Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted (Galatians 6:1).

Paul clearly teaches that when sin becomes known, the goal is not public condemnation but gentle restoration. This principle is reiterated in a number of passages in Scripture. For example, consider this intruction from the Lord:

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector (Matthew 18:15-18).

Jesus clearly commands handling sins as privately as possible: "Just between the two of you." He also emphasizes restoration: "If they listen t you, you have won them over." This is the optimal outcome, that the guilty sinner would both acknowledge and repent of their sin in this first and private encounter. And if there is this kind of agreement here, God would bless it with His forgiveness. I believe this is the meaning of the verses that immediately follow this passage:

Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:19-20).

Now, if there is no acknowledgement of sin and no repentance, the scenario gets escalated into an increasingly public affair. And finally, if there is no acknowledgement even before the church, Jesus commands that such a person be treated no longer as a Christian brother but as an unbeliever, even an antagonistic unbeliever like the hated Roman tax collector. So then, while the goal is always restoration, ostracism from church fellowship is also a very real alternative when faced with stubborn unrepentance. This was likely the scenario in the church at Corinth, where a man was unabashedly sleeping with his father's wife:

So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:4-5).

What is interesting is that this same person is likely the one referenced by Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians:

The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him (2 Corinthians 2:6-8).

Here it appears that the sinner in question had indeed been removed from the church fellowship, but then had returned repentant. It appears that Paul urges forgiveness and restoration in light of this man's repentance. As elsewhere, Paul writes about the merits of godly sorrow that leads to repentance:

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death (2 Corinthians 7:10).

So then, even after the judgment by the church, the goal is still eventual restoration. For no one would wish death on a fellow believer, but this is the outcome for any believer that persists in sinful unrepentance:

But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death (James 1:14-15).

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.  What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! (Romans 6:20-21)

Thus, James also writes of the great benefit of bringing a brother or sister back from sin:

My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins (James 5:19-20).

Now, here are a final couple of comments regarding this lesson regarding sinning believers. 

First, the one who rebukes and restores needs to be careful when they do this, so that they are not caught up in the same sin or some associated sin. So Paul writes,

Each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted (Galatians 6:1).

Jude even goes so far as to encourage fearful revulsion when associating with sinful people. 

Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh (Jude 1:22-23).

Thus, rebuking and restoring sinful believers is a "handle with care" kind of issue - not like handling good China but rather handling dangerous poison. If the handler is not careful, they to can get poisoned. 

Second, even as faith is a gift of God, repentance too comes from God. It is God who opens minds to perceive the truth. Therefore, while in obedience to God we rebuke and seek the restoration of sinful believers, we do so with the understanding that God must grant them repentance for them to truly repent. So Paul writes to Timothy: 

Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will (2 Timothy 2:25-26).

Friends, I'm not sure how relevant my sharing is today. In all my years as a Christian I've only seen one "restoration" of a sinner to the church. Now, this could mean that there are not many believers that stubbornly persist in sinful behavior. But I think that it is more likely that there is not much personal rebuking of sin going on. People don't want to "judge" each other, even though this very thing is commanded of believers in the church (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:12-13).

Another reason may be that when people do judge, it is not so much with a view to restoration. The motivation is some exalted sense of "justice" rather than a gracious extension of God's mercy. Yet, God rails against this motivation, for it is tantamount to a condemning judgment rather than a restorative one. Those that have this attitude must realize that if they exercise this kind of judgment, they may very well receive the same from God:

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:11-13).

Thus, it makes every sense to have mercy in view when judging and not condemnation. James' words are simply a reiteration of what the Lord taught in the Sermon on the Mount:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:1-2).

Jesus was not saying that people should not make any discerning judgments whatsoever but not to "judge" other people; that is, not to condemn other people. If we justice is our standard, then justice will be the standard used against us. If mercy is our standard, then mercy is what we will receive. Therefore, when we judge our brothers and sisters in Christ, we should do so with mercy and restoration in view. 

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13).

While the freedom from "the works of the Law" is certainly a freedom from the regulations of the Law, it is not a license for sinful indulgence. The words "opportunity for the flesh" means a launching off point. The freedom that believers have is not to serve as a launching pad for sinful behavior. Instead, every believer has an obligation to "serve one another through love".

The contrast between living under the Law and living by the Spirit is not one between a regulation not to sin and a freedom to sin. It is the contrast between what cannot justify, namely, keeping the works of the Law, and what will justify, that is, trusting in Christ through the Spirit. 

It must be understood that while a believer is free from their obligation to the Law of Moses, it is not because the Law is unholy but because this obligation has been fulfilled in Christ, the benefits of which are received by believers through faith and lived out through their love for one another. So Paul writes,

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).

Through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:13-14).

This is also the sense of Paul's words to the Romans:

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:3-4).

Christ has accomplished what was impossible for us to accomplish ourselves, namely, meetng the righteous requirements of the Law of God. Consequently, Christ achieved this through the Holy Spirit:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2).

Notice that the Spirit is the life-giving agent, who has applied the work of Christ to our account and also freed us from the condemning obligation to the Law of Moses (i.e. "the law of sin and death"). Thus, Paul writes to the Galatians,

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law (Galatians 5:18).

Notice that the Spirit that frees believers from the Law of Moses is not, thereby, promoting lawlessness, for Paul writes about "the law of the Spirit" and about believers now "living according to the Spirit" and not "according to the flesh". Therefore, while the Spirit applies the work of Christ to our account to achieve our salvation, He also leads us in our daily sanctification, so that we are even commanded to "walk by the Spirit". By "walking by the Spirit" Paul means that we ought to be serving one another in love (Galatians 5:13). When we do this, the Spirit brings forth this kind of fruit:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Friends, the Law of Moses is no longer our rule of life. Instead we have a rule of faith, which is simply to serve one another in love. We are not trying to meet some standard for acceptance before God. No, we are simply living out what God has declared and accomplished in us through Christ Jesus our Lord.

As we began our Christian walk by the Holy Spirit, we are exhorted to continue by that same Spirit, not in returning to the Law of Moses, but in following the Spirit's internal leading in loving service to one another. As Jesus also declared,

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34-35).

This command to love one another is both our personal obligation in Christ and our primary witness for Christ. 

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery... You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. (Galatians 5:1-4).

Paul's big argument is that Christians are no longer under the Law but under grace. In other words, they have no more any obligation to fulfill anything pertaining to the Law of Moses. It is not simply that Christians are free from the condemnation associated with failure to keep the whole Law, they are free from following the ordinances associated with the Law. If this were not the case, Paul would have no reason to write, "But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh":

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 

They would have no such freedom if they were still obligated to follow the tenets of the Law. What is more, Paul could not condemn those who practice circumcision, as he does. Paul sees circumcision as representative of the whole law, such that if any of it is held valid, then all of it must be kept:

I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law (Galatians 5:3-4).

While circumcision is certainly Paul's focus, he also has other Law-based practices in view:

... you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you (Galatians 4:9-11).

Now, some have tried to pick apart the Law, which the Bible never does, by separating the moral laws from those that pertain to more civil and ceremonial matters. There is no biblical justification for this since every reference to the Law treats it as a unity.

The only reason Paul highlights the more ceremonial aspects of the Law is because they are more clearly distinguished from the morality contained in the Spirit-led Law of Christ. For example, both the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ speak of the prohibition against murder, adultery and theft, so it would be confusing for Paul to write something like "I, Paul, tell you that if you obey the command not to murder (originally "let yourself be circumcised" in Galatians 5:3), Christ will be of no value to you at all." While it is a true statement, someone might misunderstand this to be a license to murder as a Christian if they do not understand that there is a similar prohibition in the Law of Christ. To avoid this kind of confusion, Paul represents the Law in those items that distinguish the Mosaic Law. But again, this does not mean that Paul intends that some of the Law carries over while others do not. The whole Law based on the Old Covenant has been made obsolete by the cross of Christ and replaced by the New Covenant Law of Christ:

For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another... By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear (Hebrews 8:7, 13).

Paul even says that we, as Christians, have died to the Law:

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (Romans 7:6).

Therefore, friends, do not let anyone try to quote some passage from the Old Testament or a pre-cross reference from the Gospels to burden you again with the obligation of following some ordinance of the Law of Moses, moral or otherwise. This has no more relevance to you, and if you believe it has relevance, you may be inadvertantly obligating yourself to fulfill "the whole Law," which Paul says puts you back under the curse of the Law, from which we have been redeemed by Christ:

Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law (Galatians 5:4).

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law" (Galatians 3:10).

This is why I have been so against the kind of Bible studies, especially in the Old Testament, where people sit around a table and ignorantly try to apply different aspects of the Law of Moses to themselves. They'll read something about not wearing mixed fabrics in Leviticus and then determine not to buy these kinds of clothes in the future. They'll read about God's promise to heal the land when His people humble themselves and pray in 2 Chronicles. Without any thought about context, they'll readily apply this to themselves and to their country. They'll hear a message about tithing from Malachi, condemning those that steal from God's storehouse and promising wealth for those that obey. Not realizing that these verses were addressed to the Levites' abuse of the Law, they will, nevertheless, fear the condemnation and eagerly embrace the promise as if the verses were written to them.

Now, I realize that most of those today that teach obedience to the Law do so in ignorance and do not intend for Christians to find justification in obeying the Law but simply to see it as a moral guide. So while this does not rise to the level of a false gospel, it is nevertheless misleading and wrongly handling the Scriptures. Let us, then, rightly handle the Scriptures by clearly teaching that Christians are no longer under the Law of Moses but under the Law of Christ. And the only reason we might put ourselves under the Law again would simply be to temporarily identify with unbelieving Jews to win them to Christ:

To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law" (1 Corinthians 9:20-21).

But for Christians, we are under the Law of Christ, which is variously called "the Law that gives freedom," "the way of the Spirit," and "living by faith." The predominant characteristic of the Law of Christ is a self-effacing, sacrificial love by which we demonstrate the kind of love Jesus gave to us. So Paul writes that this is both the Christian freedom and responsibility in this life, namely, to follow the Spirit's leading in loving others, even as we wait for the righteousness of Christ to be perfected in us in heaven:

For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:5-6).

And, as Paul would argue, when we love others, we are not doing any less than what the Law required. In fact, he writes, the whole Law is fulfilled in the command to love. In writing this, Paul shows that our freedom from the Mosaic Law is not a license to be lawless but rather that living in faith, being led by the Spirit, and fufilling the law of Christ in love, are in keeping with the highest aspirations of the old Law:

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh... But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (Galatians 5:13-16, 18).

Friends, consider with me Galatians 4:8-9,

But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God,

Sometimes we miss the subtleties of Scripture because we are just trying to understand the main point. However, it is always fruitful, after we get the big picture, to not neglect the details, for every word is given by inspiration of God. In the above text, Paul makes a distinction between what they were before Christ and what they are after Christ. Before, they served false gods. After, they knew the true God.

But hold on, Paul does not stop there. Almost like a correction of a misspeak, Paul writes, "or rather are known by God." We're not talking about works here, just "knowing," which comprises hearing and believing the Gospel. Paul is saying that the substance of their knowing is not of their doing but of God. It is not that they knew God, but that God knew them. In other places, we read, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you" (John 6:70; 15:16; Ephesians 1:4-5). In 1 John 4:10, we read, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

So just as Jesus opened the disciples' minds to understand (Luke 24:45), and God opened Lydia's heart to believe (Acts 16:14), so here Paul makes clear that before the Galatians could know God, they must first be known by God. 

I think Paul states it succinctly in 6:12 when he says, "the only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ."  When I think of all the different ways that the gospel is being perverted these days (prosperity theology, poverty theology, social justice theology, etc.), the book of Galatians really helps to put things back into proper perspective. 

Amen to your comment, Yujin!  All the religions in the world, without any exception,request keeping whatever the law that they require of their followers, so that they may have nirvana or their own version of salvation.  Christianity, however, makes it clear that keeping the law is an expression of what we have become.  It is natural that when we love someone, we want to please him or her by any means! 

Friends,

As a follow-up to my last comments, consider Galatians 6:2, "Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ." While we are no longer under the Law of Moses, this does not mean that we are lawless. As Christians, we are under the Law of Christ. What is this Law of Christ? I believe the heart of this law is the principle here, "Bear one another's burdens." It is also captured in the words of Galatians 5:6, "faith working through love." Jesus spoke of it in John 13:34-35,

 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

It is a principle of self-effacing, even self-sacrificing, love. This is the kind of love Jesus demonstrated, and when we show this kind of love to one another, the world sees that we are disciples of Jesus. It is with this kind of life witness that our verbal witness will carry greatest weight.

Once again I've been reminded of not what I must do but whom I have become through being baptised into Christ Jesus!  Once again I am amazed by His fathomless wisdom to save me from the wretched condition.  Once my eyes are fixed on the eternity prepared for the elect, I can see why neither success nor failure in this world doesn't matter any more since He is in control.  This is my prayer for me and all the believers in the world that we truly believe that we are the true champions by God's eyes regardless of our present estate!