The cross has done for us what the flesh could not do; what keeping the law could not do: make us new people. The new creation has dawned with the coming of Christ; we live between the times of his comings. We will enjoy the blessing of the new creation because of the cross.
Don’t hear this as a call to try harder to be a good person, this is a call to believe the gospel and commune with the Spirit… And you will have victory if you have the Spirit
However, This is Only Possible in Christ, who is the Epitome of the Fruit of the Spirit:
Love – He is the one who showed amazing love in dying for those that would kill him
Joy – who counted it all joy to suffer for the sake of God’s purposes
Peace – He is the true peacemaker who brings peace between God and Man in his crucifixion
Patience – He is a man of patience, as he willingly takes on flesh and 33 years to accomplish his mission
Kindness, Goodness, and Gentleness – He showed kindness to the beggars, and blind, and to us spiritual beggars and blind
Faithfulness – And He was faithful, dependable, even as He wept and sweat drops of blood in a garden prepared to stand under the weight of God’s wrath due or sin not his… he was there, he could be counted on
Self-control – And He is the only man who’s appetites didn’t control him – who is able to look at a cross and say not “my will” but yours be done!
When we try to turn from God and his gospel, it is like returning to a fifthly orphanage, the pit. This passage is all about learning to live as God’s children, in the freedom of grace and in the love of the Father.
In these verses, Paul opens up his heart to his spiritual children, the Galatians. He speaks as a shepherd, as father, and even using the language of a gentle mother. Even though Paul has rebuked them earlier, the language is of friendship and family here.