Having painted a negative picture of what will happen if freedom in Christ is given up for the yoke of slavery, Paul describes in verses 5-6 how freedom in Christ is maintained. Both verses focus on faith. Faith in Christ is the only way to protect our freedom in Christ. Paul spells out in very concise terms what this life of faith is like. His terms echo what he has already taught at some length in the preceding chapters; they also introduce the central themes of the rest of the letter.

First, the life of faith is life by the Spirit: by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit (v. 5). By faith in the gospel we received the Spirit (3:2). We now "live by the Spirit" (5:16), "are led by the Spirit" (5:18) and "keep in step with the Spirit" (5:25). The presence of the Spirit marks us the children of God (4:6), and the power of the Spirit produces in us the character of God (5:22-23). The control of the Spirit in our lives makes the yoke of the law unnecessary (5:18).

Second, the life of faith is a life of confident expectation of righteousness: by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope (v. 5). Paul's focus here is the future righteousness which is ours when God completes his work in us by his Spirit. By depending on the Spirit, we can expect to reap the harvest of eternal life in the future (see 6:8). In the past, when we put our faith in Christ at the beginning of our Christian life, God credited righteousness to us (3:6-9). In the present, by the power of the Spirit, God produces righteousness in us (5:13-25). Or to put it in more theological language, our righteousness—credited to us by justification, produced in us by sanctification and perfected in us by glorification—is always a gift received from God by faith.

Third, in this life of faith what matters is union with Christ, not union with the Jews or Gentiles or any other racial or social group: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value (v. 6). The world's divisions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female have been obliterated in our union with one another in Christ (3:28).

Fourth, our life of faith is a life of loving one another: The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (v. 6). Freedom from the law does not leave our life without moral direction. Faith in Christ gives us not only moral direction but also the moral dynamic to fulfill the true intent of all the law by serving one another (vv. 13-14). The evidence of true faith will be genuine love, for true faith in Christ is inevitably expressed through love.

These four concise descriptions of the life of faith enable us to see how faith in Christ is the only way to maintain our freedom in Christ. In his ethical appeal (5:13—6:10) Paul fills in the implications and applications of these brief statements. But first he exposes the false teachers for who they really are in order to rid the church of their destructive influence.