Galatians 5:13 ends with a clear reminder: freedom in Christ is not freedom to sin—it is freedom to love. Paul writes, “through love serve one another,” and in the very next verse he shows what that looks like in action: “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14). Paul quotes Leviticus the same way Jesus did—highlighting love as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s moral will. He has spent most of Galatians smashing legalism to pieces, insisting believers are free from the Mosaic Law as a means of righteousness. Yet suddenly he uses the word “serve,” the very word used for slavery. Freedom and servitude? How can both be true? Martin Luther captured the tension perfectly: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” That is not a contradiction—it is a revolution. In Christ, we are freed from earning God’s approval so we can freely give His love to others.
The world thinks freedom means doing whatever we want—following our appetites and chasing self-fulfillment. But that kind of “freedom” always ends in bondage. Paul warns believers not to let the flesh—the old self-centered nature—take over, because when it does, sin reigns like a dictator. What begins as “freedom to indulge” becomes slavery to addiction, lust, selfishness, anger, pride, and eventually despair. True freedom is not the removal of responsibility but the embrace of righteous responsibility. Leroy Lawson quotes historian Edith Hamilton, who observed that when ancient Athens pursued “freedom from responsibility,” it collapsed from within. That is exactly what Paul is saying. When people live only for themselves, they are not free—they are prisoners chained by their own appetites.
Paul gives the grim result of self-centered living in verse 15: “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” When self-interest rules a church, marriage, family, or community, destruction always follows. Love does not bite. Love does not devour. Love does not compete—it serves. Love builds, heals, and blesses. Jon Courson offers great advice to anyone who thinks a life of holiness sounds boring: “If I am not going to party anymore… what am I going to do? Serve one another! Pour yourself into people… You will find that talking to them about eternal issues will be more exciting than anything you have ever done.” He is right. Love is not just the fulfillment of the law. It is the pathway to joy. The world defines freedom as living for yourself. God defines freedom as loving others. One leads to loneliness. The other leads to life.