First safeguard. They are free indeed, and as Christians are done with Law; but love will save them from indulging lower impulses. Love (as Jesus taught, Mark 12:31 and parallels) includes everything (more fully Romans 13:9 f.). Paul fears cruel partisanships in Galatia love will prove a remedy.
Galatians 5:16-24. Second safeguard the Spirit; a source not only of trust in God, but of moral activity. Spirit and flesh, the renewed nature and the lower nature of man, are flatly antagonistic; we cannot but be thwarted on one side or other. (In strict classical grammar, Galatians 5:17 d means in order that, etc., and ought to refer to a Divine appointment. If that be the meaning here, it is best to regard for these. other as a parenthesis, and to take the Divine purpose to be We must not obey our lower promptings. But it is not certain that Paul's grammar is strictly classical.) If we are true to the promptings of the renewed nature, Law has no charge to bring against us.
Galatians 5:19. the works of the flesh include much besides sensuality. From the very first (Galatians 5:21) Paul must have warned inquirers and converts against bad lives. Per contra (Galatians 5:22) the fruit (not, as often misquoted, fruits) of the Spirit grows out of a renewed heart, and includes love. fidelity. self-control. against such: Paul knows of a law which says Do this and live (Galatians 3:12); but he usually thinks of the Law as saying, Thou shalt not (Romans 7:7), and as a gigantic enemy. The true Christian has no such enemy to fear. He has broken once for all with reigning sin.