POST OVERVIEW. Thoughts about “the discipline of the Lord” in Hebrews 12:5-11 as mostly being about the Lord calling His servants to difficult assignments for the purpose of training those servants for their future good works.

In my experience, the most common teaching about Hebrews 12:5-11 and “the discipline of the Lord” is that this discipline concerns the Lord’s taking the believer “out to the woodshed” to “discipline” him so that he won’t make the same mistakes again. This teaching also usually includes the reminder that the Lord cannot “punish” those who are in Christ Jesus because all the believer’s sins have been punished in the death of Christ. But while the Lord cannot punish the believer’s sins, He can “discipline” them. So, the teaching goes, this is what the author of Hebrews is talking about here in Heb. 12:5-11. The purpose is punishment, but we call it “discipline.”

Let me briefly critique this teaching. While I appreciate that this teaching stands firm on the doctrine that the Lord cannot punish the sins of believers because their sins have all been punished in the death of Christ, I do not believe that the author is here simply using “discipline” as an acceptable synonym for the word “punishment.”

In fact, I do not believe punishment is in view at all as the author talks about “discipline.” The context of Heb. 12:1-11 is about faithfully persevering in your faith and being steadfast in the midst of testing. In 12:1, the author refers back to our great cloud of faithful witnesses (Hebrews 11), who persevered in faith despite anguish and testing and ill treatment and he exhorts us also to run with endurance the race set before us, no matter the difficulties encountered in our race. We are to imitate the example of our Lord Jesus (12:2) who victoriously endured the shame of the cross because of the joy set before Him. When we are tempted to grow weary and lose heart (12:3), we consider how Jesus endured the hostility of sinners. The repeated theme is endurance and perseverance. In spite of opposition, the disciple of Jesus continues to press forward (Phil. 3:13-14).

Therefore, when we read that we are “not to regard lightly the discipline of the Lord” (12:5), we must interpret this through the truth that, “those whom the Lord loves He disciplines” (12:6) and “God deals with you as with sons” (12:7). Those who have believed on Jesus Christ as Lord are now those whom the Lord loves. So the Lord relates to us primarily as those whom He loves. Our faith has given us the right to become children of God (John 1:12). And we are not prodigal children who are seeking our own will nor are we rebellious children needing constant correction (“discipline”), but we have become obedient children who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). My point is that the child of God desires to please the Father. Our deepest longing is to be useful to the Master so that we will hear, both now in our soul and ultimately when we see Him face to face, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21). We can live with freedom and relate to God with joy because, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). In Christ, we are free and there is no fear of punishment (1 John 4:18).

So, if “the discipline of the Lord” is not about the believer’s correction or punishment, what is it about? The answer appears in the last verse in the passage, in 12:11. There we read that discipline is for training. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

THE PURPOSE OF DISCIPLINE IS TRAINING

The discipline of the Lord is intended to train us so that we bear “the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” Thus we see that the purpose of discipline is training the disciple. In this sense, then, when He disciplines us, the Lord is acting more as a loving coach than as a correcting father. As the coach’s goal is to bring out the best in the athlete through rigorous training activity, so the Lord intends to help us bear more peaceful fruit of righteousness by bringing spiritual training activities into our lives. We are to be trained by the discipline of the Lord.

We know that our earthly fathers disciplined us “as seemed best to them” (12:10). Because they were mere flesh and blood, their efforts at training us and raising us were flawed and limited. By contrast, the Father of spirits is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth and is, therefore, perfect in His discipline. Not only that, but He “disciplines us for our good” (12:10). The Lord’s training is perfectly designed and perfectly carried out to discipline us for our good. The primary motive of the Lord’s discipline is our good.

If correction and punishment are not the intentions of the Lord’s discipline, then what exactly is this “discipline” that the Lord brings into our lives to train us? What are some examples? My definition of the discipline of the Lord is: “Those trials and difficulties that the Lord brings or allows into our lives to train us to become more useful to Him for His purposes.” Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Cor. 12:7-9 is an example of this discipline. The Lord sovereignly ordained that Satan would torment Paul to keep him from exalting himself.

A COUPLE OF PERSON INSTANCES OF THE LORD’S DISCIPLINE

In my own life, I would identify two instances of the Lord’s discipline. The first instance was when the Lord called me in my mid-forties to leave my quiet life of a bachelor and to marry a widow with three kids. This season in my life stretched me in so many ways and much of that stretching was painful and difficult, but the Lord used His discipline through the means of my marriage to make seismic changes in me and to sanctify me by decreasing so many of the sinful patterns and behaviors in my life.

The second instance was the job that He gave me when we moved to Charlotte. The job was definitely the Lord’s provision, but it was also a trial in many ways. I needed to learn how to submit to a boss that I did not respect and to work in a company that was very poorly run and to accept this relatively humble employment at the end of my career when my peers were reaching the peak of their careers. The Lord left me in that job for eleven years before releasing me. I now look back at that position and see that the Lord was using that to prepare me for other good works that He had planned for me in the future.

SUMMARY. The Lord’s purpose in bringing this discipline into our lives is to train us for the work that He has planned for us up ahead. He loves us and disciplines us for our good so that we can be useful to Him and so yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness. So we accept His discipline, and we endure and we persevere and we continue to glorify Him.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 1/20/2024                   #689