To shut out, exclude, or eliminate. Used in Romans 3:27 of the principle of 'boasting' being shut out by the law of faith, and in Galatians 4:17 of those who are zealously courting the Galatians with a motive to exclude them from Paul's influence.
Ekkleiō appears in Romans 3 at the precise moment Paul asks: 'Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded.' If justification comes by faith and not by works of the law, then no one has grounds for boasting before God. The door is shut on human merit. In Galatians 4:17, false teachers try to 'exclude' the Galatians from Paul's influence. The word thus captures two exclusions: one glorious (the exclusion of boasting from the gospel), and one sinister (the exclusion of genuine spiritual relationships by manipulative teachers).