Elisabeth Elliot lost her first husband, Jim Elliot, to Auca Indian spears. She lost her second husband, Addison Leitch, to cancer. In an address to the Urbana Missions Conference (December, 1976), she told of being in Wales and watching a shepherd and his dog. The dog would herd the sheep up a ramp and into a tank of antiseptic where they had to be bathed. The sheep would struggle to climb out, but the dog would snarl and snap in their faces to force them back in. Just as they were about to come up out of the tank, the shepherd used a wooden implement to grab the rams by the horns, fling them back into the tank, and hold them under the antiseptic again for a few seconds.
Mrs. Elliot asked the shepherd’s wife if the sheep understood what was happening. She replied, “They haven’t got a clue.” Mrs. Elliot then said, “I’ve had some experiences in my life that have made me feel very sympathetic to those poor rams—I couldn’t figure out any reason for the treatment I was getting from the Shepherd I trusted. And He didn’t give a hint of explanation.” But, she pointed out, we still must trust our Shepherd and obey Him, knowing that He has our best interests at heart.
It’s like the lyrics of Babbie Mason’s song Trust His Heart
God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don’t understand
When don’t see His plan
When you can’t trace His hand
Trust His Heart
Trust His Heart
So we may not always know the exact reason we are going through God’s hand of discipline, but we can still trust that He is wise and good.
As we’ve gone through Hebrews 12 so far, we have seen that we are to (1) regard with seriousness and steadfastness God’s rod of discipline so that we get the most out of it; (2) then we are to remember God’s encouraging word that we are His Sons.
Third, then, we are to realize God’s everlasting love.
This love is expressed more explicitly in verse 6, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” God’s “discipline is the mark not of a harsh and heartless father but of a father who is deeply and lovingly concerned for the well-being of his son” (Philip Hughes, 528). Discipline is the divinely ordained path to a deepening relationship between God and His children. To refuse discipline (v. 7) is to turn our back on His love.
He disciplines us not because He is mad at us, not because He hates us, but because He loves us and accepts us. In fact, Scripture tells us that it is the one who “spares the rod” that “hates their children” (Proverbs 13:24).
The ancient world found it incomprehensible that a father could possibly love his child and not punish him. In fact, a real son would draw more discipline than, say, an illegitimate child for the precise reason that greater honor and responsibility were to be his. The ultimate example of this is, of course, Jesus who as the supreme Son “learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (5:8, 9). There is no doubt about it—the hardships and disciplines we endure are signs of our legitimacy and ought to be embraced as telltale signs of grace. (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: Volume 2, p. 173).
Do you want to experience God’s love and acceptance? Sometimes it comes by way of painful discipline.
What is the most common question we ask when we go through hard times? Does God love me? Does God care? Here we are assured that He does love us; He does accept us. Instead of saying “If I am God’s child, why does he allow me to suffer?” I need to appreciate that it is because I am His child that I am near and dear to His heart and that He is using these trials and sufferings to make me better, to help me to flourish, to become all He has made me to be.
Malcolm Muggeridge went so far as to say that virtually everything that truly enhanced and enlightened his existence came during times of affliction. He believed that “if it were possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo-jumbo, as Aldous Huxley envisaged in Brave New World, the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endured” (A Twentieth Century Testimony [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978], p. 35).
The Greek word for discipline is paideuo, from which we get the nouns paideia, “discipline,” and paideutes, “one who disciplines.” These all come from the combination of the word for child, pais, and the word deuo, which means coming together with. So discipline is not merely correcting through some physical pain, but also teaching and training a child as we get together with them and spend time with them.
Discipline will be painful, but again it is redemptive. It is not mere punishment. It is a teaching and training mechanism.
While discipline does not necessarily remove the consequences of our sin—we still reap what we sow—God often tempers it with grace if we repent. If we do not repent, His discipline can become very severe (“scourging”—means, not motive), even to the point of physical death (cf. 1 Cor. 11:29-31).
John Piper points out the importance of understanding and believing that discipline does not mean that God has ceased to love us, but rather understanding and believing that He especially loves us. He says…
In other words, in your pain, you are not being treated as a slave or as an enemy. You are being treated as a loved child of God. The issue is: will you believe this? Will you let the Word of God settle the issue for you, so that when the suffering comes, you don’t turn on God and put him on the dock and prosecute him with accusations? He probably will not tell you why it is your turn, or why it is happening now, or why there is so much pain, or why it lasts this long. But he has told you what you need to know: it is the love of an all-wise Father to a child. Will you trust Him?
Verse 6, then, the fact that discipline proves that He loves us and receives us (doesn’t reject us) is what makes the attitudes of verse 5 avoidable—of either regarding lightly the discipline of the Lord or becoming weary.
The fourth way to benefit from God’s discipline is to respect God’s holy purpose.
We find God’s purpose in discipline in verse 9, surrounded by verses which tell us why we should submit to and respect God’s discipline. I know, most of us have an allergic reaction to that word “submit” and would just “rather not, thank you.”
A “Frank & Ernest” cartoon expressed it well. The two bunglers are standing at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter has a scowl on his face. Frank whispers to Ernie, “If I were you, I’d change my shirt, Ernie.” Ernie’s shirt reads, “Question Authority.”
God is the Ultimate Authority! Whether you like His program for your life or not, it is not wise to rebel against it. As verse 9 tells us, if we submit to the Father of our spirits, we will live. Bishop Westcott (The Epistle to the Hebrews [Eerdmans], p. 402) puts it, “True life comes from complete self-surrender.”
It is important that we have the proper attitude towards God’s discipline. Just as earthly parents look for a repentant and submissive spirit and grow concerned when they see hardness and resistance in their children, so does God our Father.
Our text gives us several reasons to respect God’s discipling process.
We’ve already seen that it proves that we really are God’s children. Verses 7-8 reinforce this.
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
This is a command here. It is more literally translated, “Endure as discipline.” Jesus “endured” (v. 2), and it is imperative that we also “endure.” The reason is that “God is treating you as sons.”
To be disciplined is NOT evidence that we are unbelievers whom God is punishing. It is the exact opposite. Discipline proves that we really are God’s children. He is doing this for our good. It reveals to us that we really belong in this loving relationship with our heavenly Father.
Far more precarious is the person who sins and gets away with it without any discipline.
What does that show—no discipline in our lives? According to our author it means we are “illegitimate children and not sons.” You see, the mark of the unregenerate is that God will let them have their own way, ultimately leading to destruction (Romans 1).
The approved “sons” in view (those “whom He accepts,” v. 6), here in Hebrews, are evidently those who persevere through discipline to the end of their lives, whereas the illegitimate children do not stay the course but apostatize.
Remember that our sins are paid for and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Discipline is not punishment for our sins; it is proof of God’s love for us. Judicially, all our sins were paid for at the cross. God as our judge declared us “not guilty” on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ. But then He adopted us into His family as His children and as His children he disciplines us for our good.
Theodore Laetsch, the Old Testament scholar, makes a most perceptive comment regarding this:
His plans concerning his people are always thoughts of good, of blessing. Even if he is obliged to use the rod, it is the rod not of wrath, but the Father’s rod of chastisement for their temporal and eternal welfare. There is not a single item of evil in his plans for his people, neither in their motive, nor in their conception, nor in their revelation, nor in their consummation (Theodore Laetsch, Bible Commentary Jeremiah (St. Louis: Concordia, 1965), pp. 234, 235).
David received a stiff corrective from God. Having committed adultery with Bathsheba and having her husband murdered to cover it up, David’s child by that illicit union died. But David did learn from it. Just read Psalm 51, and also the chastened wisdom of Psalm 119:
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. . . .
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. (Psalm 119:67, 71)
In the New Testament Paul told the Corinthian church that some of them were suffering illness and even premature death because they were profaning the Lord’s Supper through their greedy, self-centered indulgence. Again, a harsh corrective, but it came from the heart of their heavenly Father, as Paul explained, “When we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Or consider Paul, it wasn’t his sin, but the gracious purpose of God that humbled him through a “thorn in the flesh.” Paul prayed for it to be removed but later thanked God as he realized how his thorn had protected him. We might consider this preventative discipline.
This same realization enabled D. D. Matheson to pray: “Thou Divine Love, whose human path has been perfected by sufferings, teach me the value of any thorn . . . and then shall I know that my tears have been made a rainbow, and I shall be able to say, ‘It was good for me that I have been afflicted.’” Preventative discipline, properly understood, is seen as a substantial grace.
From here the writer goes on to provide more reasons for the intelligent embrace of and endurance in affliction.
Second, in vv. 9-10, our author argues from the lesser to the greater, God showing that discipline does greatly benefit us. If discipline from our earthly father benefits us, then how much more God’s discipline will benefit us.
9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
Here our author is using the qal wahomer argument, a Hebraism of arguing from the lesser to the greater. In Latin it is called an a fortiori argument. In this case our author is saying that human fathers (weak in comparison to God’s divine power and limited in comparison to God’s divine wisdom) still discipline us for our good, but God (greater in every way) provides even better discipline.
Respect and submission characterized ancients in regard to their natural fathers—and it developed a disciplined productive life in the child. But how much more should we submit to our supernatural Father and live a life that is life indeed! Submission to the discipline of our temporal fathers brought good things, but how much more will come through submission to the discipline of our eternal Father.
Not all of us have known by experience what a model father is, but I think most of us do know by intuition what a good father is. God is even greater; He is that perfect Father and has planted that intuition in us of what a perfect Father is like.
Earthly fathers have limited wisdom and patience. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they discipline too harshly or too hard or in anger. Sometimes we fathers showed favoritism. Sometimes we punished the wrong child. When we grow into adulthood we often realize “they did the best they could.”
God, however, is always perfect in His discipline. He has never made a mistake. He never misses the mark. He always has our highest good in mind, knows exactly how much discipline we need and how to use it to correct, protect and perfect us.
Nothing is wasted in God’s disciplining training. Nothing goes too far. It also achieves its purpose and is always for our best.
Imagine where you would be in life right now without any parental discipline! Without that restraining and training hand of discipline, all manner of rebellion would have fomented in your heart and life and you would surely have headed towards disaster.
If you doubt this, just take a look at the prison rolls; most of them are evidence of men and women who for the most part lacked parental discipline.
The Bible actually says that parents who will not discipline “hate” their children. This is because children without discipline have inadequate guidance to keep them from danger. Thus, God’s willingness to discipline confirms that we are children for whom he cares.
If our earthly parents discipline us “for our good,” then God the Father is able to do this more better than any earthly parent.
Submitting to God’s discipline is not easy. But faith eventually arrives at saying, as A. W. Pink put it (An Exposition of Hebrews), “The trial was not as severe as it could have been. It was not as severe as I deserve. And, my Savior suffered far worse for me.” And so faith submits to the Father’s discipline, trusting that He administers it perfectly for His eternal purpose and for my eternal good.”
When we submit ourselves to the Father’s discipline, we “live” (at the end of v. 9). We will experience the fullness of eternal life and flourish in this life. “The result of this submission is an abundant life (12:9). Though our lives will never be perfect and without pain and suffering, staying on the path of faithful obedience will enhance and enrich our lives (Prv 6:23; 10:16-17; 29:15). It will save us from many avoidable hardships and much pain that comes through sin and disobedience. And it will give us peace and joy even in the midst of our suffering” (Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary–Hebrews, 198).
“Those who live life to the fullest are those who do not buck God’s discipline but rather knowingly embrace it. If your spiritual life is static and unfulfilling, it may be because you are consciously or unconsciously resisting God’s discipline. If so, God’s Word to you is, submit to him and begin to truly live!” (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: Volume 2, p. 173).
Human fathers, even with the best of intention, can only chasten imperfectly because they lack perfect knowledge. The all-knowing God can chasten us perfectly, with better and more lasting results than even the best earthly father.
Grace Still Amazes 