Hebrews 12:11, commentary and pictures

Chastening is grievous and painful while it is being endured, not joyous for the present, but afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. That afterward fruit comes only to those who are exercised and trained by it, who accept it and learn from it rather than resist it. It is appointed through a Father's tender love, for He chastens those He loves as sons that they may share His holiness. Its purpose is to separate from sin and selfishness, to refine, sanctify and purify character, and to prune away idols and useless growth that hinders fruitfulness. Being rightly exercised means enduring with patience, looking to Jesus, trusting His promises and clinging to His grace, while impatience, murmuring and retaliation make the trial more bitter and yield the opposite of peace.

Present Grief, Later Fruit

Chastening does not feel joyful while it is happening but grievous and painful while it is being endured, not pleasant but hard to bear at the time it is received. It seems grievous for the present rather than joyous, and God's correction is painful rather than pleasant while it is being endured.

Afterward that same chastening yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness, producing peaceful, righteous character in place of present pain. Jacob's long years of toil, sorrow and distress were discipline connected with his sin, in which he repeatedly reaped the effects of his first wrong deed and saw similar sins repeated among his sons, yet though bitter it accomplished its work so that his final years were marked by peace.

That afterward fruit comes only to those who are exercised, trained and shaped by the chastening, not to all who suffer. It comes to those who accept it and learn from it, who are trained by it to recognize and correct their faults and grow in righteousness. Being rightly exercised means being exercised by grace, trusting and relying on promised help that knows every pang and limits temptation and makes a way of escape, bearing pain with patience, fortitude and courage, rather than being exercised to impatience, faultfinding, accusation and retaliation.

Loved and Chastened Sons

Chastening is grievous in the present and not joyous while it is being endured, but afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those who are trained by it. This bitter discipline is appointed through a Father's tender love for the good of His children, that they may share in His holiness. It is given in love to cleanse them from selfishness, earthliness, and sinful traits, and those who endure the trial patiently and submit to God are changed to come forth purer and holier and to know God more deeply.

The Lord chastens and rebukes those He loves as sons, and endurance under correction proves sonship. Such fatherly correction must not be despised nor fainted under, but studied and obeyed by laying aside every weight and the easily besetting sin, running the race for eternal life with patience, looking to Jesus the author and finisher of faith and considering His endurance of the cross and contradiction of sinners, and walking by a faith that works by love, purifies the soul, and gives unreserved consecration of the whole heart. The proving must happen where faith has failed, through deep humiliation and godly sorrow whose fruit is life ending in joy rather than sorrow working death, so that the one tried comes forth as pure gold whom God can then entrust with work in His cause.

What looks like misfortune, calamity, or the cutting off of usefulness in some line is not neglect or cruelty but part of God's great plan, His way of working for good to bring victory out of apparent discomfiture and defeat. Under the rod of affliction a Christian can sometimes do more for the Master than when engaged in active service, and therefore he is not to forget God, look only at things which are seen and mourn, or charge God, but to behold by faith the things which are unseen. God uses needed trials as discipline for His children to turn them from earthly things toward lasting joy, an expression of His mercy and faithfulness for their present happiness and future good, and indeed the greatest blessing for His wayward children.

Even when the way seems very dark, friends seem to have forsaken, circumstances seem to oppose, hereditary tendencies to wrong strive for mastery, and discouragement threatens, the sufferer is not forsaken, for the Lord looks upon them with compassion and sympathy, His thoughts toward them are good and not evil, He sees the forces arrayed against them, and He calls them to take hold of His strength to make peace with Him and to know and trust Him. His discipline reflects wise, unbounded love: He is too wise to err and too good to do harm, He knows the frame and remembers that men are dust, and He will not lay on more than He gives strength to bear. Through His Word and through experience He kindly trains and disciplines His children for their good, developing their virtues and powers, leading them to greater consecration in His work, and preparing them for a higher life and the inheritance of the saints, so that those who surrender to Him rather than depend on human judgment can receive His blessing and be fitted for His service.

Good God Intends

The chastening is one of the highest incentives to keep no one hopeless and no one sunk in discouragement, but to lead to the forming of characters that God can approve, with rich grace in store for those who labor together with God and present Christ in all His fullness to those in darkness and error. It is given for present happiness and future good, and is a great blessing because it leads toward a purpose whose glory would be chosen if the end could be seen from the beginning. Even when the way seems very dark, it is God's striving to lead those passing through trial to know Him and to place their trust in Him.

He reproves and corrects to separate from sin and wickedness, to refine and sanctify, to cleanse from selfishness, earthliness, and sinful traits, and to prepare for holiness and exaltation, for a higher life and heaven and the inheritance of the saints. Through His Word and through experience He develops virtues and powers and leads to greater consecration in His work. Present sorrows and afflictions are painful discipline, but through grace trials purify and change those who endure patiently and submit, so they come forth purer and holier and know God more deeply.

Jacob's long years of toil, sorrow, and distress were discipline connected with his sin, in which he repeatedly reaped the effects of his first wrong deed and saw similar sins repeated among his sons, yet though bitter it accomplished its work so that his final years were marked by peace. So also the loss of two children can soften hearts and awaken desire to change, for chastening brings near to God, leads to seeking Him and turning from sin, and can be accepted as a means of being saved into right relation with Him.

Even when friends seem to have forsaken, circumstances seem against, hereditary tendencies to wrong strive for mastery, and discouragement threatens, the sufferer is not forsaken. The Lord looks with compassion and sympathy, His thoughts are good and not evil, He sees the forces arrayed against, and He sends the message to take hold of His strength to make peace with Him and to learn to know and trust Him. For those who give themselves to His service and come under His discipline and control, He molds minds to His will, improves talents, forms symmetrical characters He approves, prepares for the places He appoints, teaches to value time and use it wisely, and secures the life that measures with the life of God.

His chastening gives hope for salvation even when present character would shut a person out of heaven. It meets selfishness mingled with motives, unseen by human eyes but known to the one chastened with a sense of self-degradation, which otherwise mingles with all works and becomes part of character, marring and debasing mind, soul, and body and holding in slavish power despite vain struggles against it. Its intended good is purification, refinement, and ennobling of life and character by virtue from Christ alone. His correction may come through calamities and be painful, but it is meant to save from self and call to heed God.

Ways God Disciplines

Painful affliction is pruning by the heavenly Husbandman to make Christians fruitful. In prosperity strength is wasted on self-gratification, securing worldly treasure, and enjoying ease, pleasure and luxury, bringing forth little fruit to God's glory, so disappointment, loss and bereavement are used as a pruning knife to cut away useless, hindering growth. The cutting is grievous for the present, but afterward it yields peaceful righteous character. That cutting destroys idols, weakens the hold on earth, fastens the affections more firmly on God, quickens the conscience, elevates the thoughts and ennobles the life. Trials also expose hidden defects and give opportunity to correct them, prepare for service, and purify character.

The human heart is disciplined by the same careful principles a skillful gardener uses with plants, not by violence or force but by patient, painstaking effort to make the heart tender to receive impressions of the Holy Spirit. The laborious work of life is used as a school for training and developing people in their fallen state, so hardship and toil serve as wholesome discipline though grievous in the present. Discipline also includes corrective messages to those in error, requiring every person to submit to divine discipline and control. Full obedience is required and simply following one's own way is not allowed, with obedience expected even when no reason is given, so that after repeated instruction refusal to submit is refusal of discipline. Such correction may be painful, but it is meant to overcome faulty character and produce righteousness.

Waiting can be a difficult form of service, yet when circumstances call for it, waiting is acceptable to the Lord and yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. The proving must happen where faith has failed, through deep humiliation and godly sorrow whose fruit is life ending in joy, not sorrow working death. The one so tried comes forth as pure gold, whom God can then entrust with work in His cause.

Being Exercised by Discipline

Being exercised by discipline begins with laying aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets, running the race for eternal life with patience, looking to Jesus as author and finisher of faith, considering His endurance of the cross and the contradiction of sinners, and walking by a faith that works by love, purifies the soul, and gives unreserved consecration of the whole heart. Endurance under correction proves sonship, so correction must not be despised nor fainted under.

Those who endure trial patiently and submit to God are changed to come forth purer and holier and to know God more deeply. Difficult circumstances reveal what is in the heart and call for greater effort to keep faith active in shaping into Christ's image, and the testing and sometimes prolonged process of purification is necessary to develop Christian character.

Being rightly exercised means being exercised by Christ's grace: thinking of Jesus and what He endured, trusting Him, relying on His grace, clinging to His promises that He knows every pang of anguish and will not allow temptation beyond what can be borne but will make a way of escape, and bearing pain with patience, fortitude, and courage without denying Christ in thought, word, or action. Those exercised instead by Satan's spirit respond with impatience, faultfinding, accusation, and retaliation and prove unconverted with false hope and spurious religion. Murmuring and complaining make the trial more bitter, and if it does not accomplish its purpose further trials may follow until the heart is changed, otherwise the heart remains impure.

A mind kept in agitation and stirred to cast up mire and dirt produces the opposite of the peaceful fruit. Tribulation arising from lack of meekness and lowliness in Christ will not yield the precious fruits of righteousness, for hardship does not automatically produce righteousness.

Patience, endurance, and prayer make bitter trial bearable and allow it to accomplish its intended work to bring honor and glory to God. God permits trials to exercise people and through them patience and experience are formed, leading to hope and greater trust in God. This chastening answers sincere prayers offered in loneliness, weariness, and distress, answered not according to expectations but for good, to save the one praying and to glorify God's name, placing him more directly in connection with the church so that confidence becomes less in self and greater in others whom God is leading.

Those who receive pruning with gratitude keep connection with the living Vine instead of being cut off as fruitless branches for the fire, are led closer to Christ in the severest trial to lay burdens at His feet and receive His peace in exchange, and if they suffer with Christ will also reign with Him. Under the rod of affliction a Christian can sometimes do more than when engaged in active service, so there is to be no forgetting God, no looking only at things which are seen and mourning, and no charging God, but beholding by faith the things which are unseen.

Coming under God's discipline means repenting and being converted, so that wrongs can be set right and God can manifest His power, and standing steadfastly for righteousness and truth. It teaches servants to decrease in self and let Christ increase, so that anger and accusation give way to witness to the truth, learning humility and dependence on God rather than trusting in self through experiences that expose human weakness.

The verse applies to believers enduring persecution and choosing affliction with God's people rather than the passing pleasure of sin. Refusing to amend life may bring severe chastening meant to turn a person from vanity and excess toward a reformed life. God subjects His children to trial to teach recognizing and correcting faults, and spiritual discipline and crucifying self may bring no satisfaction at first but later effect is peace and happiness.

Fruit in Righteous Character

True conversion is a divine work that produces a peaceful and righteous character, while shallow supposed conversions do not stand under the stress of trial and temptation but are exposed as faithless, envious, jealous, and full of evil surmising. They are like stony-ground hearers with no depth of spiritual experience, who do not apply truth to heart and conscience and in whom unsanctified self remains alive and uncrucified, strengthening evil instead of repressing it. This lack of pure-toned piety makes weaklings in the Lord's army, whereas willingness to be converted to the truth makes giants who bear that peaceful righteous fruit. Receiving the truth in its sanctifying power and carrying it out in the life corrects what is wrong and produces righteous conduct, humility, recognition of one's need, and esteeming others better than oneself. Those who have truly felt what the truth has done for them do not become proud or assume they know all things, but bear fruit to God's glory.

Obedience to God and submission to Christ's will yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness, for through accepting Christ's sacrifice pardon is received and God's grace is given to produce the fruits of holiness. Where God's cleansing work has shaped the life, those fruits appear as Christlike sympathy, kindness, forbearance, and love, rather than criticism or harshness toward others.

Godly mourning for sin yields the peaceable fruit, being godly sorrow for sin that works repentance unto eternal life. It is not living under a perpetual cloud, nor selfish sorrow and repining over disagreeable consequences which has no merit to remove sin, nor mere regret over the trouble sin brings. True conviction feels the whole life to have been ingratitude, robbing the best Friend of time and strength bought at infinite price, and fills the soul with unutterable sorrow for slighting and grieving a compassionate Saviour.

Such mourning is precious, not weakness but strength, binding the penitent to the Infinite One with unbreakable links. Angels are revealed bringing back to the soul graces lost through hardness of heart and transgression. It becomes the forerunner of holiness and joy, like clouds and raindrops before the sunshine of holiness and like sorrow heralding a joy that becomes a living fountain in the soul. It is sown with toil and tears in patient expectation until heaven opens with rain for a bountiful harvest gathered with joy, and confessing and lamenting errors shows a character able to recognize and correct them.

Repentance is genuine and lasting when it produces that fruit and puts learned truth into practice with active, growing faith yielding enduring hope, comfort, and assurance. Emotional repentance that does not lead to reform gives no lasting relief and leaves a person worse off, and regret caused only by consequences with unchanged heart is not repentance. Painful, humbling experiences are essential so the fruit may appear, including humiliating confessions, and suffering and disappointment, though grievous in the present, serve sanctification by elevating and purifying the soul to do God's will. So Brother Nelson's principles needed molding to shape character and conduct, for when sanctified through Christ's influence they could bear this fruit, while his critical spirit and disagreeable manner damaged his influence.

Training Children and Students

Children taught to yield their wishes to parental correction are more ready to yield to God and submit to the Spirit of Christ, while a childhood without correction can make it difficult to accept the discipline taught in God's word. Restraining children and correcting their wrong tendencies belongs to bringing them up in nurture and admonition, and this painful present correction afterward yields righteousness. That training is to be done patiently and gently to make them true to God's government and ready for a place in the family of heaven, and scolding, passionate reproof, and parents giving way to temper are wrong methods.

When parents leave children to do as they please they fail to teach obedience and right conduct, and character grows like uncultivated ground producing weeds instead of good fruit. Strict discipline is felt as painful rather than pleasant, so children under it feel dissatisfied and impatient under restraint and want their own will to go and come as they please. This is especially so from ten to eighteen, when experienced parents hold them back from picnics and gatherings of young associates because they see danger to minds and salvation. Parents must not relax the hand but must subdue the will and temper from infancy, teach obedience, reason with the child, correct errors, and patiently teach the right way, because instruction and character formed in childhood shape the whole religious experience and fit children to become children of God. If the will is not subdued in childhood it becomes a severe struggle and conflict to yield to God's requirements later, and parents who neglect this work sin against their children and against God.

For children who have not been trained at home, firm rules and correction are for their benefit to bring obedience and help prepare them for useful lives and the future life. Fathers and mothers themselves are under God's discipline while they require obedience from their children. They must therefore correct with sanctified hearts, without hasty words, anger, sharpness of voice, hardness of heart, cruelty, harshness, severity, or injustice, but with patience, gentleness, sorrow, pity, and true religion. Such correction more easily gains the love and respect of children and helps make them kind, gentle, and loving and fit to take into the fellowship of the church.

Improved discipline in the home and in recently opened schools produces sanctification, which is the will of God, and causes the fruit of righteousness to appear in the lives of students. Teachers fulfill this by laboring together with God in discipline, and parents fulfill it by speaking only encouragement and never coarse, rude, angry words, and by using mind, voice, influence, and all their powers to win souls to Christ. Then each family becomes a missionary family, and home, school, and church send forth a holy influence with the grace of Christ received into the life and revealed in character. Words spoken by teachers of God's Word should produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness. A man under the control of the enemy of all good needs to be taken in hand and disciplined and chastened like a rebellious child, because he is ruining himself and his course is downward, with strong passions under no holy restraint, whose envy and jealousy, outbursts of anger, and evil surmisings make him a demon in his home, while he will not do the will of God.