Commentary - Galatians 6:1-5

Bird's-eye view

Having just laid out the stark contrast between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, Paul now turns to the intensely practical matter of how Spirit-filled people are to live with one another in the church. This is not a theoretical treatise; it is workshop instructions for a messy business. The liberty we have in the gospel is not a liberty to ignore sin, either in ourselves or in others. It is the freedom to deal with it rightly, which is to say, graciously and humbly.

This section of Galatians is a master class in Christian community. Paul addresses the delicate task of restoration, the foundational command to bear burdens, the danger of self-deception, the necessity of self-examination, and the reality of personal accountability. He artfully balances corporate responsibility with individual duty. We are in this together, and yet each of us will stand before the Lord to give an account. These verses are the sinews that connect the glorious doctrine of justification by faith to the dirt-under-the-fingernails reality of loving your brother.

Outline

Context In Galatians

Galatians 6:1-5 flows directly from the preceding chapter. Paul has just finished describing the life of freedom that is found in walking by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-26). He has contrasted the ugly works of the flesh with the beautiful fruit of the Spirit. But this fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, and so on, is not meant for solitary cultivation. It is meant to be lived out in the rough and tumble of church life. This passage, then, is the application. It answers the question: "What does a community walking by the Spirit actually look like when someone messes up?"

The Judaizers wanted to put the Galatians under the Mosaic law as the rule for their life. Paul, having demolished that error, now presents the true law, the "law of Christ." This law is not a set of external regulations but an internal principle of love that fulfills itself in sacrificial service to one another. This section is Paul's practical demonstration that freedom from the law of Moses does not lead to lawlessness, but rather to a higher law of love, empowered by the Spirit.

Key Issues

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Brothers, even if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each of you looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.

Paul begins with "Brothers," a familial term that sets the tone. What follows is a family matter. The situation is not a hypothetical "if," but a realistic "whenever." Christians sin. The phrase "caught in any transgression" suggests being overtaken, surprised by sin. It’s not necessarily a premeditated, high-handed rebellion, but perhaps a stumble, a fall. The church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners.

The responsibility for dealing with this falls to "you who are spiritual." This isn't a special class of super-Christians. In the context of chapter 5, the "spiritual" are simply those who are walking by the Spirit, who are exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. They are the mature believers. Their task is to "restore" the fallen brother. The word here is an artisan's term, used for mending nets or setting a broken bone. It's not about punishment, but about healing and making whole. It is constructive, not destructive.

This restoration must be done "in a spirit of gentleness." Gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23), not a natural human reaction to sin. Our flesh wants to be harsh, judgmental, and self-righteous. The Spirit produces meekness. This gentleness is fueled by a crucial self-awareness: "looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted." The man setting the broken bone must be careful not to fall off the ladder himself. When you are dealing with another's sin, you are in a spiritually dangerous place. The temptation to pride, to gossip, to a holier-than-thou attitude is immense. The restorer must be on guard, remembering his own frailty. This is why we must not correct others when we ourselves are in the grip of sin, like anger or frustration. You are not qualified to administer discipline if you are not yourself walking in the Spirit.

2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

This is the central command of the passage, and it is glorious. To "bear" a burden means to get underneath it with someone, to help carry the weight. What are these "burdens"? In the immediate context, the burden is the transgression mentioned in verse 1. When a brother falls, his sin is a heavy weight, not just for him, but for the whole community. We are to come alongside and help him carry that weight through repentance and restoration. But the principle is broader. It applies to all the heavy things of life, sickness, grief, poverty, doubt. Those who are of the Spirit are burden-bearers, not burden-givers.

In doing this, Paul says, we "fulfill the law of Christ." The Judaizers were all about fulfilling the law of Moses. Paul says, here is the true law, the law that governs the new covenant people of God. What is this law? It is the law of love. "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 13:34). Christ bore our ultimate burden, our sin, on the cross. When we bear one another's burdens, we are walking in His footsteps. We are living out the gospel. This is not rugged individualism; this is corporate, covenantal life.

3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

Paul immediately diagnoses the primary reason we fail to bear one another's burdens: pride. The man who refuses to stoop to help his fallen brother is a man who has an inflated view of himself. He "thinks he is something." He sees the sinner over there, and himself over here, and imagines a great gulf fixed between them. He has forgotten that he is a sinner saved by grace, and that he stands only by that grace.

When a man thinks this way, Paul says he is "nothing." This is not to deny his value as an image-bearer of God. It is to say that in the matter of his own righteousness, he has nothing. All our righteousness is as filthy rags. If we think we are something in ourselves, we are not just mistaken; we are actively deceiving ourselves. We are living in a fantasy world of our own making, and that is a dangerous place for a Christian to be. Humility is simply living in the real world.

4 But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.

The antidote to self-deception is rigorous self-examination. Instead of comparing ourselves to the stumbling brother, we are to "examine" or "test" our own work. The word is the one used for testing metals to see if they are genuine. We are to put our own lives, our own obedience, to the test against the standard of God's Word.

If we do this honestly, Paul says, we will find a proper "reason for boasting." This sounds strange, given Paul's constant warnings against boasting. But he clarifies what he means. It is a boasting "in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another." This is not the boasting of pride, which is always comparative. The proud man gets his sense of worth from looking down on others. "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector" (Luke 18:11). That is boasting "in regard to another."

The proper kind of boasting is the quiet satisfaction that comes from knowing that by God's grace, you have sought to be faithful. It is the testimony of a clear conscience before God. It is not based on being better than your neighbor, but on having your work approved by the Master. It is a personal, not a comparative, assessment.

5 For each one will bear his own load.

Here we have the apparent contradiction. In verse 2, we are to bear one another's burdens. In verse 5, we must each bear our own load. Is Paul confused? Not at all. He is using two different Greek words and making a crucial distinction. The word for "burdens" in verse 2 (barē) refers to heavy, crushing weights, things that are beyond our ability to carry alone. The word for "load" in verse 5 (phortion) refers to a soldier's backpack, the standard-issue pack that every man is expected to carry for himself.

The picture is this: We are an army on the march. Every soldier has his own pack, his own duties, his own responsibilities, his own walk with God. You are to carry your own pack. No one can repent for you, believe for you, or answer to God for you. That is your load. But when a soldier stumbles under an extra, crushing weight, a wound, an overwhelming sorrow, a particular sin, the other soldiers are to come alongside and help him with that burden. So, we have both individual responsibility and corporate solidarity. We are to carry our own backpacks, and we are to help one another with the crushing burdens. The Christian life is both deeply personal and intensely corporate.

Application

This passage calls us to a mature, Spirit-filled community life. It demolishes both self-righteous pride and detached individualism. We are called to get our hands dirty with the messy reality of sin in our church, but to do so with the gentleness and humility of those who know they are made of the same dust.

First, we must be a people who are willing to engage. When a brother or sister is overtaken in a fault, we cannot simply look the other way. The spiritual ones have a duty to restore. This requires courage and love.

Second, we must check our own hearts before we go. Am I approaching this situation in a spirit of gentleness? Am I mindful of my own susceptibility to temptation? Or am I secretly enjoying the opportunity to feel superior? If you are angry or proud, you are disqualified from the task.

Third, we must embrace the "law of Christ" as the governing principle of our lives. This means actively looking for burdens to bear. Whose load can I help lighten this week? Who is struggling, and how can I get under that weight with them? This is the practical outworking of the gospel.

Finally, we must cultivate the habit of honest self-examination. We are to stop the sinful game of comparison and instead bring our own work before the Lord for inspection. This will keep us humble, and it will keep our boasting, when we have it, rightly grounded in God's grace at work in us, not in the failures of others.