statements of Holy Writ. Thus the corollary teaching that a man cannot fall from grace—that when once “in grace” he is “always in grace”—proves to be a human invention. SDA Bible Commentary