For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Whom the Lord loves and receives as His child He corrects and rebukes and even scourges in fatherly discipline, and this is love and mercy and faithfulness and not hatred or forsaking or cruelty. Every son He loves is so chastened, and to be under His discipline and to endure it is the mark that He is dealing with them as sons. For the present the chastening is painful suffering and grievous trial and not joy, like the purging of a fruitful branch that it may bear more fruit. It is therefore not to be despised nor fainted under nor murmured at, but to be endured humbly and steadfastly as a son's schooling, laying aside weight and besetting sin and running the race looking to Jesus who endured the cross and contradiction of sinners. Endured, it turns from error and sin to holiness and repentance, refines as gold and polishes as a temple stone unto the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and prepares character for usefulness in God's service.
Meaning of Loving Chastisement
Chastening, rebuke and scourging are fatherly discipline and correction by which the Lord shows love, mercy, faithfulness and acceptance toward those He receives as His children. They are not hatred, forsaking, neglect or cruelty, nor any willingness to cause grief, but proof that He has not forsaken those under correction. For this reason His correction is not to be despised and His rebuke is not cause to lose heart or faint, but to be endured as a father's dealing with a son. The Holy Spirit's convicting work in a person is therefore reason for relief even amid trial, because it is a sign of being received as a child.
Every son whom the Lord loves and receives is chastened and scourged, with no true son left without the Father's chastening. Being under His discipline and enduring it marks those whom He treats as sons, while those who remain without the chastisement shared by all are not sons. Enduring proves sonship and requires remaining under correction rather than despising it or fainting under rebuke.
The chastening is for the present grievous and not joyous, painful suffering and severe trial to be borne meekly without murmuring. That painful discipline includes the husbandman's purging of even a fruitful branch so that faults are removed and it is prepared to bear more fruit. God's government is founded on love, and yet He chastens and scourges every son He receives.
Purposes and Fruits of Discipline
Discipline is given to save souls by turning God's children from errors and misconceptions, humbling the unfaithful to bring them to repentance, exposing danger and sin to separate them from wickedness and lead them to holiness. Reproof and correction belong to those He receives as His own, seeking their salvation and place in His work, and when sins are confessed He pardons and cleanses, showing mistakes are not incurable. Those who repent and return are received with tenderness, pardoned, and clothed with Christ's righteousness, while obedience brings strength and victory, and mercy still bears with the unfaithful until they turn from sin and have favor restored. Reverses that expose danger are included in this loving work to save His children.
Discipline reveals hidden faults and defects, teaches people to know themselves, and reveals what is in the heart. Trials and obstacles are among His means of doing this, giving opportunity to correct faults, develop character, and prepare for His service. This call to correct what is wrong is to be answered while probation remains. God may answer prayer through difficult circumstances that test the heart and call for greater effort to keep faith active, and such trials before a desired blessing purify the heart and make believers more like Christ rather than proving prayer is ignored.
Endured chastening purifies as pure gold and as ore refined in fire. Like a rough stone cut and polished for its place in the temple, painful correction shapes character, for God's blows are never useless. It refines, sanctifies, ennobles and elevates, preparing for exaltation and making His children partakers of the divine nature through daily sanctification. Afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those trained by it.
Discipline prepares character for God's service and entrusts the proved one with work in His cause after purification as pure gold. This correction removes faults to make fruitful service greater, as a husbandman purges a fruitful branch so it will bear more fruit. Those who put self out of sight, make room for the Holy Spirit to work on the heart, and live wholly consecrated are taught day by day, and there is no limit to their usefulness as human channels through whom God pours the waters of salvation. Under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more for the Master than in active service, as Paul's imprisonment furthered the gospel. Enduring without complaining or giving up belongs to this education of those who yield themselves for service.
Discipline is sent for present happiness and future good and eternal happiness. It is the greatest blessing His children, especially the wayward, have. It is meant to restore and not to destroy, with every blow purposeful and never wasted. Trials are not meant to destroy but to refine, ennoble, sanctify, develop character and shape it for service and its appointed place.
Trials loosen the hold on earthly things and lead to seeking lasting happiness beyond this world. They reveal need of God and draw people nearer to Him. Being called to pass through trials shows God striving to lead people to know Him and place trust in Him. The deaths of two children softened an intemperate man and his worldly-minded wife, awakened desire to change, and helped lead them toward God where help and guidance are received in submission to Him.
Discipline is schooling that requires submission to God's authority and full obedience rather than following one's own wishes, sometimes even when He gives no reason. It teaches the more important lessons of meekness, lowliness, and distrust of self, showing that in humanity alone there is no strength and that only by becoming partakers of the divine nature is there efficiency for God's work. Neglecting to submit to the impressions of the Spirit and refusing to live in obedience is refusing this schooling and weakens spiritual efficiency for successful work. When instruction has been given repeatedly, refusing to submit is refusing the Lord's discipline.
The Lord disciplines the human heart by the same principles that guide a gardener, not by violence or force but by patient, painstaking effort that makes the heart tender. This care is what souls need to prepare them to receive the impressions of the Holy Spirit. When people give themselves to God's service they come under His discipline and control as His children. Being disciplined through given grace forms characters He approves and secures life that measures with the life of God.
God does not lay on more than He gives strength to bear, because He knows the frame and remembers that it is dust. He sees beyond human understanding, works for His people's good, and will ultimately bring events to a right outcome even when the purpose of chastening trials is hidden as part of providential care. He can bring victory out of apparent discomfiture and defeat when misfortune or calamity comes or usefulness in some line is cut off. He never leads otherwise than they would choose if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of the purpose they fulfill as workers together with Him.
God gives those warned and reproved repeated opportunities to repent. If they refuse to repent and persist in their own course, they are left to it and perish in their sins.
Enduring Discipline by Faith
Hebrews 12:6 calls those whom the Lord loves and receives as children not to despise His chastening nor to lose heart and faint when rebuked by Him, not to murmur or complain or give up by the way or turn to their own ways, but to endure it steadfastly, humbly and meekly as His fatherly dealing with them as sons, submitting to it and learning from it. Enduring rather than despising or fainting is itself the mark of being treated as a son, for correction and even scourging prove love and acceptance, not forsaking. The discipline is to be borne with meekness and humility as needed correction to turn from errors and misconceptions and save the soul.
The verse stands within the call to lay aside every weight and the easily besetting sin and to run with patience the race set before them, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith who endured the cross and the contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest they be wearied and faint in their minds. Sufferers are reminded that they have not yet resisted unto blood in striving against sin. Christ’s endurance of hardship without impatience, unbelief or complaint is held up as their example, even as a fruitful branch is purged by the husbandman that it may bear more fruit.
To endure is to have sorrow that leads to life and joy rather than to death, faith tried where it failed, and moral courage to stand where duty was betrayed. It means retracing steps with persevering, determined will in the strength of Jesus, breaking the force of habit, dismissing Satan and welcoming Jesus to possess the soul, confessing and forsaking what separated from God, making wrongs right, proving moral courage on the very field where defeat occurred, and going down into the valley of humiliation. The chastening so endured is grievous for the present and not joyous, yet afterward it purifies as pure gold.
The tried one is not forsaken even when the way seems very dark, when friends seem to have forsaken, when circumstances seem to be against, and when hereditary tendencies to wrong strive for the mastery bringing discouragement. The Lord looks upon him with compassion and sympathy, His thoughts toward him are thoughts of good and not of evil, and He sees the forces arrayed against him. He is therefore to behold by faith the unseen things instead of the seen things and to trust steadfastly and humbly without murmuring that His Word abides, knowing that under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more than in active service.
The chapter containing the verse is urged as guidance for believers facing life’s trials and choosing to endure affliction for their faith. Trials may be the discipline needed before a desired blessing, purifying the heart and making believers more like Christ. God may answer prayer through difficult circumstances that reveal what is in the heart and call for greater effort to keep faith active, and such trials are not to be taken as evidence that God has ignored prayer.
Discipline in Life Experiences
Loss such as that of a barn, horses and carriages may be the Lord's chastening of those He loves and receives as His children, a severe trial that may ultimately prove a blessing, to be endured steadfastly, humbly and without murmuring in trust that His Word abides. When misfortune or calamity comes, or when usefulness in some line of work is cut off, victory can be brought out of apparent discomfiture and defeat, and calamities can serve as correction calling a person to recognize the danger of his course, turn from it and change conduct as a means to save him from himself and not merely human rebuke, and under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more than in active service, as Paul's imprisonment furthered the gospel, calling for beholding unseen things by faith rather than seen things. When the Lord reproves a person, as when He saw fit to reprove Herbert Lacey, it is because He loves him and desires to save him and give him place in His work, showing that mistakes are not incurable, and when sins are confessed He pardons and cleanses. Chastening can be a severe correction calling a person to amend life and turn from vanity and excess. God may allow people to experience the consequences of disobedience rather than relieve them from trouble their own course caused, and such chastening is a response to disobedience, not a reason for others to excuse or conceal wrongdoing.
God may severely chastise those who have turned from Him, including leaders who refuse Christ's leadership and remain under evil influence with uncontrolled passions, envy, jealousy, anger and evil surmisings that make one a demon in the home on a downward course ruining himself, and such chastisement is needed to break the spell of evil influence, take the rebellious in hand like a child, and lead them back to God. His messages bring erring people, even leaders, under His discipline and call them to submit their judgment to His control. His reproof of His children comes from love and is meant to save them, and correction of one who has erred should therefore follow Scripture's directions and aim to restore rather than hastily dismiss the person. In the fallen state life's laborious demands are a wholesome school for training people, whose needs are supplied through personal labor, forethought, care and faith.
Pattern for Parental Discipline
The chastening of every son whom the Lord receives gives the pattern for fathers as priests of the household and mothers in the home in training children, making it the binding duty of parents to correct their children as God corrects His own when they disobey, go astray from Him, turn away, and show passion and evil temper. Correction and even punishment are sometimes necessary, yet they must follow God's dealing with His little children.
That following means correction given in love and not in passion or anger, with all the sweetness of a subdued, tender disposition that draws children to Christ by cords of love and attracts rather than repels. Obedience is to be taught from infancy with patient gentleness that overcomes passion without passion, beginning young while impressions can still be made and evil temper can still be subdued. Afterward the child is to be carried to God in prayer for Him to do what parents cannot do in tempering the disposition and making it mild and gentle by His Holy Spirit.
Fathers and mothers are themselves under the discipline of God even while they require obedience from their children, and because they are being disciplined they must not correct with hasty words, anger, revenge, sharpness of voice, hardness of heart, undue harshness, unnecessary scolding or blame, or cruel punishment that wounds tender hearts. They must still enjoin and require obedience, yet working with sanctified hearts and setting an example of patience and gentleness and showing sorrow, pity, and true religion. So doing they gain the love and respect of their children and can bring them into the fellowship of the church. Children taught to yield their will to their parents will more readily yield to God and submit to the Spirit of Christ, while those left undisciplined in childhood may find it difficult to yield to the discipline taught in God's word, affecting their religious experience, because the future destiny of the child largely depends on faithful parental education and training.
Whom the Lord loves and receives as His child He corrects and rebukes and even scourges in fatherly discipline, and this is love and mercy and faithfulness and not hatred or forsaking or cruelty. Every son He loves is so chastened, and to be under His discipline and to endure it is the mark that He is dealing with them as sons. For the present the chastening is painful suffering and grievous trial and not joy, like the purging of a fruitful branch that it may bear more fruit. It is therefore not to be despised nor fainted under nor murmured at, but to be endured humbly and steadfastly as a son's schooling, laying aside weight and besetting sin and running the race looking to Jesus who endured the cross and contradiction of sinners. Endured, it turns from error and sin to holiness and repentance, refines as gold and polishes as a temple stone unto the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and prepares character for usefulness in God's service.
Meaning of Loving Chastisement
Chastening, rebuke and scourging are fatherly discipline and correction by which the Lord shows love, mercy, faithfulness and acceptance toward those He receives as His children. They are not hatred, forsaking, neglect or cruelty, nor any willingness to cause grief, but proof that He has not forsaken those under correction. For this reason His correction is not to be despised and His rebuke is not cause to lose heart or faint, but to be endured as a father's dealing with a son. The Holy Spirit's convicting work in a person is therefore reason for relief even amid trial, because it is a sign of being received as a child.
Every son whom the Lord loves and receives is chastened and scourged, with no true son left without the Father's chastening. Being under His discipline and enduring it marks those whom He treats as sons, while those who remain without the chastisement shared by all are not sons. Enduring proves sonship and requires remaining under correction rather than despising it or fainting under rebuke.
The chastening is for the present grievous and not joyous, painful suffering and severe trial to be borne meekly without murmuring. That painful discipline includes the husbandman's purging of even a fruitful branch so that faults are removed and it is prepared to bear more fruit. God's government is founded on love, and yet He chastens and scourges every son He receives.
Purposes and Fruits of Discipline
Discipline is given to save souls by turning God's children from errors and misconceptions, humbling the unfaithful to bring them to repentance, exposing danger and sin to separate them from wickedness and lead them to holiness. Reproof and correction belong to those He receives as His own, seeking their salvation and place in His work, and when sins are confessed He pardons and cleanses, showing mistakes are not incurable. Those who repent and return are received with tenderness, pardoned, and clothed with Christ's righteousness, while obedience brings strength and victory, and mercy still bears with the unfaithful until they turn from sin and have favor restored. Reverses that expose danger are included in this loving work to save His children.
Discipline reveals hidden faults and defects, teaches people to know themselves, and reveals what is in the heart. Trials and obstacles are among His means of doing this, giving opportunity to correct faults, develop character, and prepare for His service. This call to correct what is wrong is to be answered while probation remains. God may answer prayer through difficult circumstances that test the heart and call for greater effort to keep faith active, and such trials before a desired blessing purify the heart and make believers more like Christ rather than proving prayer is ignored.
Endured chastening purifies as pure gold and as ore refined in fire. Like a rough stone cut and polished for its place in the temple, painful correction shapes character, for God's blows are never useless. It refines, sanctifies, ennobles and elevates, preparing for exaltation and making His children partakers of the divine nature through daily sanctification. Afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those trained by it.
Discipline prepares character for God's service and entrusts the proved one with work in His cause after purification as pure gold. This correction removes faults to make fruitful service greater, as a husbandman purges a fruitful branch so it will bear more fruit. Those who put self out of sight, make room for the Holy Spirit to work on the heart, and live wholly consecrated are taught day by day, and there is no limit to their usefulness as human channels through whom God pours the waters of salvation. Under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more for the Master than in active service, as Paul's imprisonment furthered the gospel. Enduring without complaining or giving up belongs to this education of those who yield themselves for service.
Discipline is sent for present happiness and future good and eternal happiness. It is the greatest blessing His children, especially the wayward, have. It is meant to restore and not to destroy, with every blow purposeful and never wasted. Trials are not meant to destroy but to refine, ennoble, sanctify, develop character and shape it for service and its appointed place.
Trials loosen the hold on earthly things and lead to seeking lasting happiness beyond this world. They reveal need of God and draw people nearer to Him. Being called to pass through trials shows God striving to lead people to know Him and place trust in Him. The deaths of two children softened an intemperate man and his worldly-minded wife, awakened desire to change, and helped lead them toward God where help and guidance are received in submission to Him.
Discipline is schooling that requires submission to God's authority and full obedience rather than following one's own wishes, sometimes even when He gives no reason. It teaches the more important lessons of meekness, lowliness, and distrust of self, showing that in humanity alone there is no strength and that only by becoming partakers of the divine nature is there efficiency for God's work. Neglecting to submit to the impressions of the Spirit and refusing to live in obedience is refusing this schooling and weakens spiritual efficiency for successful work. When instruction has been given repeatedly, refusing to submit is refusing the Lord's discipline.
The Lord disciplines the human heart by the same principles that guide a gardener, not by violence or force but by patient, painstaking effort that makes the heart tender. This care is what souls need to prepare them to receive the impressions of the Holy Spirit. When people give themselves to God's service they come under His discipline and control as His children. Being disciplined through given grace forms characters He approves and secures life that measures with the life of God.
God does not lay on more than He gives strength to bear, because He knows the frame and remembers that it is dust. He sees beyond human understanding, works for His people's good, and will ultimately bring events to a right outcome even when the purpose of chastening trials is hidden as part of providential care. He can bring victory out of apparent discomfiture and defeat when misfortune or calamity comes or usefulness in some line is cut off. He never leads otherwise than they would choose if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of the purpose they fulfill as workers together with Him.
God gives those warned and reproved repeated opportunities to repent. If they refuse to repent and persist in their own course, they are left to it and perish in their sins.
Enduring Discipline by Faith
Hebrews 12:6 calls those whom the Lord loves and receives as children not to despise His chastening nor to lose heart and faint when rebuked by Him, not to murmur or complain or give up by the way or turn to their own ways, but to endure it steadfastly, humbly and meekly as His fatherly dealing with them as sons, submitting to it and learning from it. Enduring rather than despising or fainting is itself the mark of being treated as a son, for correction and even scourging prove love and acceptance, not forsaking. The discipline is to be borne with meekness and humility as needed correction to turn from errors and misconceptions and save the soul.
The verse stands within the call to lay aside every weight and the easily besetting sin and to run with patience the race set before them, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith who endured the cross and the contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest they be wearied and faint in their minds. Sufferers are reminded that they have not yet resisted unto blood in striving against sin. Christ’s endurance of hardship without impatience, unbelief or complaint is held up as their example, even as a fruitful branch is purged by the husbandman that it may bear more fruit.
To endure is to have sorrow that leads to life and joy rather than to death, faith tried where it failed, and moral courage to stand where duty was betrayed. It means retracing steps with persevering, determined will in the strength of Jesus, breaking the force of habit, dismissing Satan and welcoming Jesus to possess the soul, confessing and forsaking what separated from God, making wrongs right, proving moral courage on the very field where defeat occurred, and going down into the valley of humiliation. The chastening so endured is grievous for the present and not joyous, yet afterward it purifies as pure gold.
The tried one is not forsaken even when the way seems very dark, when friends seem to have forsaken, when circumstances seem to be against, and when hereditary tendencies to wrong strive for the mastery bringing discouragement. The Lord looks upon him with compassion and sympathy, His thoughts toward him are thoughts of good and not of evil, and He sees the forces arrayed against him. He is therefore to behold by faith the unseen things instead of the seen things and to trust steadfastly and humbly without murmuring that His Word abides, knowing that under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more than in active service.
The chapter containing the verse is urged as guidance for believers facing life’s trials and choosing to endure affliction for their faith. Trials may be the discipline needed before a desired blessing, purifying the heart and making believers more like Christ. God may answer prayer through difficult circumstances that reveal what is in the heart and call for greater effort to keep faith active, and such trials are not to be taken as evidence that God has ignored prayer.
Discipline in Life Experiences
Loss such as that of a barn, horses and carriages may be the Lord's chastening of those He loves and receives as His children, a severe trial that may ultimately prove a blessing, to be endured steadfastly, humbly and without murmuring in trust that His Word abides. When misfortune or calamity comes, or when usefulness in some line of work is cut off, victory can be brought out of apparent discomfiture and defeat, and calamities can serve as correction calling a person to recognize the danger of his course, turn from it and change conduct as a means to save him from himself and not merely human rebuke, and under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more than in active service, as Paul's imprisonment furthered the gospel, calling for beholding unseen things by faith rather than seen things. When the Lord reproves a person, as when He saw fit to reprove Herbert Lacey, it is because He loves him and desires to save him and give him place in His work, showing that mistakes are not incurable, and when sins are confessed He pardons and cleanses. Chastening can be a severe correction calling a person to amend life and turn from vanity and excess. God may allow people to experience the consequences of disobedience rather than relieve them from trouble their own course caused, and such chastening is a response to disobedience, not a reason for others to excuse or conceal wrongdoing.
God may severely chastise those who have turned from Him, including leaders who refuse Christ's leadership and remain under evil influence with uncontrolled passions, envy, jealousy, anger and evil surmisings that make one a demon in the home on a downward course ruining himself, and such chastisement is needed to break the spell of evil influence, take the rebellious in hand like a child, and lead them back to God. His messages bring erring people, even leaders, under His discipline and call them to submit their judgment to His control. His reproof of His children comes from love and is meant to save them, and correction of one who has erred should therefore follow Scripture's directions and aim to restore rather than hastily dismiss the person. In the fallen state life's laborious demands are a wholesome school for training people, whose needs are supplied through personal labor, forethought, care and faith.
Pattern for Parental Discipline
The chastening of every son whom the Lord receives gives the pattern for fathers as priests of the household and mothers in the home in training children, making it the binding duty of parents to correct their children as God corrects His own when they disobey, go astray from Him, turn away, and show passion and evil temper. Correction and even punishment are sometimes necessary, yet they must follow God's dealing with His little children.
That following means correction given in love and not in passion or anger, with all the sweetness of a subdued, tender disposition that draws children to Christ by cords of love and attracts rather than repels. Obedience is to be taught from infancy with patient gentleness that overcomes passion without passion, beginning young while impressions can still be made and evil temper can still be subdued. Afterward the child is to be carried to God in prayer for Him to do what parents cannot do in tempering the disposition and making it mild and gentle by His Holy Spirit.
Fathers and mothers are themselves under the discipline of God even while they require obedience from their children, and because they are being disciplined they must not correct with hasty words, anger, revenge, sharpness of voice, hardness of heart, undue harshness, unnecessary scolding or blame, or cruel punishment that wounds tender hearts. They must still enjoin and require obedience, yet working with sanctified hearts and setting an example of patience and gentleness and showing sorrow, pity, and true religion. So doing they gain the love and respect of their children and can bring them into the fellowship of the church. Children taught to yield their will to their parents will more readily yield to God and submit to the Spirit of Christ, while those left undisciplined in childhood may find it difficult to yield to the discipline taught in God's word, affecting their religious experience, because the future destiny of the child largely depends on faithful parental education and training.