Restoring a Sinning
Brother (5:26-6:6)

Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. For each one shall bear his own load.

And let the one who is taught the word share all good things with him who teaches. (5:26-6:6)

Sin is a reality in every Christian’s life. “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” John warns believers. In fact, he goes on to say, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8,10). “We all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2).

If Christians were not subject to sin they would not need “the full armor of God” in order to “stand firm against the schemes of the devil” and “to resist in the evil day” (Eph. 6:11, 13). Nor would they need to heed James’s warning about being tempted and carried away by their own lusts or his admonition to put “aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness” (James 1:14, 21).

As mentioned in the previous chapter under the discussion of the deeds of the flesh (Gal. 5:19-21), sin not only affects the believer himself but also God and others, including both believers and unbelievers. First of all, in regard to himself, his sin results in loss of confidence and loss of inner joy, peace, and all the other fruit of the Spirit. In expressing the opposite side of that truth, Peter says that “as long as you practice these things,” referring to the list of spiritual virtues he has just given, “you will never stumble” (2 Pet. 1:10, cf. w. 5-7).

Sin in the life of a believer also weakens his anticipation of Christ’s second coming. The more a Christian sins, the less anxious he will be to meet his Lord. “And now, little children,” John says, “abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming” (1 John 2:28).

Sin also defeats and sometimes destroys a believer’s usefulness and inhibits the ministry of his spiritual gifts. A sinful life cannot produce good works any more than a bad tree can produce good fruit (Matt. 7:16-20; cf. John 15:2). On the other hand, “If a man cleanses himself from these things,” that is, the sins previously mentioned, “he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21; cf. w. 14, 16-18).

Second, sin in a believer affects God. Paul shockingly compares an immoral believer to one who would link up a harlot to the Lord. How could such an unthinkable thing be? “Do you not know,” Paul asked the fleshly Corinthian Christians, “that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Cor. 6:16-17). The Lord Himself is thereby brought into the sin. Later in the same letter the apostle says, “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?. . . You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we?” (10:16, 21-22). Because many of the Corinthian believers mocked and provoked God by persisting in gross sins, many of them were “weak and sick, and a number sleep,” that is, were dead (11:30). When believers sin they “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4:30).

Third, sin in a Christian affects other people, both believers and unbelievers. His sin cannot be prevented from infecting fellow believers, because they are all one as Christ’s own body. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13).

The greatest heartache a pastor can have is to see believers under his care willfully continue in sin and thereby lose personal blessing as well as usefulness. Still worse is the fact that they dishonor and grieve the Lord and violate the purity and unity of the church.

The most important pursuit for all Christians, individually and corporately, is holiness. The first mission of the church is to honor and glorify God, and He can be honored and glorified by His children only as they grow to be like Him in character. Although evangelism is the cutting edge of the church’s ministry, holiness is the only foundation on which effective evangelism or any other ministry can be built. The supreme priority of the church is holiness, purity of inward life. God can accomplish whatever He desires through a believer or a church that is holy, but He can do little through one that is not.

Positively, holiness involves growing in Christlikeness, in knowledge of and obedience to God’s Word, and in submission to His Spirit. Negatively, it involves correcting that which is impure, first in a believer’s own life and then also in the lives of other believers. That negative aspect of holiness is the theme of Galatians 5:26-6:6.

Paul’s admonition, Let us not become boastful, challenging one another [by being combative], envying one another, seems to fit better at the beginning of chapter 6, serving as a contrast to the kind of behavior called for in verses 1-6. The apostle admonishes believers to look at their own lives and to stop boasting, provoking arguments, and being envious of one another. Those sinful attitudes are marks of immature, sinful Christians who place their own interests above the interests of fellow believers (cf. Phil. 2:1-4). They are characteristics of believers who are not walking by the Spirit but who are in the flesh and are therefore disrupting the body fellowship by producing the deeds of the flesh rather than the fruit of the Spirit (see w 16-25). And such attitudes preclude helpful discipline of one another.

It is worth being reminded that the pursuit of holiness can be perverted into self-righteous, proud piosity. No sin does greater damage to the church or is more offensive to God than self-righteousness. Jesus’ most scathing rebukes and warnings were against the scribes and Pharisees, whose very names are synonyms for hypocritical self-righteousness. Nothing undermines true righteousness so much as self-righteousness. Holiness must therefore be that true holiness that is manifest in meekness and is credited completely to the grace of God and the work of the Spirit and the Word.

But though a Christian’s first concern must be for his own holiness and purity of life, God’s Word makes clear that he also has a responsibility for the holiness and purity of the rest of the church. Speaking to believers about believers, Paul says, “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret” (Eph. 5:11-12). He instructed Titus, who was then pastor of the church in Crete, to “speak and exhort and reprove with all authority” and to “reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned” (Titus 2:15; 3:10-11).

The unredeemed flesh naturally resists discipline, and no one enjoys being rebuked. But the spiritually sensitive Christian knows that, although “all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11). He knows that God disciplines for the same reason that a loving parent disciplines: for the good of His child. He therefore does “not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when [he is] reproved by Him,” because he realizes that “those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” (w. 5-6).

Paul repeatedly warned the Corinthian church about the need to cleanse itself of persistently sinning members, Speaking specifically about a man who had committed incest with his mother or stepmother, he wrote, “I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). As the next verse makes clear, his rebuke was of the entire church, not simply of the man who had committed a despicable sin that even the pagans did not practice (see v. 1). Apparently the rest of the congregation winked at the sin or even tried to justify it on the basis of a false type of Christian liberty. “Your boasting is not good,” Paul says. “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. . . . I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. . . . Remove the wicked man from among yourselves” (w. 6-7,11,13). To the Thessalonians he wrote, “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life” (2 Thess. 3:6; cf. v. 14).

It is not about the sins of unbelievers that Christians should have the greatest concern. When the unsaved commit sin, they are simply expressing their unredeemed natures. Paul states plainly that his call for separation was not from sinning unbelievers but sinning believers. When “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people,” he explained, “I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world,. . . for then you would have to go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:9-10). “It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God,” Peter declared (1 Pet. 4:17).

Leaders of the church are not exempted from discipline. They are, in fact, even more accountable for what they say and do. Although a church should “not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses,” if that criterion is met, elders “who continue to sin” are to be rebuked “in the presence of all, so that the rest also may be fearful of sinning” (1 Tim. 5:19-20).

Jesus precisely established the pattern for discipline of an erring church member. “If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-gatherer” (Matt. 18:15-17).

Every kind of sin, from disorderly conduct to immorality to false teaching, is to be disciplined. And all Christians, from the newest believer to the most experienced leader, are subject to that discipline. To be spiritually healthy and effective in its ministry the church must deal with sin within its own ranks. To trifle with sin, to ignore it under the guise of love, or to fail for any other reason to cleanse the church of it is disastrous. To preach against sin but not enforce that preaching by confronting sin in the lives of individuals in the fellowship is to disconnect preaching from life and to turn it into an unproductive exercise in oratory.

As is often the case, however, there is also an opposite danger. Just as the flesh makes it easy to ignore sin within the church it also makes it easy to discipline in the wrong way and with the wrong spirit. There is always temptation to deal with sinning members out of a self-righteous, judgmental attitude rather than from a genuinely humble and righteous concern for the purity of the Lord’s Body.

Addressing that danger, Paul admonishes the Galatian church to take special care to discipline in the right way. Rather than being boastful, challenging one another, and envying one another, church members must be loving, gracious, and helpful to one another, even to those who sin and offend. In 6:1-6, the apostle declares that when a sinning brother is disciplined, the spiritual members of the church should pick him up, hold him up, and build him up.

PICK HIM UP

Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted. (6:1)

The first responsibility of a spiritual believer who seeks to restore a fallen brother is to help pick him up. When a person stumbles, his first need is to get up, and often he needs assistance in doing it. An integral part of church discipline, therefore, is helping a fallen brother get back on his feet spiritually and morally.

Even if a man is caught in any trespass, he deserves help and encouragement as well as rebuke. Caught may imply that the person was actually seen committing the trespass, indicating there was no doubt about his guilt. But the Greek verb (prolamban) also allows for the idea of the man’s being caught by the trespass itself, as it were. That is the sense of the King James rendering, “overtaken in a fault,” and seems appropriate in this context.

That interpretation is also supported by Paul’s use of paraptma (trespass), which has the basic idea of stumbling or falling. The man does not commit the sin with premeditation but rather fails to be on his guard or perhaps flirts with a temptation he thinks he can withstand. Or he simply tries to live his life in his own power and fails, producing a deed of the flesh instead of the fruit of the Spirit.

Responsibility for the discipline of those who stumble, as well as for those who commit more serious sins, rests on the shoulders of church members who are spiritual. Spiritual believers are those walking in the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, and manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, who, by virtue of their spiritual strength, are responsible for those who are fleshly.

It should be noted that, whereas maturity is relative, depending on one’s progression and growth, spirituality is an absolute reality that is unrelated to growth. At any point in the life of a Christian, from the moment of his salvation to his glorification, he is either spiritual, walking in the Spirit, or fleshly, walking in the deeds of the flesh. Maturity is the cumulative effect of the times of spirituality. But any believer, at any point in his growth toward Christlikeness, can be a spiritual believer who helps a sinful believer who has fallen to the flesh.

The spiritually and morally strong have a responsibility for the spiritually and morally weak. “We who are strong,” Paul says, “ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves” (Rom. 15:1). Spiritual believers are to “admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men” (1 Thess. 5:14).

It is not that spiritual believers are to be suspicious and inquisitive. Those are hardly qualities of spirituality. But they will be sensitive to sin whenever and wherever it may appear within the Body and should be prepared to deal with it in the way God’s Word prescribes.

When the scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus the woman caught in the act of adultery, they reminded Him that the law of Moses required that she be stoned to death. Instead of replying, Jesus bent down and began writing in the sand—perhaps listing sins of which those in the crowd were guilty. “When they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And when they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones.” When Jesus then asked her if any of her accusers had stayed to condemn her, she replied, ‘“No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go your way. From now on sin no more’” (John 8:3-11).

Jesus was not interested in destroying the woman but in helping her, and that should be the attitude of His followers toward other people, especially toward fellow believers.

Jesus’ command “Do not judge lest you be judged” (Matt. 7:1) is often used by Christians to oppose discipline in the church and is sometimes quoted by outsiders in opposing the church’s taking strong stands against certain evils. As the context makes clear, however (see w. 3-5), Jesus was talking about a self-righteous, condemning person who acts as judge, passing sentence on others, since he sees only the best in himself and the worst in everyone else. If such a person confesses and is cleansed of his own sin, the Lord went on to say, he then is qualified to confront his brother with the purpose not to condemn but “to take the speck out of [his] brother’s eye” (v. 5). He is then spiritual and has the right and even obligation to help his brother overcome a trespass.

James’s similar warning about judging others is also often used to oppose discipline. But again the context makes clear that in his saying, “Who are you who judge your neighbor?” James was not talking about helping a brother out of a sin but about judgmentally speaking condemnation “against a brother” (James 4:11-12). A Christian who “speaks against a brother” is proud, self-righteous, and cruel. He seeks only to exalt himself by pushing down others. A spiritual believer who humbly seeks to restore a sinning brother, however, is not speaking against him but serving him in the best possible way.

A pastor once commented, “I have often thought that if I ever fall into a paraptma [trespass], I will pray that I don’t fall into the hands of those censorious, critical judges in the church. Let me fall into the hands of barkeepers, streetwalkers, or dope peddlers, because such church people would tear me apart with their long, wagging, gossipy tongues, cutting me to shreds.”

Only spiritual believers have the wisdom or the right to discipline fellow believers, just as only spiritual believers have the right to leadership in the church (1 Tim. 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9). Before God, in fact, they do not have the right not to discipline. They are commanded to restore such a one. When a church is committed to restoring fallen members, it is on its way to being pure and usable.

Katartiz (to restore) literally means to mend or repair and was sometimes used metaphorically of restoring harmony among quarreling factions in a dispute. It was also used of setting a broken bone or putting a dislocated limb back in place. That is the figure used by the writer of Hebrews in calling on believers to “strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed” (Heb. 12:12-13).

Spiritual believers restore a fallen believer first of all by helping him recognize his trespass as a trespass. Until a person admits his sin, he cannot be helped out of it. Once he has done that, he must be encouraged to confess his sin before God and turn away from it in repentance, sincerely seeking God’s forgiveness.

Restoration of fallen brothers and sisters is always to be done in a spirit of gentleness, which is characteristic of those who walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:23). A Christian who is critical and judgmental as he attempts to help a fallen brother does not show the grace of Christ or help his brother, but instead stumbles himself.

After a church has exercised proper discipline, the members should “forgive and comfort” the one who has been disciplined, “lest somehow such a one be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow” (2 Cor. 2:7). He should not be regarded “as an enemy, but [admonished] as a brother” (2 Thess. 3:15).

From the caution each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted, it is clear that even spiritual believers can stumble. They are made of the same stuff as those who have fallen. Because the exhortation looking to yourself is so vital, Paul uses a strong word (skope, to observe or consider) in the present tense, which emphasized a continual, diligent attentiveness to their own purity. They, too, could be tempted and even fall into the same sin for which they disciplined a brother.

The attitude of every Christian should always be the attitude of Jesus. And when a believer needs to help discipline a fallen brother, he should ask for a special portion of Christ’s love and gentleness. If the Father does not want even one of His own to be devastated (Matt. 18:14), and if “the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:56), how much less do His followers have the right to be destructive rather than helpful?

HOLD HIM UP

Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. For each one shall bear his own load. (6:2-5)

The second responsibility of a spiritual believer who seeks to restore a fallen brother is to help hold him up once he is back on his feet. It is not enough simply to help him turn from his sin and then leave him alone. It is immediately after a spiritual victory that Satan often makes his severest attacks on God’s children.

Christians are continually (present tense) to bear one another’s burdens. Bear has the thought of carrying with endurance, and burdens is from baros, which refers to heavy loads that are difficult to lift and carry. Used metaphorically, as here, it represents any difficulty or problem a person has trouble coping with. In this context the reference suggests burdens that tempt a sinning believer to fall back into the trespass from which he has just been delivered. A persistent, oppressing temptation is one of the heaviest burdens a Christian can have.

To be freed from a sin is not always to be freed from its temptation. The spiritual believer who truly loves his brother and sincerely wants to restore him to a walk by the Spirit will continue to spend time with him and make himself available for counsel and encouragement. Prayer is the most powerful weapon believers have in conquering sin and opposing Satan, and nothing helps a brother carry his burdens as much as prayer for him and with him.

The brother who has been delivered from a trespass has an obligation to let his spiritual friends help him carry his burdens. It is not spirituality but pride that makes a person want to “go it alone.” James tells believers to “confess [their] sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that [they] may be healed” (James 5:16). God Himself is the believer’s ultimate source of strength, and on Him we are called to cast our burdens (Ps. 5:22) and our cares (1 Pet. 5:7). But He often uses fellow believers as His agents to help carry the burdens of His children.

Strong as he was in the Lord, Paul himself was not free from temptation or discouragement. He confessed that “when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more” (2 Cor. 7:5-7).

When believers bear one another’s burdens, they fulfill the law of Christ. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). The law of Christ is the law of love, which fulfills all the rest of God’s law (Gal. 5:14; Rom. 13:8, 10).

It is a misguided and unscriptural philosophy that causes some pastors to think they should not get too close to members of their congregation. Obviously they should never show favoritism, and there is danger in becoming too involved in superficial social relationships. But a pastor who does not intimately attend to the people under his care cannot possibly minister to them effectively.

For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, Paul continues, he deceives himself. At first glance that statement seems somewhat out of place. But in light of the call for spiritual believers to restore sinning brothers “in a spirit of gentleness” (v. 1), the need for such a warning becomes apparent.

One of the chief reasons many Christians do not bother to help fellow Christians is that they feel superior to sinners and wrongly consider themselves to be spiritually something when the truth is they are really nothing. Like the Pharisees, their concern is not for the true righteousness that God gives and that comes only through humility (see Matt. 5:3-8) but for their own self-righteousness, which has no part in God’s kingdom or its work (v. 20). Their desire is not to help a stumbling brother but to judge and condemn him. At best, they leave him to “stew in his own juice,” thinking, if not saying, “He got himself into this mess; let him get himself out.”

Conceit can coexist with outward morality, but it cannot coexist with spirituality. In fact, conceit is the ultimate sin, first on the list of things God hates (Prov. 6:16-17). The Christian who thinks he is something when he is nothing needs help in facing his own sin before he can be qualified to help anyone else out of a sin. He needs first to “take the log out of [his] own eye” (Matt. 7:5). If he refuses to see his own spiritual need, he deceives himself and is useless in serving God or in helping fellow believers. The Greek verb behind deceives means “to lead one’s mind astray” and relates to subjective fantasies that are self-deceptive.

Therefore every Christian should examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. A believer’s first responsibility is to examine (from dokimaz, to approve after testing) himself, to be sure his own attitudes and life are right in the eyes of the Lord before he attempts to give spiritual help to others. Then, and only then, will he have reason for boasting in a proper way. If anything remains for boasting after honest self-examination, it will be that which induces boasting in the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 10:12-18).

God does not grade on the curve but by His own absolutes. He does not compare believers to each other but to His divine, perfect standards of righteousness. And if the Lord does not judge a believer by comparing him with other believers, how much less should a believer judge himself in that way? (cf. 2 Cor. 10:12).

If there is reason for a believer’s boasting, or rejoicing, in regard to himself, that is, in regard to what God has done in and through him, it is on the basis of his faithfulness and obedience, not on the basis of what he may have accomplished in regard to, or compared to, another. If he is truly more faithful and useful than some of his fellow believers, that is God’s doing, not his own.

Paul’s command for each one to bear his own load seems to contradict what he has just said about bearing one another’s burdens (v. 2). But he uses a different term here. Phortion (load) refers to anything that is carried, and has no connotation of difficulty. It was often used of the general obligations of life that a person is responsible to bear on his own.

For a Christian, load can refer to “his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad,” for which he will give account “before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Cor. 3:12-15). His load can also refer to fulfilling his personal calling and ministry for the Lord. Jesus assures His followers that the “load” [phortion] of service He gives them “is light” (Matt. 11:30). In either case, every believer is accountable to bear his own load, even the light one Christ gives him, and to answer for his faithfulness in so doing when he faces Him.

BUILD HIM UP

And let the one who is taught the word share all good things with him who teaches. (6:6)

The third responsibility of a spiritual believer who seeks to restore a fallen brother is to help build him up.

Like verse 3, this verse at first glance does not seem to fit into what Paul is focusing on in the passage. The seemingly obvious interpretation, and the one that is most common, is that Paul is exhorting congregations to pay their pastors fairly. But although that principle is taught in the New Testament (see, e.g., Luke 10:7; 1 Cor. 9:7-14), it does not seem to be what Paul is teaching here. He has just been talking about restoring sinning brothers, and in verses 7-8 he talks about sowing and reaping in the flesh or by the Spirit. Not only that, but no mention is made of financial support or necessarily of any kind of material support. Good things could include material goods, but that does not seem to be the sense here.

The Greek can be translated, “Let him who receives instruction share with him who gives instruction in all good things,” and such a rendering seems appropriate.

Share is from koinne, which has the basic idea of sharing equally. It is the verb form of the noun commonly translated “fellowship.” Paul is talking about mutuality, not of one party serving or providing for the other but of both parties sharing together. The one who is taught the word and the one who teaches have a common fellowship and should share all good things together.

The most common term for material things that are favorable, or good, is kalos. But good things translates the plural of agathos, which is used in the New Testament primarily of spiritual and moral excellence. Paul uses this word in describing the gospel itself, the “glad tidings of good things” (Rom. 10:15). The writer of Hebrews uses it in the same way, of “the good things to come” of which “Christ appeared as a high priest” (Heb. 9:11) and of which the law was “only a shadow” (10:1).

Under this interpretation, the sharing of all good things is the third step in the restoration of a fallen believer. The spiritual Christian who has picked up and held up his fallen brother also builds him up in the word, in whose good things they fellowship together.