Having proved that we are justified through faith alone by Christ alone the question becomes “How then should we live?”
Or, to put it another way, since Paul has stated unequivocally that the believer is no longer under law, but under grace, how does Paul answer the charge of antinomianism? Hasn't he just given all believers a license to sin? And if the law is not our focus, what is the principle guideline of our Christian life?
And Paul has answered by pointing out that the law points us to Christ who is all-sufficient for believers. Through faith in him, walking by the Spirit, Christ-focused, we produce the fruit of the Spirit within us against which there is no law. All of that was in chapter five.
Remember we pointed out from Jesus’ correction of the Pharisees in Mark 7 how Jesus announced the end and fulfillment of the ceremonial law in him, and at the same time re-affirmed the moral aspects of the law. God’s moral precepts are unchanging because they are derived from God’s moral character which is itself unchanging. But the ceremonial aspects of the law were temporary serving a specific people, place, and time in redemptive history. So we are now living in that phase of redemptive history known as the Messianic age, or the age of the Spirit. He has been poured out on all flesh (meaning all kinds of people, not just Jews) and all those who (not just Jews) call upon him (worship him in spirit and truth) will be saved.
In the previous chapter Paul taught us to ‘walk by the Spirit’ and promised that in doing so we would not fulfill the desires of the flesh, but rather we would produce the fruit of the Spirit. But what happens when someone falls? What happens when someone is ensnared in the traps of the devil? What happens when someone goes astray, does not walk by the Spirit, does gratify the desires of the flesh? That's where Paul begins in chapter 6.
Click here: Galatians 6:1-8 - The Law of Christ
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