For *ye* have been called to liberty, brethren; only [do] not [turn] liberty into an opportunity to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;
The Galatians were turning back to the law of Moses. Paul answers with the law's own summary: it all comes down to loving your neighbor as yourself. So does he put Christians back under law? Or does he show that only those set free from it ever meet what it asks?
The verse opens with "for," so it gives a reason: freedom is meant for serving. One writer shows how grace, not law, produces that life:
God gave the law to convince of sin; the flesh would use it to work out righteousness. He acts in grace, so that we may be above sin and outside its rule. The flesh would use grace as an opportunity to sin without restraint. The Christian, truly free from the yoke of sin as well as from its condemnation... instead of serving his lusts, seeks to serve others, free to do it in love. So the law itself is fulfilled, and we are not under its yoke. The whole practical law comes down to this one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Much hangs on the word "fulfilled." It does not mean the same as "obeyed." The same writer marks the difference:
This one commandment itself amounts to keeping the whole law — filling up the measure of its requirements. It is not, "He who has done this has obeyed this as law," but "He who has done this has, in every respect, done all that the law aims at." The whole righteous requirement of it is met.
Paul cites only the second of the two great commandments. Commentators read that silence in different ways. One takes it as deliberate — Paul keeps clear of the first table, the commands about loving God:
When the apostle speaks of this point, which he does more than once, he never speaks of the first table. Not only that, he declares that the whole law is fulfilled in loving one's neighbour as one's self. See Romans 13:8-9; Galatians 5:14. So when this point is before him, he avoids saying that love to God is included, and in fact calls the whole law love to our neighbour.
Another answers that the greater command has taken a new form in Christ, and that no one keeps the lesser one without it:
He does not mention here the other and greater of the two, because the old commandment has taken a new form since God Himself fulfilled it in His Son (1 John 4:10-11). Yet he is bold to say that all the law is fulfilled in this one saying. The law is one and not many, and the same Spirit runs through all its words... No one who does not love God can truly love his brother. So to keep the lesser charge is to fulfil the whole commandment.
The verse tells us what the law wants. It does not tell us where to get it:
The law demands love, but it gives no ability to meet its demands. Being holy, it can only condemn us, since we have all failed to meet what it asks.
Another writer points to what fills that gap:
If they turned to law, the law was fulfilled in this way and no other. It was not fulfilled by putting themselves under it, but by the love that comes from the presence of the Spirit of God. For "the fruit of the Spirit is love."
Paul's choice of command carries a sting for anyone eager to be under law:
Love of others absolutely cuts off selfishness. Selfishness is the unvarying motive of the legalist, for he seeks blessing for himself, not for others. So the more legal-minded one is, the more thoroughly he ignores the claims of the Law in which he boasts!
Does Paul's use of this command prove Christians are still under law? One writer answers with a courtroom picture:
Paul's appeal to the law was most apt for the Galatians. They wished to put themselves under the law, and what is more telling than to show them that the law itself condemned them? But we can quote the law as showing God's mind without putting ourselves under it. Some of our judges have cited Roman law in their judgments, because of its admitted excellence. Who imagines that these judges held Roman law to be binding in our country? If God lays down principles in the law, they must be perfect, and Paul quotes them as such.
- Called — grace does not free the flesh to sin; it frees the Christian to serve others in love.
- Given — the law demanded love but supplied none; the Spirit supplies the love the law only asked for.
- Fulfilled — to love your neighbor is not to obey a rule but to reach everything the law was aiming at.
- Summed — one command holds the whole law, because the law is one and not many.
- Tested — the legalist seeks blessing for himself, so he ignores the very law he boasts in.