When should a Christian try to correct another Christian?

"But if thy brother sin against thee, go reprove him between thee and him alone. If he hear thee, thou hast gained a brother" (verse 15). The question is how sin in a brother is to be treated. What kind of a sin is meant, whether a sin against a person or sin in a wider sense of the word, we shall not attempt to discuss. He is a brother who has sinned and the first thing to be done is that the one who knows about it is to go to him personally and reprove him, that is, show him his fault. The object of his reprover is not perhaps to defend himself, if a personal matter, a false accusation, is the sin, but it is to restore and gain the brother. But to go to the brother who has sinned needs great caution, earnest prayer, meekness and self judgment. If the reproving is attempted in a wrong spirit it will work untold harm. The Holy Spirit has given us in Galatians the description of the brother who should go and reprove him who has sinned and the manner in which he is to do it. "Brethren, if even a man be taken in some fault, ye who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted" (Gal. 6:1). Alas! how little this is done. Instead of going at once to the brother who sinned, after earnest prayer and with the love and grace of God in the heart, the sin of the brother is often spread about and by this un-Christlike behavior magnified. Bitter feelings are stirred up, resulting in greater evils, slanders, backbiting, lying and other sins. If at last some one makes an attempt to see the brother, he finds the case perhaps beyond hope. How simply our gracious Lord has pointed out the way for us, what the first step is to be if the brother has sinned. It is to be treated as a personal matter and the sinning brother should not needlessly be exposed. Such grace manifested is able to gain the brother.

Then the Lord applies it to our practical conduct. Supposing your brother does you wrong; an evil word, perhaps, or an unkind action done against you — something that you feel deeply as a real personal trespass against you; it is a sin, of course. Nobody knows it, probably, but himself and you. What are you to do? At once this great principle is applied: When you were ruined and far from God, what met your case? Did God wait till you put away your sin? He sent His own Son to seek you, to save you. "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost." This is the principle for you to act upon. You belong to God; you are a child of God. Your brother has wronged you? Go you to him, and seek to set him right. It is the activity of love which the Lord Jesus presses upon His disciples. We are to seek the deliverance, in the power of divine love, of those who have wandered from God. The flesh feels and resents wrong done against itself. But grace does not shroud itself up in its own dignity, waiting for the offender to come and humble himself and own his wrong. The Son of Man came to seek the lost. I want you, He says, to be walking after the same principle, to be vessels of the same love — to be characterized by grace, going out after that which has sinned against God. This is a great difficulty, unless the soul is fresh in the love of God, and enjoying what God is for him. How does God feel about the child that has done wrong? His loving desire is to have him right. When the child is near enough to know the Father's heart he goes out to do the Father's will. A wrong may have been done against him, but he does not think about that. It is his brother who has slipped into evil, and the desire of his heart is to have the brother righted who had gone astray — not to vindicate self, but that his soul may be restored to the Lord.

265 The Saviour proceeds to apply the principle, or to show how the saints should act, seeing that the flesh in them may give occasion to these things, they not being really slaves of Satan in their will, but the flesh is always slave of Satan, and acts in his sense. "Take heed," therefore adds the Lord, "to yourselves," both as to not giving occasion of stumbling (see Romans 14, especially verse 13, but the whole chapter) and besides not to stumble when the occasion is presented, keeping his soul in patience and in communion. "Take heed to yourselves" is the great command as to the danger, and the offences in the liability of which we all stand in Satan's kingdom of this world as regards others' forgiveness, "Take heed to yourselves," jealous and judging yourselves. But, on the other hand, "If he trespass against thee, rebuke him; tell him his fault, and if he repent forgive him" ever so often. Keep the body sound in the presence of the enemy. It is the energy of the unity and holiness of the body which is the realisation of the energy of the Spirit, unbroken in the land of faith. Watch incessantly yourselves, and that the Spirit of love, the power of unity, and the bond of perfectness be not broken, so that the enemy can enter, nor of holiness so that the peace may not be false, nor any grudge or ill-feeling remain in your own heart, but that all may be unfeignedly smooth and in energy. Tell your neighbour his fault; do not keep it for his sake and for yours; and if he confess, if he turn and repent of it, the heart is gained, the enemy driven out. He honours the Lord and the truth. That will be your object in charity, acting according to the love of God into which you have been introduced in this new kingdom by the rejection of the Son of man, and forgive him, and so will be unassailable by the enemy either in conscience or in grace, Blessed path! What condescension to the weakness and evil in the introduction of the perfectness of what is good!

The course natural to our flesh would be to avoid the offending brother and to say nothing to him about his fault, but to tell it to others, or one might determine to bear the injury in long-suffering and "try to live it down," as people say. This might at first seem the right thing to do and to have the appearance of grace on one's part, but it leaves out the most important matter of consideration-the spiritual condition of my offending brother. Therefore this is not the Lord's way of treating the matter. Besides, staying away from the brother may leave a tinge of bad feeling in my heart. Love does not rest while knowing that the conscience of one's erring brother is defiled. Leviticus 19:17, 18 says, "thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people."

It is clear that we are not encouraged to pursue trivial matters, but if we have been sinned against and we feel it is too serious simply to pass over then we are to seek the resolution of the matter. If this is not done, the breakdown in the relationship may affect others and ultimately the public testimony of the local assembly.

Galatians 6:1 gives the general instruction, that "if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness." While this may refer in general to any case of sin where the work of restoration is needed, we may also take it as applying to a class of failures where this individual restorative dealing with the soul is all that is required in the way of discipline. This form of discipline would be that exercise of watchful, shepherd care for souls which we were previously speaking of.

Now when such a thing occurs, what is to be the attitude of others? Do not let us miss the connection between the last verse or two of Galatians 5 and the first of Galatians 6. If the flesh is working in others, they, desirous of vain glory, will simply provoke the flesh yet more in the offending brother. If, on the other hand, there are those who are spiritual; that is, those who in their thoughts and affections, and consequently in their judgments and behaviour, are governed by the Spirit of God and not by the flesh — those who are "walking in the Spirit," then these should restore such an one in the spirit of meekness. They may well be meek in the remembrance of their own liability to temptation. In thus humbly getting down alongside the erring brother and bearing his failure on their hearts they would be fulfilling the law of Christ, which is love.

This brings us to speak of the more positive effort at the correcting of manifest failure or weakness, suggested by the figure of John 13 "And thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him" was the command of the law. That which is here commanded, under grace will be the effort of a true love in exercise. Alas, how often are we occupied with evil in others without personal exercise; speaking about them rather than to them; so far from affording any help, alienating them, should they hear of our speaking behind their backs.

The simple courage of love will go to the brother who is in fault, first having sought the mind of the Lord in prayer for him and ourselves. Then, in the spirit of Gal. 6, "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness."

Galatians 6:1 instructs us: "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." It is in a spirit of meekness that the erring one is to be dealt with and not in any spirit of being better than he. Notice that the aim is noted here as restoration.

The Lord says plainly, ‘But if thy brother sin against thee, go, reprove him between thee and him alone. If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother’ (Matt. 18:15). The Lord says, ‘go’ and that is what we must do. There is nothing here about writing to the brother or taking the matter up with him from a distance.

The words ‘reprove him between thee and him alone’ are also important. We are not to broadcast what has happened, or to seek to rally others to ‘our cause’. Such actions are most unhelpful. There is to be a private face to face meeting between the two brothers concerned, with no others present. The sin involved is to be made clear and the fact that real damage has been done to their relationship. It should also be apparent by the spirit in which the whole matter is taken up that one really does want to ‘gain’ one’s brother and is ready to forgive what has been done. This is not something done only because the Lord says it must be done. There is a genuine desire that the relationship may be restored and to that end things are pursued prayerfully in dependence on the Lord and in the grace that He supplies.