Paul uses the phrase twice. Neither time does he mean Moses with a new cover, and neither time does he mean anything goes. He means the love Jesus commanded, lived by the Spirit, usually with somebody else's weight on your shoulders.
What is the law of Christ? It is the command Jesus gave His disciples in John 13:34, love one another as I have loved you, lived out by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul names it in Galatians 6:2 and 1 Corinthians 9:21. It is not the law of Moses carried forward, and it is not the absence of law. It is the way of Jesus, written on the heart.
The rest of this study is about why both halves matter, because churches tend to fall off one side or the other, and people get hurt either way.
The law of Christ is the law of Moses, or at least its moral part, now enforced by Jesus. Or it is the church's own list: the dress code, the drinking rules, the attendance chart. Keep the list and you belong.
The law of Christ is the love Jesus commanded and showed. It is a real obligation with real content, and it gets fulfilled by carrying people, not by keeping score.
Galatians is a letter written into the first ditch. Teachers had told Gentile believers in Galatia that faith in Jesus was a fine start, but full belonging required circumcision and the calendar of the law. Paul answers sharply. You began by the Spirit, he says, so why are you trying to finish in the flesh (Galatians 3:3)?
Then, right in the middle of that argument for freedom, he turns around and guards the other ditch.
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Galatians 5:13Freedom from Sinai is not freedom from love. The same letter that refuses the rulebook refuses the shrug.
Both ditches have modern versions. Today the legalist one is the unwritten code about how a real Christian dresses, drinks, schools their kids and spends Sunday. The lawless one says grace covers it, so how I treat people hardly matters. Paul would have written the same letter to both.
Legalism turns the covenant into a list you keep. Lawlessness turns grace into a reason to stop loving. The law of Christ refuses both, because love is harder than a list and asks more than a shrug ever will.
The exact phrase appears only twice in the New Testament, and both times Paul is explaining how a Jewish follower of Jesus relates to the law he grew up under.
“Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Galatians 6:2Look at where that sits. Verse 1 has just told spiritual people to restore someone caught in sin “in a spirit of gentleness.” Galatians 5:14 has just said the whole law is fulfilled in one word, love your neighbor as yourself. So when Paul reaches for the law of Christ a few sentences later, he is not introducing a new code. He is naming the one command that sums up everything he has been saying.
The second place is 1 Corinthians 9:21. Paul describes becoming “as one outside the law” to reach Gentiles, then immediately adds a parenthesis: “not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ.” He will not be told he is under Moses, and he will not be called lawless. He is bound to Christ.
1 Corinthians 9:21. From en, in, and nomos, law. Lexicons give bound to the law, or lawful. It appears only here and in Acts 19:39, where it describes a lawful assembly. Paul is inside a law, and it belongs to a Person.
Galatians 6:2, the burdens. A weight heavy enough to press a person down. Acts 15:28 uses the same word when the Jerusalem church decides to lay on Gentile believers “no greater burden” than a few necessary things.
Galatians 6:5, “each will have to bear his own load.” A different word, used of a ship's cargo, and the word Jesus uses in Matthew 11:30 when He says His burden is light.
Galatians 6:2, fulfill. To fill up, to complete. Love is not a loophole in the law. It is what fills the law to the top.
Put the vocabulary together and the picture gets sharp. The church in Acts 15 refused to put a baros on Gentile shoulders. Paul then says the law of Christ is picking up the baros other people are already carrying.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
If the law of Christ is not Sinai, it is fair to ask what it contains. The New Testament answers that more directly than most people expect.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
John 13:34Loving your neighbor was not new. Leviticus 19:18 already said that. The newness is the measure: as I have loved you. The standard moved from how you love yourself to how Jesus loved, shown in the same chapter with a towel and a basin, and soon after with a cross.
The whole law is fulfilled in one word: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Paul's own summary, a few verses before he names the law of Christ.
Owe no one anything except love. Paul lists adultery, murder, theft and coveting, then says love is the fulfilling of the law.
Whoever loves God must also love his brother. John will not let love for God stay invisible.
Love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says the whole Law and the Prophets depend on these two.
Scholars define the phrase differently: Jesus' whole teaching, the love command, or the pattern of His self-giving life. Olufemi Adeyemi, writing in Bibliotheca Sacra, argues that it is a new law with its source in Christ rather than Moses, “the way a believer's life in Christ should be lived”. Those readings mostly land in the same place. His teaching is love explained, His life is love shown, and His Spirit is love given.
That is where the Spirit comes in. Jeremiah 31:33 promised a covenant in which God would write His law on the heart. The law of Christ is not ink on a tablet. It is what the Spirit grows in you as you walk in the Spirit, which is why Paul ends his list of the fruit of the Spirit with a quiet line: “against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:23).
Two serious alternatives deserve to be stated at full strength before we disagree.
The first says the law of Christ is simply the Torah as Jesus interpreted it. Jesus was a Jew, He said He did not come to abolish the Law (Matthew 5:17), so on this reading Gentile believers should keep the Sabbath, the feasts and the food laws, because that is what loving God looked like for Jesus Himself.
The second is the older Protestant approach: the ceremonial and civil laws ended, but the moral law, usually the Ten Commandments, carries straight over under a new name.
We believe the law of Christ is the love command of Jesus, lived by the Spirit, and we believe both alternatives miss Paul. The first cannot survive 1 Corinthians 9:20, where Paul says he is “not being myself under the law,” or Acts 15, where the apostles refused to put Gentiles under Moses. The second is closer, but it keeps the Sinai covenant in charge and simply trims it, and Paul never trims. He says the whole law is fulfilled in love. The moral content does not vanish. Love does not murder, steal or betray a spouse. But the obligation now comes from Christ, not from the tablets.
We also believe the other ditch is real. Grace that produces harsh or careless people is not the grace of Galatians. Under the law of Christ you owe more, not less. A rule can be kept by staying away from people. Love cannot.
Name who legalism gets used on. It lands hardest on new believers, on people with complicated histories, and on anyone whose life does not match the church's unwritten code. Paul spoke gently to the people troubled that way and very bluntly about the teachers who troubled them (Galatians 5:12).
For the covenant history behind this, see which Old Testament laws still apply, the Ten Commandments, and what it means that Jesus fulfilled the law.
In 1 Corinthians 9:21, how does Paul describe himself?
Paul refuses both labels. In verse 20 he says he is not under the law, and in verse 21 he says he is not lawless either. The Greek is ennomos Christou, bound in law to Christ.
Galatians 6:1 to 5 is a short set of instructions, and each one cuts against the way church life often goes.
Galatians 6:1. When someone is caught in sin, the spiritual people are the ones who restore gently, watching themselves as they do. The law of Christ never needs a public example.
Galatians 6:2. The baros is the weight nobody lifts alone: a hospital stay, a divorce, a relapse, a job gone in one phone call. You probably cannot fix it. You can get under one corner of it.
Galatians 6:5. The daily responsibilities that belong to you are yours. Carrying others is not the same as doing for grown adults what they can and should do for themselves.
Acts 15:10. Peter asks why anyone would place a yoke on the disciples “that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.” A church under the law of Christ checks what it is asking people to carry. More on that picture in the yoke in the Bible.
On Long Island, where most people are stretched between the commute, the mortgage and aging parents, this looks ordinary. A meal dropped off. A ride to an appointment. A call on the anniversary nobody else remembered. None of it feels like law, and that is Paul's point.
Some people reading this are the ones who need help, and they have been told one way or another that needing it means their faith is weak. It does not. Galatians 6:2 assumes burdens exist in healthy churches. The command is written for the person under the weight as much as for the people around them.
If that is you, let someone get under a corner of it. You can start by sending a request to our prayer team, and nobody will ask you to explain more than you want to.
Every other law in Scripture was written on something: stone, scroll, a doorpost. This one is named after Someone.
That makes it lighter and heavier than what came before. Lighter, because nobody stands over you with a checklist and the Spirit supplies what the command asks. Heavier, because “as I have loved you” has no ceiling. Jesus did not love His disciples up to a limit and then stop.
So when you ask what the law of Christ is, the plainest answer is to look at Him. Kneeling with a towel. Touching people nobody else would touch. Carrying a cross that was not His to carry. Then look at the person next to you and pick up a corner of whatever they are holding.
For related ground, see the law of Moses, the new covenant, the great commandment, agape love and when Galatians was written, or read what we believe.
The law of Christ is the command Jesus gave, love one another as I have loved you, fulfilled by the Spirit rather than a rulebook, binding enough that Paul would not be called lawless and free enough that he would not be put back under Moses, and it is kept mostly by carrying somebody else's weight.
Tell us what it is. Our prayer team will pray with you, and if you want, somebody will reach out.
The law of Christ is the command Jesus gave His disciples in John 13:34, love one another as I have loved you, lived out through the Holy Spirit. Paul names it in Galatians 6:2, where carrying one another's burdens fulfills it, and in 1 Corinthians 9:21, where he says he is not outside the law of God but under the law of Christ. It is neither Moses carried forward nor a release from moral obligation.
Not exactly. The Ten Commandments were the center of God's covenant with Israel at Sinai. The law of Christ comes from Jesus and is summed up in love. The moral content overlaps, and Romans 13:9 says those commandments are summed up in love your neighbor as yourself. But Christians are bound to Christ rather than to the Sinai covenant, which is why the Sabbath command is never restated as an obligation for believers.
In Galatians 6:2 the word for burdens is baros, a weight heavy enough to press someone down. Bearing it means getting underneath what another person cannot lift alone: grief, a crisis, a sin they are trying to leave, a season with no margin. Paul pairs it with verse 5, where each person carries his own load, using a different word. Helping carry what is crushing is not the same as taking over someone's everyday responsibilities.
No. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:21 that he is not outside the law of God but under the law of Christ, and Galatians 5:13 warns believers not to use their freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Grace frees us from the Sinai covenant and from trying to earn God's favor. It does not free us from love. Under the law of Christ we owe our neighbor more than any rule could require.
By loving the way Jesus loved, which Paul makes concrete in Galatians 6. Restore people gently when they fall, carry the weights they cannot carry alone, take responsibility for your own load, and refuse to put heavy religious expectations on anyone. The Holy Spirit makes this possible. It is less a matter of willpower than of fruit that grows as you walk with Him, and against such things, Paul says, there is no law.