“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

Although Christ has set the believer free from legalistic bondage, he is now under a still higher law—the law of Christ. It is also called “the law of the Spirit of life” which has made us “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

The law of Christ does not consist of many detailed ordinances which we are duty bound to obey. It is a law which we want to obey out of love for Christ. “Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). Paul says that “the end of the commandment is charity [that is, ‘Christian love’] out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (I Timothy 1:5). James calls it “the royal law,” defining it simply as: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (James 2:8).

Instead of a law bringing us into bondage, it is “the perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25), setting us free from slavery to sin. It not only gives us the desire to please the Lord, but also the will and the ability to do so.

It is not as though we are now without law and thereby free to indulge our carnal appetites. Paul explains his own new nature thus: “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more . . . (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ)” (I Corinthians 9:19,21).

In Christ, “the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,” and He is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 3:21; 10:4). But though we “have been called unto liberty,” Paul commands us to “use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). Thus, to believe in Christ is also to obey Him. HMM