If, giving in to the flesh, and attacking the gentiles, they devoured one another destroying their witness. But the apostle gives something more positive. "This I say then," he continues, after the interruption of his subject, "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." It is not by putting oneself under the law that one has power against sin. It is the Holy Spirit who is the Christian's strength. Now the two powers, the flesh (old self) and the Spirit (new self - produced by being born again), are antagonistic. The flesh strives to hinder us when we would walk according to the Spirit, and the Spirit resists the working of the flesh to prevent it from accomplishing its will. But if we are led of the Spirit, we are not under the law.

Holiness, true holiness, is accomplished without the law, even as righteousness is not founded on it. 'Nor is there any difficulty in judging between what is of the flesh and what is of the Spirit; the apostle enumerates the sad fruits of the former, adding the sure testimony that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The fruits of the Spirit are equally evident in their character, and assuredly against such things there was no law. If we walk according to the Spirit, the law will find nothing to condemn in us. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh and its lusts. This is what they are, inasmuch as they are Christians; it is that which distinguishes them. If these Galatians really lived, it was in the Spirit: let them then walk in the Spirit.