Galatians 6:1 - Meaning and Application

Paul has just urged believers to serve one another in love, and he has also warned against the kind of spirit that blocks that love. Now, at the beginning of this chapter, he gives more guidance that will help Christians live in a way that fits their faith and makes life better for one another. He starts by teaching us to deal gently with those who have fallen into sin (Galatians 6:1).

He says, "If a man is overtaken in a fault." That means he has been caught in sin through a sudden temptation, not after planning it out with a settled heart. There is a difference between a person who rushes into sin and a person who carefully chooses it. The case here is someone who has been surprised by temptation, and Paul says such a person needs great tenderness.

Those who are spiritual, that is, mature Christians, not just ministers, should restore that person with a spirit of meekness. To restore means to bring someone back to right standing and right behavior. The word carries the idea of setting a broken bone back in place. So we should help such a brother or sister see the sin, turn back from it, receive comfort in God’s pardoning mercy, and then be welcomed again in love.

This must be done gently, not with anger or harshness. We should not act as if we are glad to see another believer fall. Rather, we should grieve over it and speak with calm concern. Many needed rebukes lose their power when they are given in anger, but they often help when they come from sincere love and care.

Paul gives a strong reason for this gentleness: "Considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." We must remember that none of us is beyond falling. We too can be tempted, and we too can be overcome. If we think honestly about ourselves, we will treat others the way we would want to be treated in the same situation.

Paul then tells us to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). This can mean putting up with each other’s weaknesses, faults, and small failures without being harsh. It can also mean more generally sharing one another’s troubles and doing what we can to comfort, guide, and help each other. That is how we fulfill the law of Christ, the law of love that Jesus gave and lived out for us.

Though believers are no longer under the law of Moses, we are under Christ’s law. So instead of piling needless burdens on others, we should help carry their burdens. Jesus bears with our weaknesses, and he has compassion on our frailty. Since he treats us that way, it is only right that we treat one another the same way.

Paul then warns us about pride, because pride makes this kind of care very hard. A proud person thinks too highly of himself, as if he were wiser and better than others and fit to direct everyone else. But such a person is deceiving himself. He may impress other people for a while, but he is fooling himself most of all.

That kind of self-confidence does not keep a person safer from temptation. In fact, it often makes him more likely to fall. If someone thinks he stands firmly, he needs to watch carefully, or he will fall (1 Corinthians 10:12). So instead of being full of vanity and self-importance, we should follow Paul’s other instruction, "In humility, count others better than yourselves" (Philippians 2:3). Love does not brag, and it is not proud (1 Corinthians 13:4).

To guard against self-deception, Paul tells each person to test his own work (Galatians 6:4). By our own work, he mainly means our actions and conduct. We should examine them seriously and honestly by the standard of God’s word, to see whether they agree with it. In that way, we can know whether our lives are the kind that God and conscience approve.

This duty belongs to every person. Instead of being quick to judge and criticize others, it would suit us much better to search and test our own ways. Our main work is closer to home, with ourselves, than with other people, for what right have we to judge another person’s servant?

In light of what comes before, we can see that if Christians truly applied themselves to this duty, they would soon find faults in themselves. Those faults would quickly show them how little reason they have to be proud or harsh toward others. So the best way to keep from thinking too highly of ourselves is to test ourselves. The better we know our own hearts and conduct, the less likely we are to look down on others, and the more ready we will be to pity them and help them in their weaknesses and troubles.

To persuade us to this useful duty of testing our own work, the apostle gives two strong reasons. First, this is the way to have joy in ourselves. If we honestly test our own work and, after that test, can approve ourselves to God in sincerity and uprightness toward him, then we may expect comfort and peace in our souls. Our consciences will bear witness for us, as in (2 Corinthians 1:12). This, Paul says, is a far better ground of joy than being able to boast in another person, whether from the good opinion others have of us, or from winning others over to our view, as the false teachers liked to boast about (Galatians 6:13), or by comparing ourselves with others, as some did when they thought well of themselves because they were not as bad as certain others.

Many people are tempted to value themselves for reasons like these, but that kind of joy is nothing compared with the joy that comes from honestly testing ourselves by the rule of God’s word and then being able to approve ourselves to him. Though we have nothing in ourselves to boast about, we may still have reason to rejoice in ourselves. Our works can earn nothing from God, but if our consciences can testify that our works are such as he, for Christ’s sake, approves and accepts, then we may rightly rejoice in that.

The true way to have joy in ourselves is to spend much time testing our own work, examining ourselves by the sure rule of God’s word, not by the false measures of what other people are like or think of us. It is far better to have something to glory in ourselves than in another. If our consciences testify that we are accepted by God, we need not worry much about what others say or think. Without that, the good opinion of others will help us very little.

The apostle’s second reason is that every person will bear his own burden (Galatians 6:5). This means that on the great day of judgment, each one will be dealt with according to how he has lived here. He assumes that a day is coming when we must all give an account of ourselves to God. Then the judgment will not be based on what the world thought of us, or on any false idea we had of ourselves, or on whether we were better or worse than other people. It will be based on what our true state and conduct were in God’s sight.

If such a serious time is ahead, when God will repay each person according to his works, then we have every reason to test our own works now. If we must surely give an account later, we ought to call ourselves to account often now, to see whether we are the kind of people God will own and approve then. If we practiced this more, we would think more rightly about ourselves and about other Christians. Instead of treating one another harshly because of mistakes or faults, we would be more ready to carry out the law of Christ by helping bear one another’s burdens.

Christians are also urged here to be willing and generous in supporting their ministers (Galatians 6:6): “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.” Here the apostle speaks as if it were a known and accepted fact that, just as some are to be taught, others are appointed to teach them. The ministry is a divine appointment. It does not belong to everyone in general, but only to those whom God has equipped and called. Even common sense tells us to make a difference between teachers and learners, for if everyone were a teacher, there would be no one left to be taught. Scripture also clearly shows that this is God’s will.

It is the word of God that ministers are to teach. What they preach is the word (2 Timothy 4:2). What they must declare is the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). They are not masters over our faith, but helpers of our joy (2 Corinthians 1:24). The word of God is the only rule for faith and life. Ministers must study it, explain it, and use it to build others up, but they are to be followed only as far as they speak according to that rule.

Those who are taught in the word have a duty to support those appointed to teach them. They are to share in all good things, freely and gladly giving from the good things God has given them what is needed for their minister’s support. Ministers are to devote themselves to reading, encouragement, and teaching (1 Timothy 4:13). They are not to get tangled up in the business of this life (2 Timothy 2:4). So it is right and fair that while they sow spiritual things among others, they should reap material support from them. This is God’s own order. Just as under the law those who served in holy things lived from the temple’s offerings, so the Lord has ordained that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:11, 1 Corinthians 9:13, 1 Corinthians 9:14).

Here we are also warned not to mock God, or deceive ourselves by thinking he can be fooled by empty claims or outward profession (Galatians 6:7): “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.”

This may be understood as part of the warning just given, meant to show the sin and foolishness of people who try to excuse themselves from supporting their ministers by fair-sounding reasons. Or it may be taken more broadly, as a warning against any empty hope of enjoying religion’s rewards while ignoring its duties.

The apostle assumes that many are ready to excuse themselves from the work of religion, especially from the costly and self-denying parts, even while they keep up an outward profession of it. But this way is foolish, because such people may fool others, yet they cannot fool God. He knows hearts as well as actions, and since he cannot be deceived, he cannot be mocked. To guard against this, Paul gives a rule for life: whatever a person sows, that will he also reap. In other words, our present conduct is seedtime, and the next world will be the harvest. As a farmer reaps what he has planted, so we will receive according to how we live now.

Paul also says that there are two kinds of sowing, sowing to the flesh and sowing to the Spirit (Galatians 6:8). Those who live in a worldly, sensual way, using their time and energy for their own desires instead of God’s honor and the good of others, will reap corruption from the flesh. They may have a short, empty pleasure now, but ruin and misery will follow. By contrast, those who sow to the Spirit, that is, who live under the Spirit’s guidance in holiness, devotion to God, and service to others, will reap life everlasting from the Spirit. They will have the truest comfort now, and eternal life and happiness at the end.

Those who try to mock God only deceive themselves. Hypocrisy in religion is great foolishness, as well as great wickedness, because God can see through every disguise and will judge us not by our claims, but by our actions.

Paul then gives another warning: we must not grow weary in doing good (Galatians 6:9). Just as we should not excuse ourselves from any part of duty, we also must not become tired of it. We are all too prone to grow weak, lose heart, and even turn away from duty, especially from the good we do for others. Paul tells us to guard carefully against this, because in due season we shall reap, if we do not faint. God has a reward stored up for everyone who truly keeps doing good. That reward will come at the right time, if not in this world, then certainly in the next. But this promise is for those who do not give up. If we grow tired of duty and pull back, we will lose both the reward and the comfort of what we have already done. If we keep going and endure in well-doing, the reward may be delayed, but it will surely come, and it will more than repay all our labor and patience.

Persevering in doing good is wise and profitable, as well as right, because the promise of reward is attached to that path alone.

Paul then urges all Christians to do good wherever they can place themselves (Galatians 6:10). It is not enough to be decent toward others if we would truly show ourselves to be Christians. The same duty is still in view here, but now Paul tells us both who should receive our kindness and how we should measure it.

First, the objects of our goodness are generally all people. We must not keep our charity and kindness too tightly boxed in, as the Jews and Jewish Christians were inclined to do. We should be ready to help all who share our common human nature, as far as we are able and as far as they need us. Still, we are to have a special concern for the household of faith, that is, those who share the same faith and belong to the same body of Christ. Others are not excluded, but these are to be preferred. Christian love should reach widely, but it should give special attention to good people. God does good to all, yet he shows special goodness to his own servants, and in doing good we should follow him as beloved children.

Second, the rule for doing good is, as we have opportunity. This means we should do good while we have time and strength, while life lasts, because this is the only season in which we can truly serve others. We should not do as many do, putting off kindness until death and then promising to make up for it at the end. We cannot be sure we will have such an opportunity then, and even if we do, we have no reason to think that delayed gifts will be more pleasing to God. We cannot make up for years of neglect by leaving something behind after we can no longer use it ourselves. We should do good while we live, and make that the business of our lives.

It also means we should use every chance that comes to us. We should not be satisfied merely because we have done some good already. Whenever new opportunities appear, we should be ready to take them, as far as our ability reaches. We are told to give a portion to seven, and also to eight (Ecclesiastes 11:2).

God, who makes it our duty to do good to others, also arranges by his providence that opportunities for it come our way. The poor are always with us (Matthew 26:11).

Whenever God gives us a chance to help other people, he expects us to use it well, according to what we can do. We should not waste the opportunities he puts before us.

We also need godly wisdom and good judgment in showing charity, that is, loving generosity and practical help. This matters especially when we choose whom to help. While no one in need should be ignored completely, we still need to see that some people have a greater claim than others.