I. St. Paul combines in this passage the two great ideas on which all previous morality had been based: the one self-preservation, self-development, that is to say, that out of which the sense of responsibility grows; the other selfforgetfulness, that is to say, that out of which all effort for other people grows. It combines them in a complete harmony. "Bear ye one another's burdens," is the rule of selfforgetfulness; "Every man should bear his own burden," is the simple rule of self-preservation. And because the harmony between these two statements is so hard to preserve, because in the agony that is caused by self-reflection we are so liable to be carried away by the one to the exclusion of the other, it may be well to consider this apparent paradox.
If. This apparent diversity between "Bear ye one another's burdens" and "Let every man bear his own burden" is always meeting us and always challenging us. It looks at us under the name of individualism or humanism in every modern philosophical treatise that we read, or it comes to us in some of the smallest personal questions of our daily life. The solution of the problem was the despair of the old world before Christianity came. Greek philosophy, from beginning to end, is rampant individualism. The very antithesis to this is the Buddhist system. On the face of it, Buddhism appears to be the most refined form of what is called humanism. But about the theoretical self-abandonment of Buddhism there is this fatal defect: that directly it becomes practical it is found to aim at mere self-crushing, at what is neither more nor less than suicide. Christ's religion escapes mere Buddhist universalism. Go out, says St. Paul, from yourselves to help others; bear their burdens, restore them by the magic touch of fellowship in the spirit of meekness. Fling your soul away into the struggles and sorrows of others, and so fulfil the law of Him who, in the highest sense, bare their sorrows. The more sympathetic you become, the more will self-reflection grow; the more will you find the truth of the great paradox that those who lose their life for Christ's sake even now will find it.
Prebendary Eyton, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxix., p. 49.
References: Galatians 6:2-5. S. Pearson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 154; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 560; W. Williamson, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. v., p. 330. Galatians 6:4. Homilist,3rd series, vol. vi., p. 322.
(with Psalms 55:22)
The Apostle reminds us in this verse that there are some burdens which cannot be shared, which each must bear for himself alone.
I. The burden of personality can be borne only by the man himself. That is "his own burden." Of course this truth is surrounded and connected with other truths which limit and qualify it, and put it into harmonious relationship with God and man. Each individual is open to manifold influence, may be impressed, drawn, turned, melted, inflamed, according to the powers that play on him; but he is himselfin all. No part of his being is drawn away from him, however sensibly and powerfully its relations may be affected. He receives no essential part of the being of others into his own. He abides in the eye of God a separate, complete, individual soul for ever. "Every man shall bear his own burden."
II. The burden of responsibility is borne always by the individual man. The responsibility arises of necessity out of the personality, because the personality holds in it the elements of moral life. Man is moral, and therefore responsible. We live in the mass, but we are judged one by one. We act and interact, give and take, all day long and our whole life through; but each, at every moment, stands responsibly before God: and to each God says, as He did to Daniel, " Thoushalt stand in thylot at the end of the days."
III. Every man shall bear his own burden of guilt. It is his own burden, and if he does not avail himself of the means of deliverance righteously and graciously provided, it will be his burden for evermore.
IV. Immortality is a man's own burden. Before any soul a man might stand and say, "O king, live for ever," crowned and robed amid the glories of the eternal kingdom or discrowned and in disgrace, a wreck of life, yet living on, for every man shall bear his own burden of immortality for ever. Christ, the Son of God, became incarnate that He might stand by our side, our almighty, loving Helper; and now we can lean on Him, "the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother," and bear all our burdens and yet walk with elastic step, and take His yoke upon us, too, and find it to be easy, His burden, and prove it light.
A. Raleigh, Quiet Resting Places,p. 331.
(with Galatians 6:2; Psalms 55:22)
I. "Every man shall bear his own burden." Some burdens are inseparably attached to us; deliverance from them is as impossible as life would be without air and exercise and cold water. We must bear them; there is no help for it. Between the wicket-gate and the gate of glory John Bunyan put the hill of difficulty. God puts between the two gates, for you and me, many difficulties. Difficulties strengthen; they compact a man's faith; they sinew his soul; they make him Christlike. This death-grapple sometimes with difficulty gives us force, and the loads which God lays upon us teach us lessons to be learned in no other school. The hardest lesson for every one of us to learn is this: to let God have His own way and trust Him in the dark.
II. "Bear ye one another's burdens." We have seen how the carrying of our own load gives us strength. There are other loads that we could help our fellow-creatures to carry, and that service is to teach us that beautiful grace sympathy. Happily we have here the reason for it: "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." That law is love. Christ is love. We must carry His law into practice every day if we would prove that, while we profess and call ourselves Christians, we are worthy of the title.
III. "Cast thy burden on the Lord." God does not release you from the performance of duty, but He will sustain you in doing it. The load shall not crush you; nay, rather it shall sinew your graces, and send you forth more thoroughly furnished for God's work here and glory hereafter. Trust means that when we take up the burden we lean on the Burden-bearer, though unseen, assured that He shall never fail in His promise, "My grace shall be sufficient for you."
T. L. Cuyler, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 33.
Reference: Galatians 6:5. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,8th series, p. 209.