Something hit me the other day. I was reading through Hebrews and came to the encouragement of 12:1-5. Many saints have gone before us, faithful to the end of their lives, and are watching us as we travel the same road. We are to keep our eyes on Jesus, who also remained faithful through the cross because he saw the joy waiting for him. The audience of Hebrews had not yet become martyrs, and they are God’s sons (“children” if you prefer), and so are not to grow weary or fainthearted.
But at v5b I have always felt a disconnect where it says we will be disciplined, reproved, and chastised by the Lord, as a father disciplines his children. How exactly is punishment for sins an encouragement?
Yes, I understand the argument (as an exegete and a father) that the loving thing to do is confront sin, and the hateful thing to do is ignore it. I understand that eventually children come to “respect” (v 9) their father, perhaps years after the disciplining stops. But still v 5bff. read as a disconnect.
And then this week it hit me. What does “discipline” mean? I had been allowing the “reprove” and “chastise” to control my understanding; I read “discipline” purely in remedial terms. Now certainly this is true. When we sin, our Loving Father shows us our sin and exercises, shall we say, corrective discipline. To do otherwise would not be love. But is this all that “discipline” means? Does this passage apply only to God’s children when we sin?
Semantic range to the rescue! “Discipline” is a translation of paideuo. If you check any reference work (I’ll use my own dictionary), you will see that it has two basic meanings.
(1) It can refer to actual punishment (Lk 23:16, 22). Paul talks about being “beaten but not killed” (2 Cor 6:9). In this sense it is close in meaning to “reproved” (elenxo), which usually carries a strong notion of rebuke (Tit 1:9) or correct (1 Tim 5:20). Likewise, “chastise” (mastigoo) can even mean “to whip.”
(2) But paideuo has another meaning that is not necessarily connected to punishment. It is a standard word for child-rearing (you can see an etymological connection to the word for “child,“ pais) and can refer to simple teaching or educating. The cognate noun paideutes means ”instructor” or “teacher.” BDAG includes a meaning for paideuo as “brought up properly,” although they give no biblical occurrences for this meaning.
What does all this mean? It means that Hebrews 12 does not apply only to those who are sinning. It is a means of encouragement for all followers of Jesus Christ who are going through difficult times (not just sinful times). Just as an earthly father does not always smooth out the road for his children but rather allows them to experience life and grow through those difficult times, so also our heavenly father is at work in all situations, whether they be the consequences of sin or the consequences of life. And as we experience life, we are reminded to not grow weary or fainthearted. The saints who went before us endured the same difficulties and remained faithful. Jesus endured great suffering that had nothing to do with sinful actions he committed, and yet for the joy set before him he endured the cross.
This is a personal blog for me. I am coming out of a difficult year that resulted from great sin done against me and my family. At times we cried out, “Where are you God? Do you see? Do you care?” We always knew that the answers were, “I am here. Yes I see. You know I care.” But there was so much we did not understand. And it hurt. We knew that God was using this difficult season to mold all of us into the image of his Son, from one degree of glory to another. But it still hurt, and at times we wondered if it was really worth the pain.
But we are being “disciplined,” not in the sense of being punished for sin but in the sense of God allowing life to mold and shape us, to teach us about his love as our heavenly father, and to call us to faithfulness in the midst of life. So many have gone before us, men and women who have experienced great pain not because they sinned but because they were called to be “Christ with flesh on” in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.
Based on this passage, I think it is at least a possibility that some of them have been watching our lives unfold, cheering us on, understanding our pain and rejoicing in God’s victories in us. But none so much as Jesus. In my struggle, I have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. But I am a son of the King, my faithful and loving father, who is at work in all the activities of life, teaching me, molding me, and at times chastising me, so that he can work his good in me, and in my family. His good is that I look like his one and only Son, Jesus Christ (Rom 8:29).
May we all be found faithful.
Comments
Difficult year
And yet in this year you have encouraged and ministered to how many people via your blog, your India trip, and who knows what else. Do you have a number you can put on those of us "out here?" No. You will not know in this life how much impact you have continued to have in your "difficult year."
With appreciation, RKirk
Wow
Thanks you all for the encouragement. At times I feel isolated and don't know if I am an encouragement to anyone. Thanks for letting me know.
Praying for you
I've been working on Greek on my own for awhile. I've been using your book. I just discovered your blog. I'm sorry to hear that you have had such a rough year, but never doubt that you are a blessing. I will be praying for you and your family.
MS
That is so encouraging!
That is so encouraging! Thank you for this post and for your honesty and openness.
Doesn't the Word of God bring such freedom and security when we understand and interpret it correctly. :)
Regards
Jakes
Thanks
Your thoughts & articles leave me with a desire to go pick up my Bible. You remind me of Machen & S.Lewis Johnson. After reading or listening to them, I gotta go get my Bile to listen to HIM. Most teachers are pretty 'proud' of themselves, while a few drive us back to a personal relationship with our LORD. (ah, the perspicuity of the Scriptures!).
Thanks for using your gifts...we want whatever is best for you & your family...
tom
Another word of encouragement
Bill,
I am so sorry to hear that you and your family have been through such a distressing time, but it is wonderful to read that you have found comfort from God through it.
When one sees the terrible things many of God's people go through, one wonders just how those 'health-and-wealth' myth sellers can get away with promising people that if they come to Jesus (or rather, their version of Him) they will have a life free of trouble. But clearly some people do experience such things. Why is this? Why do some get a life of comfort and ease while others suffer?
Perhaps it is a matter of trust--not ours, but God's. I would suggest that those of us who have gone through particularly hard times in our lives as children of God should take comfort in that precise fact because it surely means that our Father knows we can handle it (with His help, of course). It is a sign that we are growing up into the kind of people we should be. Perhaps those who receive only 'nice' things do so because God knows that they need to be babied, that they cannot deal with the real world.
Think of when you were a child. It was a wonderful thing to go into town shopping with your father, holding his hand and watching and learning as he conducted the business of buying needed supplies for the family. But then came a day when you were sent to do it by yourself. No more hand to hold, no more reassuring presence of the father. It was a bit scary, yes, but there was also a feeling of pride (in a good sense), of being 'grown-up', of being trusted.You knew that, even if you doubted yourself, your father had no doubts that you could do it.
Or again, if we remember that we are in a war, should we expect comfort and ease? What kind of soldier enlists and expects to remain safe at home?
While it would be foolish to pretend that suffering is joy, for it clearly is not, we can and should rejoice that our Father has confidence in us!
I am reminded of one of my favourite quotes, from C. S. Lewis' book The Screwtape Letters (written from the devilish point of view):
"Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
May God's blessings support you and your family, and thank you for all you give to so many of us,
David L. Gibbons
RE: God's Discipline
I appreciate your insights here into God's discipline in Hebrews 12! I, for one, have never seen God's discipline in Hebrews 12 as primarily an issue of teaching and shaping us, but when I view this passage in the larger context of Hebrews (esp. chapters 11-13), it makes sense. When I read through Hebrews 11, I see an obvious emphasis on the example and testimony of faith-the faith of those who have run this race before us. In that chapter, there is very little emphasis on chastisement, but a bigger emphasis on God using the trials of this life to prepare His people for His coming kingdom. With this being said, when I read through Heb. 12:25-29, it does seem that there is a proper place for genuine "warning" in this passage, so that I am not entirely certain that there is no sense of "chastisement" in this context. Is it perhaps possible that the author is using "discipline" here in a more generic sense to refer to a teaching process that may or may not be the result of sin in any individual believer's life? Regardless, I do appreciate your thoughtful remarks regarding this passage. Thanks!
Steve Marquardt
Discipline can be chastisement or teaching
Yes, I think the author of Hebrews is allowing for both. What was new to me was that I never saw anything there but chastisement, which is always for sin. Someone once told me that no pain is wasted, if we respond properly. God can use all forms of suffering -- as a sovereign and loving God -- to mold us into the people that he desires us to be. I have been more impressed over the last couple weeks, more than ever before, that there are certain things about God's character that can only be learned in the midst of suffering. Qualities like his love and mercy and gentleness. I am thankful for learning those parts of his glory.
I have come to the same
I have come to the same conclusion about the discipline in Heb 12. It's encouraging to know that rather than difficult times being a sign of God forsaking us, they're actually evidence of our sonship and His love to us. Of course, there's no joy in difficult circumstances (v.11), but there is joy in what it will produce (v.2, James 1:2-4).
Sometimes I've wondered if God brings me through certain circumstances so I will appreciate His Word better - It's one thing to understand a spiritual truth from a "theoretical" perspective and something wholly else to appreciate it experientially (Heb 5:7-9).
Thanks for the post and God bless,
bh
Bill, some very interesting
Bill, some very interesting comments. As a result of my experiences over the last ten years, I have come to certain conclusions about this passage in Hebrews.
The first is that, when taken in the context of the first few verses of the chapter (as you have pointed out so well), and in the context of Philippians 1:6 ("Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.") the emphasis must surely be on training, and not on punishment.
It seems completely contradictory to me that the God who, among other things achieved on the cross, also opened a space into which He could move us in which He no longer has to punish us (Romans 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.") but is able now, through the death and resurrection and shed blood of Christ, to support and encourage us, would now want to continue with the punishment He has worked so hard to be able to set aside.
We now live in the fulfilment of Psalm 37:23, 24 ("The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.") and our goodness is, by the grace of God, the righteousness of Christ, and not our own.
Another aspect of what is being said here, particularly in the context of training, is probably also seen in Paul's comment to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 9:27 ("But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."), in that Paul is seeing a need for keeping the physical body under control, which is itself a form of discipline and training.
Why the need for it all? Well, I don't think that any one of us would acknowledge that we either willingly or readily are going to give up the baggage we carry with us, and "put off the old man and put on the new," so God has to help us with this, and it seems to me that it is mostly in circumstances and what happens in the general run of life that this "help" is given. The best way to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (and the list is by no means limited to what are fondly referred to as the "nine" manifestations or characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit given in Galatians 5) is to practise and apply them, and this isn't going to happen until we find ourselves in situations where it is either "sink or swim". We either do it God's way, or we do it ours.
It is clear that God does not literally beat or whip or "scourge" us, so why use such a word? Well, it occurs to me that this certainly, whatever else it refers to, refers to the effect that this process or dynamic of "help" – this training – has on us, the intensity of it, and the way we will see and feel it in our lives, and don't feel ashamed about screaming to God about the way it feels. I don't think He expects us to be stoics in the matter, but there are times when God sees opportunity to "turn up the heat" and burn some of the chaff and dross out of our lives, and somewhat forcibly rid us of some of the baggage we carry around with us, and being a monumental opportunist, He makes the most of such opportunities.
We have that incredible illustration in C. S. Lewis’ book The Voyage Of The Dawntreader where the dragon Eustace has to literally be flayed (i.e. have his skin removed or be skinned alive) by Aslan in order to get rid of the dragon skin in which he is encased in order to restore him to his proper form. It hurt abominably, but it worked.
I’m stopping with this, but my arrival on your web site was the result of searching the Internet on the words “scourge” and “mastigoo”, and thus I arrived on your web site and your blog posting.
Thanks for your reasonability and sanity.
Regards, Stuart Aitchison, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Interesting in that when
Interesting in that when help is painful it feels like punishment, but by faith we believe it is ultimately for our good. But it still hurts, and has to. Thanks for your sharing. --Bill
Enlightenment I sought when
Enlightenment I sought when I came across your blog. I'd read about paideuo in Joseph Prince's book "Destined To Reign", and the Hebrew 12:5 verse had also confounded me to no end.
Thank you, Bill, for your blog. It has been very helpful in solidifying what I knew in my heart but did not yet have anything tangible to tie it to.
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