Love for one another is the right way to respond
obediently and faithfully to God’s law, as God himself intended and as Jesus
pointed out. Paul echoes Jesus in Galatians 5:14 by quoting Leviticus 19:18:
“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself’” (see also Rom 13:9-10). For that is the verse that Jesus
had called the second great commandment in the law after the first commandment,
which is “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your strength” (Deut 6:5).
On the other hand, love will prevent us from using our
freedom for selfish indulgence. Christian freedom, while it releases us from
one kind of slavery (submitting to the law), actually puts us into a very
different kind of slavery for Christ’s sake—submitting to one another by
serving one another humbly in love.
No wonder Paul puts love at the head of the list of the
fruit of the Spirit a few verses later in Galatians 5:22. It is doubly
important!
--- Christopher J. H. Wright. Cultivating the Fruit of the
Spirit:
Growing in Christlikeness. 2017
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