"Walking by the Spirit will mean not only avoidance of mutual provocation and envy (5:26) but also, positively, the rehabilitation of those who have lapsed into sin."204
The situation Paul envisioned here is that of sin overtaking a Christian as a faster runner overtakes a slower runner. It is not that God has caught him in the act of sinning as much as that sin has gotten the better of him in a particular instance. He has been surprised by sin rather than detected in it. "Trespass"(Gr. paraptoma) is not habitual action but an isolated act. Neither is it intentional sin but inadvertent wrongdoing (cf. 1 Cor. 5:11; Rom. 16:17).
The spiritual Christian should restore such a person, help him to his or her feet. Elsewhere the Greek word, katartizo, refers to mending nets (Matt. 4:21; Mark 1:19) and setting a fractured or dislocated bone.205This involves confrontation (cf. Matt. 18:15-17). However the "spiritual"Christian is the one that should do this, namely one whose life bears the fruit of the Spirit because he or she habitually walks by the Spirit (5:16, 25). The more spiritually mature, having walked by the Spirit for some time, the better (cf. 1 Cor. 2:15; Heb. 5:13-14). The spiritual Christian must restore the Christian who has stumbled gently, carefully, and cautiously (cf. 5:23). We can avoid a spirit of self-righteousness in dealing with those who stumble by remembering our own personal vulnerability to temptation.206
"It [the restoration in view] concerns restoration to a former spiritual condition. Absent from the context is any indication that Paul was concerned with restoration to leadership. Rehabilitating the sinner, not reinstating the leader, was the primary issue. However, these situations, though not identical, need not be mutually exclusive. It certainly seems reasonable to suppose that Paul envisioned restoration to some sort of usefulness, which in some cases might involve the restoration to leadership. Therefore Galatians 6:1, while not referring specifically to reinstating a fallen leader to his former position, certainly leaves open that possibility."207
