Hebrews: His Discipline Helps Us Share His Holiness
Hebrews 12:7-11 - God’s grace is not license to live as we please; it is liberty to please God.
“It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 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.”
Hebrews 12:7-11 NASB1995
Do you look at the behavior of people in the world today and marvel at the fact that they likely never had a single moment of discipline in their lives? They were never told “no” or “that’s wrong”. The slightest little downturn in their day sends them onto social media weeping and cursing uncontrollably, looking for someone or something to blame other than themselves. My parents were pretty mellow (especially my Dad) but I certainly made every attempt to not be disciplined because I didn’t want to disappoint them. I failed on many accounts.
How much more so should we be respectful towards God and not want to face His discipline? But we are imperfect and self-centered, no matter how much we believe we are in obedience. No one wants to be disciplined - the tendency is to cry out “that’s not fair” or “I didn’t do anything wrong” when you clearly DID do something wrong that a loving parent or God sees. As the author of Hebrews notes, if you have no discipline, then you are illegitimate children of God. That’s pretty harsh, isn’t it? But we have to realize that the discipline we receive from God is because He loves us and wants us to become more holy!
Enduring Word has good commentary on this passage:
a. God deals with you as sons: A fundamental fact of the believer’s relationship with God is that He is to His people as a loving, good father is to a son or daughter. Some have trouble receiving this because they never knew a loving, good human father in their own experience. Yet, even these can still receive the love of God the Father.
i. We all do not know by experience what a model father is, but we all know by intuition what a good father is. God is that perfect Father, and He gives us that intuition. One feels cheated or disappointed by a bad father because they intuitively compare them to our good Father in heaven.
b. God deals with you as sons: God’s correction is never to punish us or make us pay for our sins. That was done once and for all at the cross. His correction is motivated only by His love, not by His justice; He chastens us without anger.
i. “While he shall never be arraigned before God’s bar as a criminal, and punished for his guilt, yet he now stands in a new relationship-that of a child to his parent: and as a son he may be chastised on account of sin.” (Spurgeon)
c. If you are without chastening… you are illegitimate and not sons: Those who consider themselves beyond God’s correction do not appreciate that it is a mark of a true son, and unknowingly associate themselves with illegitimate children of God.
i. “When this attitude is realized, then we understand the direct and blessed connection between ‘discipleship’ and ‘discipline.’“ (Thomas)
d. Illegitimate and not sons: God shows His wrath when He ignores our sin, allowing it to pass without correction. His inactivity is never due to ignorance or a lack of initiative, as may be true with a human father.
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a. We have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect: We should be even more submissive and respectful to our Heavenly Father’s correction than to an earthly Father’s correction.
b. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live? Therefore, we must never despise God for His chastening, though it is unpleasant at the moment. When we resent it, we consider ourselves virtual equals with God instead of His children.
i. It can be humiliating and bitter to be chastened by an equal, but it isn’t the same to be chastened by someone who is legitimately our superior. Resentment at chastening shows how we see God and how we see ourselves.
c. But He for our profit: 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.
i. “Faith sees that in her worst sorrow there is nothing penal; there is not a drop of God’s wrath in it; it is all sent in love.” (Spurgeon)
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a. No chastening seems to be joyful for the present: Trials are trials and chastening is chastening. If it does not hurt or press us, then they do not serve their purpose. We sometimes want trials that are not trials and chastening that is not chastening.
i. Spurgeon observed that in the natural realm we can be led astray by what seems to be. The earth does not seem to move, or seem to be round; the sun seems to be larger at sunset, and so on. “Now, if even in natural things the seeming is not the truth, and the appearance is very often false, we may rest quite sure that though affliction seemeth to be one thing, it really is not what it seemeth to be.” (Spurgeon)
ii. “If affliction seemed to be joyous, would it be a chastisement at all? I ask you, would it not be a most ridiculous thing if a father should so chasten a child, that the child came down stairs laughing, and smiling, and rejoicing at the flogging. Joyous? Instead of being at all serviceable, would it not be utterly useless? What good could a chastisement have done if it was not felt? No smart? Then surely no benefit!” (Spurgeon)
b. The peaceable fruit of righteousness: This fruit must be evident in the life of the Christian. The reason why many experience one crisis after another in life is because they are either blind to God’s chastening or they resist it. They are not trained by it and therefore the peaceable fruit of righteousness is not evident.
i. Trained in the ancient Greek language is a word from the world of athletics. The training of an athlete is marked by some agony and so is our training as God’s “spiritual athletes.”
ii. God has a purpose for training you. Think of David after a lion attacked when he was just a boy tending the sheep. He could easily despair and ask, “Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen to me? I barely escaped!” If David could see ahead, he could see God had a giant named Goliath he was destined to face and the battle with the lion prepared him ahead of time. God always has a purpose. We can trust Him.
c. Afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness: God’s correction – a spanking from heaven – smarts, but we must look beyond the process to the result. The result does not come immediately, but afterward.
i. “Many believers are deeply grieved, because they do not at once feel that they have been profited by their afflictions. Well, you do not expect to see apples or plums on a tree which you have planted but a week. Only little children put their seeds into their flower-garden, and then expect to see them grow into plants in an hour.” (Spurgeon)
ii. We notice that in this section on chastening the author never pointed to Jesus as an example. This is because Jesus never needed to be corrected by His Father. Jesus suffered, but not for the sake of correction.
Some key takeaways:
Even if we never had a loving earthly father (thankfully I did), we can still receive the love of God the Father.
God is not making us pay for our sins again by disciplining us. Those sins were paid for on the Cross of Christ. He wants us to learn from the discipline and become more holy.
If God ignores a sin you have committed, this is a sign of His wrath. You have strayed from being a legitimate child of God.
When we resent God’s chastening, we are claiming we are equal to God and “know better” than He does.
God’s chastening is perfect and has better results than an earthly parent.
We can have trials in our lives that are not disciplinary measures from God, but neither trials nor discipline should be joyous, but should be painful or pressing.
Continued crises in the life of a believer could be because we are resisting God’s chastening. His discipline is intended to train us.
The peaceable fruit of righteousness comes afterwards. The AI at the top shows a woman pondering a discipline from God at the left, while she rejoices later at the right.
I also like this commentary from Haddon Robinson quoted on Precept Austin about half-baked Christians:
The prophet Hosea used the tribe of Ephraim as a poetic representation of the northern kingdom of Israel. In a colorful admonition, he wrote that Ephraim had become “a cake unturned” (Hosea 7:8).
In today’s terminology, the prophet might have said that Ephraim was “half-baked.” The people were like a pancake burned on one side but raw on the other. Although they took advantage of the Lord’s goodness, they did not seek Him with their heart. When they needed help, they turned to other sources (Hos 7:10, 11,14, 15, 16). They had become tasteless and useless to God, so He was forced to judge them.
Jesus echoed the words of the prophet. Although He had gentle words for penitent sinners, He gave a scathing rebuke to the haughty and self-righteous who wanted to live as they pleased. He was furious at two-faced religious leaders who talked a good talk but turned around and exploited their followers (Matthew 23:13-30).
God is never soft on sin. He sent His only Son to redeem us from sin’s penalty (John 3:16). Let’s not be half-baked Christians, claiming God’s forgiveness but still living as we please. The only fitting response to God’s mercy and grace is to serve Him in humility and love.—Haddon W. Robinson (Ibid)
Thinking It Through:
What is the basis of our salvation? (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
How are we to respond to God’s grace? (Eph 2:10).
How does God correct His children? (Hebrews 12:5-11).God’s grace is not license to live as we please—it’s liberty to please God.
Finally, I must share this very insightful commentary from a sermon by Steven Cole. That pastor has had some great sermons on Hebrews! These are the seven ways that discipline leads to the peace of righteousness (quoted on Precept Austin):
(1) God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by teaching us the terrible devastation caused by sin.
When David sinned with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, the Lord forgave his sin, but He also took the life of the son that they conceived. Also, the Lord raised up evil against David from within his own household (2Sa 12:11). His son Amnon raped his half-sister, Tamar. Tamar’s brother, Absalom, murdered Amnon and later led a rebellion against David. By letting us suffer such painful consequences for our sin, God teaches us that sin causes devastation and death, so that we will flee from it when we are tempted.
(2) God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by stripping us of self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, and pride.
By nature, we all have the tendency to think, “Others may commit terrible sins, but I could never do such a thing!” Peter thought that the other apostles might deny Jesus, but not trust-worthy old Peter (Mark 14:29, 30)! The Lord had to show Peter that his heart was just as prone to sin as everyone else’s heart
The Lord burdened Paul excessively, beyond his strength, so that he despaired even of life. The reason, Paul said, was “so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead” (2Co 1:8, 9).
We’re all prone to trust in ourselves, rather than in the Lord. It is wise to have a prudent savings plan, but if we trust in our savings, God has ways of wiping out our accounts. It is wise to eat well and to exercise regularly, but if we’re trusting in those things to preserve our lives, God has ways of bringing sickness or injury to teach us that we depend on Him for our next breath and for every day’s supply of food and water.
(3) God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by helping us shift our focus from this life to eternity.
By nature, we’re all too focused on this life, in spite of the fact that life is a vapor (Jas 4:14). Paul says that the obvious fact (which we all try to ignore!) that our bodies are wearing out should make us shift our focus to eternity. He wrote, “though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” He goes on to say that we look at the unseen, eternal things, not at the things we see on this earth (2Co 4:16, 17, 18).
(4) God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by uncovering hidden sins and blind spots.
Sometimes we are unaware of our sins or shortcomings until God brings some trial that exposes them. The psalmist testified,
“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word” (Ps 119:67).
There is no indication that he was openly rebellious before he was afflicted. Rather, the affliction made him aware of hidden sins that he had not seen before.
Paul had an amazing vision of heaven. Although he was a humble man, the danger was that this vision would puff him up with pride. So the Lord sent a messenger of Satan, a thorn in the flesh, to keep Paul from exalting himself (2Cor 12:7). Whatever that thorn was (some think a physical ailment; others think that it was the Judaizers, who plagued his ministry), it kept Paul from falling into the sin of pride over his heavenly vision.
(5) God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by strengthening our faith and driving us closer to Christ.
Through his thorn in the flesh, Paul learned to trust Christ in ways that he had not done before. He learned the sufficiency of God’s grace and strength in the face of his painful weaknesses (2Co 12:9-note; , 2Co 12:10-note). Adversity has a way of causing us to lean on the Lord in ways that we don’t need to when times are trouble-free.
(6) God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by developing compassion and humility.
Sometimes we look down on others who are suffering. We arrogantly think, “If they would just get it together [like me!], they would avoid all these problems!” Then God sends affliction to us. Suddenly, we have more compassion for those who suffer. We lose our proud judgmental spirit and grow in sympathy.
(7) God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by developing the fruit of the Spirit in us and thus making us more usable in His service.
Fruit grows best on vines that are pruned (Jn 15:2). The fruit of the Spirit grows in hearts that have submitted to the pruning of God’s discipline. The fact that righteousness is a fruit shows that it takes time to grow. We have instant coffee and instant photocopies and instant just about anything. But so far, no one has come up with instant fruit! It grows slowly but surely in our lives as we submit to God’s discipline.
Thus, all discipline seems difficult for the moment, but it is designed to produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
This is so good! I would suggest re-reading it a few times to understand why and how God disciplines those that He loves.
My next devotional examines Hebrews 12:12-17 - Get strong, be at peace and get right with God.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - Please help me to understand the terrible devastation of sin, to remove pride and self-sufficiency from my habits, to shift my focus to eternity, to discover hidden blind spots and sins, to strengthen my faith, to be compassionate and humble, and to make me more usable in Your service. Amen.
Credits and Citations:
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.Lockman.org.
Precept Austin was accessed on 02/15/2026 to review commentary for Hebrews 12: 7-11. Within the Precept Austin commentary, the Steven Cole sermon link was not available, but his sermons are Copyright © 2004, Steven Cole.
Commentary from Enduring Word is used with written permission and without any alteration. ©1996-present The Enduring Word Bible Commentary by David Guzik – enduringword.com. WI thin the Enduring Word commentary:
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon The New Park Street Pulpit, Volumes 1-6and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volumes 7-63 (Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications, 1990)
Totally agree on that last commentary. Beautiful words that like you said I wanted to go back over