37 - Heb_12:3-13
CHAPTER X X X V I I.
"WHOM THE LORD LOVETH HE CHASTENETH."
LOOKING unto Jesus, we behold both the way and the end of the way. We walk in Him, with Him, to Him. We are to be glorified together with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him And therefore we are constantly to consider Jesus; not the sufferings of Jesus, but Jesus, who suffered and entered into glory; not the work of Christ, as bringing to us salvation, but Himself, our Saviour, our life, the strength and the model of our walk.
Look at Jesus glorified, and you will behold His wounds; you will see Him, the Lamb as it was slain. Look at Jesus on the cross, and you will behold His glory, and the Father glorified. The sufferings of Christ are remembered in heaven, and in the Church. The image of the suffering Jesus is engraved on the hearts of all believers. To remember Jesus is to remember Jesus crucified. When we are inclined to become weary and faint in our minds, when our courage fails and our patience wavers, let us consider Jesus, and His experience on earth. To live on earth among sinners, this in itself was trial and sorrow to the Holy One. Not even His own disciples could understand Him; for they savoured the things that are of man. Even they called forth constantly the exercise of patience and forbearance. Jesus was always alone. His soul dwelt apart, with thoughts, desires, sorrows, and hopes, which none could fathom and share. And what contradictions did He suffer from sinners! Jesus was by reason of His purity so clear-sighted and sensitive that from the beginning He knew that He was hated and rejected. He did not commit Himself even to those who admired and followed Him, or who seemed to believe in Him;* for He knew what was in man - contradiction to divine love. Sinners, whom He came to bless and save, opposed Him, the Holy One. He knew and felt their contradiction. It was deep-seated, strong, and bitter; and at last it manifested itself in the cruel hands which nailed Him to the cross. Jesus only loved, blessed, prayed, wept, and died. Let us consider Him as our example! Let us learn of Him to be meek and lowly in heart; always willing to submit to God’s will and commandment. (*John 2.)
It is in the heart that the burnt- offering is brought. We have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. This refers not so much to the death of martyrdom. We ought to be willing to lay down our lives both for Jesus and for the brethren. But in the conflict with sin, we ought to dread no pain, no wounds, no crucifixion, even when asked to pluck out the right eye, or to cut off the right hand, to sacrifice the thing most cherished.
"Take the heart from out my heart, Though it cost me bitter smart."*(*Silesius.)
Chastisement,* which is the true character of all painful and trying experiences of the saint, is spoken of throughout Scripture; but we are apt to forget this most important teaching of the word. We remember the verses well enough - they have become proverbs and commonplaces - but we forget to apply them to ourselves; and when the afflictions and difficulties come, we often fail to recognize in them the fulfillment of the Scripture word. In the world you shall have tribulation. Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. They that sow with tears shall reap with joy. [*The sufferings of God’s children are sent either to chasten and correct, to bring them to the knowledge of and victory over hidden sin or transgressions, or to prove, test, and thus strengthen and raise to a higher level of experience and usefulness, or they are a privilege and honour as a testimony for Christ, for His name’s sake, and to show forth His praise. But they may all be summed up under
Scripture is a book for life; and as life is full of affliction, so the Word of God abounds with counsel and comfort for the afflicted. For to view and to bear affliction aright is not easy; it is impossible without God’s Word and Spirit. We are inclined either to despise the chastening of the Lord, or to faint under it. Either we try to bear trials in pride, in our own strength, without recognizing that they are sent by God to humble us, to lead us to self-examination and repentance, to deepen our sense of dependence on God, to fix our thoughts and desires more on heavenly things. The world generally endeavours, in time of sorrow, bereavement, or trial, to get over it; that is, to feel it as little as possible. God does not mean us to get over it, but to feel chastisement, and in and through it to be drawn nearer to Himself. The spirit of Stoicism is far removed from the spirit of God’s children. They are sensitive; they feel the displeasure of God; they stand upon the watch-tower and ask, "Shew me wherefore Thou contendest with me?" The Christian does no harden his heart against sorrow and bereavement; he does not look upon suffering as an iron necessity, to be borne with an iron and impassive calmness; it is sent of God.
There is the other danger of sinking into despondency; we think we cannot endure it; darkness seems to swallow us up; hard thoughts rise within us; our hearts fail us; and the voice of thanksgiving and hope seems hushed forever.
Now knowing from the Word of God and our own experience that such is the tendency of our hearts, either in undue elation to despise God’s chastening, or in undue depression to faint, let us pray for ourselves, and for all the afflicted, that we may not lose the benefit of the precious, though sad, gift of chastisement, that we may humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt us in due time.
Chastisement is sent by fatherly love. In heaven no chastisement is needed; in hell no chastisement is possible; earth is the scene, and the children of God the subjects of chastisement.
God is our Father, and therefore He chastens us. Jesus is our loving and faithful Saviour, and therefore He rebukes us. And the Holy Ghost, although it is His to comfort and sustain the believer, reveals unto us first, with piercing conviction, the sins and failings which are to be judged and given up. Chastisement has reference not merely to sins, but God’s object is to conform us to the image of Christ. God had one Son, without sin, but not without sorrow. But we are sinful, and our hearts cleave to the world and our souls to the dust. To love God truly, and to find our joy and delight in Him and in heavenly things, to give up trust and complacency in self, and to ascribe glory to God only, how far are we from this! and sometimes when we or others least think so. Was not Job upright and devoted to the fear of God? Why is David a man of sorrows, and Jeremiah a man of tears? Paul, caught up to the third heaven, and beholding the glory of the Lord, has to bear the thorn in the flesh. John the beloved is in Patmos. God knows why. He has chosen the saints and appointed the sufferings of the saints, that they may win Christ; that they may be made like unto Him; that they may hereafter be glorified together with Him. We see the gentlest, the most heavenly- minded Christians tried; they themselves are the first to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, and to acknowledge that God is trying and refining them, to condemn sin in the flesh, to vivify the Spirit. And this chastisement is severe. He scourgeth every son. Even an apostle beseeches the Lord three times to remove it. There, where we are most sensitive, God touches us. The thorn in the flesh is something which we fancy we cannot bear if it were to remain life-long. We have emerged as it were out of a dark tunnel, and fancy that the rest of our journey will be amid sunlit fields. We have achieved steep and rugged ascents, and imagine the period of great and exhausting exertions is over. But Abraham was above a hundred years old when his faith was severely tested. The trial, deepest and sorest, seems to leave us for awhile, yet it returns again. For God’s love remains, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If the apostle Paul stood in danger of spiritual pride and self-trust, and needed this perpetual scourging to cling to Jesus grace, which is all-sufficient, oh let us remember that in each one of us there is the same flesh which needs painful crucifixion. And what shall I say of daily trials, losses, wounded affection, sickness, loneliness?
One of the platitudes of the present day is, that religion is not a gloomy, but a cheerful thing. Although it is easy to see what was meant by him who first opposed this assertion, either to morbid and self-assumed gloom, or to the ignorant representation of the world; yet, as it is generally understood, nothing can be less true. Blessed are they that mourn. Woe unto you that laugh. Narrow is the way. If any man will serve Me, let him take up his cross, and follow Me. He that seeketh his life shall lose it. Although the Christian anoints his head and washes his face, he is always fasting; the will has been broken by God, by wounding or bereaving us in our most tender point; the flesh is being constantly crucified. We are not born to be happy either in this world or in our present condition, but the reverse - to be unhappy; nay, to try constantly to be dead to self and the world, that the spirit may possess God, and rejoice in Him.*(*As there is a false and morbid asceticism, so there is also a false and pernicious tendency to cover a worldly and shallow method of life under the phrase of "religion being joyous, and no enemy to cheerfulness." To take a very simple and obvious instance. What is meant by a "cheerful, pleasant Sunday"? No doubt men may have erred on the side of strictness and legalism; but is a "cheerful" Sunday one in which there is much communion with God in prayer and meditation on God’s Word, much anticipation of the joys of heaven in praise and fellowship with the brethren? Alas! too many understand by a cheerful Sunday a day in which the spiritual element is reduced to a minimum.)
God is our Father; this present life is only a school, a period of childhood and minority, discipline and chastisement are the tokens of God’s unchanging love and constant watchfulness. Child hood is both solemn and peaceful. We look back on it with reverence and affection. For in child hood everything has the character of education; it is spiritual, and for the sake of the real inner man and his future. Parents and teachers are constantly directing, and rebuking; the whole life is under rule, restraint, and guidance; but the only and constant object is the child himself, his good, his character, his future; the only motive is love. There is more reality in a child’s life than in our subsequent life; the whole day, with its lessons and recreations, is devoted to the true and real interests of the child. Hence, when we look back on it, we say, How happy we were! Not that we forget the constant troubles l sorrows, cares, and fears which children have; but we feel that then everyone connected with us loved us, and sought our welfare; that we were the object, not means to an end, but the end itself.*(*The contrast between the discipline of earthly fathers and of God. (1) The one is father of our flesh; God is the Father of spirits, the Creator and source of life, spiritual and everlasting, as well as physical and temporal. (2) The one for a brief period; God during our whole lifetime. (3) The one with imperfect knowledge, in much infirmity "after their own pleasure;" God with unerring wisdom, and in pure love. (4) The aim of the one, our earthly future; the aim of God, to make us partakers of His holiness. Yet imperfect as is the earthly father’s discipline, we gave it reverence, "as was right" and according to God’s will, and for our safety. How much more ought we to be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, of whom is our true life.)
Now, as childhood is to the rest of our earthly life, so is the whole of our earthly life to the future heavenly one. Let us cultivate then the spirit of childhood. Let us think it natural that we are daily rebuked and chastened, that our thoughts, words, and actions need constant correction and alteration; let us receive this with the docility and meekness of children, and with the trustful and sweet assurance that love breathes in all our chastening, that we are in the most tender and fatherly hands. God’s only object is our blessedness, and this is our blessedness, to be like Jesus, the only-begotten of the. Father, the first-born among many brethren. No chastisement while it lasts is joyous, but grievous; but afterwards it yieldeth the peace able fruits of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby. Even on earth we reap the fruit, and enter into the harvest. "Afterwards." Does not this word search and try us? Have we not all had chastisement? Have we not all passed through sorrow? Can we look back on the past without recalling seasons of deep and heartfelt affliction? Has no sword pierced our soul, has no painful sacrifice been exacted of us? Do these things belong to the past? Have they gone and disappeared without leaving behind them peaceable fruits unto righteousness? After such experiences, tears, conflicts; after such solemn, silent, chastened seasons in the wilderness; after such views of Jesus at the grave of Lazarus, of the fourth Man in the fiery furnace, are we still worldly, proud, impatient, volatile? do we still seek our rest and joy in the broken cisterns instead of the living Fountain? God forbid that we should forget the chastening of the Lord, that we should "get over" sorrow, or be comforted like the world. Now is our ‘afterwards,’ peace and godliness to-day - by reason of yesterday’s sorrow and trial.
Especially in the new covenant dispensation God’s people are called to suffer. The saying of the great philosopher is well known: "Prosperity was the characteristic of the Old Testament; adversity is the characteristic of the New."* The full meaning of this remark does not lie on the surface. The Israelites had the promise of earthly prosperity. God promised to reward His people with temporal blessings, if they obeyed His commandment. He Himself was to be their portion, and their exceeding great reward; and such was the spirituality of the law, that the saints under the old covenant dispensation knew that in God, and in Him alone, was their life and joy. In connecting thus obedience and earthly prosperity, God not merely wished to help and attract the people in their spiritual weakness and infancy, but also to teach them that every good gift cometh from above; that Jehovah is Lord of all, and that even on this sin-defiled and Satan-enslaved earth the divine laws of holy love contain the true and permanent sources of physical and social happiness. And this will be seen when Israel, converted by the Holy Ghost and restored to their own land, shall walk in God’s precepts. Then, as the psalms and prophets describe, on the basis of the original promises in the law, all earthly lands will be prosperous. No war, no oppression, no abject poverty, no famine shall then bring misery and suffering to mankind; but the original purpose of the loving and generous Creator shall then be realized, and hitherto unknown resources of health, wealth, and social well-being be developed. (
Israel was chosen for this purpose also - to reveal on earth the blessedness of a God-fearing commonwealth. But only in the future Messianic kingdom will this be realized. When Israel had these promises of earthly blessing, the sufferings and afflictions of the godly must have been a most perplexing problem. We can understand the difficulties propounded in the book of Job, and in such psalms as the 37th and 73rd: "Fret not thyself because of evildoers. Let not thy footsteps slip, doubting God’s truth and faithfulness, when thou seest the righteous in trouble and anguish, and the wicked without care and sorrow." This exercise of faith was very great. How intense and ardent was then their soul-cleaving unto Jehovah! "Whom have I in the heavens but Thee?" "Though He slay me, yet will I stay with Him." How firm was their hope, that ultimately Jehovah would come and establish the kingdom, when the poor will have bread and be satisfied, when justice and equity would reign. The Old Testament is indeed the religion of prosperity; but only in idea and in the hope of Messiah’s reign. In actual reality, it was the religion of suffering, of tears, of self-denial, of faith in the Unseen. Hence the Psalms of David and the prayers of the prophets.*(*Wo kämen. David’s Psalmen her, Wenn nicht die liebe Träbsal wär.)
Gradually the divine method of glory through suffering was made known to God’s people. From righteous Abel onward, the servants of God suffered for righteousness. From the days of Abraham, the true yet imperfect believers suffered while they were tested, and led into a higher region of light. From the days of Joseph, the faithful ones had to be bound in fetters, and the word of the Lord tried them, by a divine chemistry separating in them the carnal from the spiritual. Moses preferred Jehovah’s reproach to Egypt’s honour and treasure. Chosen of God, and nearest to Him, Moses was the most plagued of all men; the burden of a sinful and disobedient, yet tenderly-beloved, nation rested on him. But in David a new manifestation of suffering was given to Israel. See the shepherd-youth, in the simplicity and beauty of childlike faith, performing heroic acts, unseen by man, on the silent field; no feverish ambition or youthful self-confidence, but trust in the God of his fathers steeling his arm against the lion and bear; see this true Israelite without guile, strong in faith and with a tender and loving heart overflowing with song and melody, chosen of God, anointed by Samuel the prophet, champion and deliverer of Israel’s armies, beloved of the nation; yet meek and lowly, without pride and elation of impatience. How noble his bearing to Saul! how quiet and humble towards the people! True king, by the grace of God; lover of God, and companion of all them that fear Him; yet who ever suffered like him persecution, reproach, famine, or nakedness? He was hunted like a partridge on the mountains, surrounded by foes, despised, forsaken; tears were his meat day after day, while the enemy continually said, "Where is thy God?" The reign of David was full of trouble and most heart-searching sorrow. What prayers of anguish and desolate mourning ascended from his soul! Yet was he God’s chosen and anointed; the Beloved was his name; in and through him God’s blessing rested upon Israel. Since that time the prediction of Messiah as the suffering servant of Jehovah assumes increasing distinctness, the picture of the One, the only One, of whom David, of whom the true righteous Israel, were only imperfect types. To us, the New Testament Church, a clearer light has come, a brighter blessing is given. What is it? One word expresses it - the cross. Jesus is our Lord; if the world hated Him, it will hate us also. If Jesus came into the world to suffer and to die, can we call ourselves followers of Jesus, or brothers resembling Him, unless we suffer with Him, and are made conformable unto His death? We have to suffer for righteousness sake; we have to suffer because of our sin and of the corruption of our flesh. But in both these kinds of suffering it is our blessed privilege to have fellow ship with Christ crucified. When we suffer as Christians, we say, This is because I belong to Jesus; I fill up what is behind of His sufferings. If God sends affliction and sorrow, we say, God made the Captain of salvation perfect through sufferings; He treats me now as one of the children. If we find it painful to overcome impatience, self-love, and the various manifestations of sin, we say, I have been crucified together with Christ, then God condemned sin in the flesh; and by virtue of my union with Jesus I must now mortify the members that are on earth. Christ’s cross separates us from sin and the world. Here is our station. Here is the nexus of justification and sanctification. Here we learn to become a burnt-offering. Here we spend truly sweet moments, yet full of sorrow and pain, while we behold not merely our sins forgiven, but crucified; while we behold ourselves not merely acquitted, but cast into the fiery mould, to be made like Jesus. Every child of Adam has trouble, sickness, suffering; only Christ’s people have the cross. The cross of Christ is despised and hated, not merely by self-righteous Jews and wise and worldly Greeks; but within the professing Church the apostle weeps over many who are enemies of the cross of Christ. Not of the doctrine, that Christ died instead of sinners, but of the teaching, that we have been crucified with Him, and have been planted in the likeness of His death; that we have been saved, and are being saved, not from death, but out of death; that dying daily the painful death by crucifixion, we live the spiritual, resurrection-life together with and in Christ. We are to be partakers of God’s holiness.* When God commands us to be holy, He knows that, there is only one holiness, even His own. Man trying to be holy - that is, separate from sin and the world - can only fail; he is only going to a greater distance from God, from the only position in which God can have communion with us as poor and helpless sinners. But God gives us His holiness. In Christ Jesus, who is both the Temple and the High Priest, we are brought nigh, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy people. As Jesus covers, shelters, and beautifies us with His righteousness and peace, so He separates also by His holiness from sin and worldliness. Chastisement is one of the instruments by which the Father prunes the fruit-bearing branches. By affliction and the inward crucifixion we learn to seek our true life, treasure, strength, and joy, not in earthly affections, possessions, pursuits, and attainments, however good and noble, but in Him who is at the right hand of God; and the end will be glory. Christ’s people, who have passed through much tribulation, shall stand before the throne and the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palm branches in their hands. (*Compare next Lecture.)
Let us therefore not faint, but lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; let us run with patience the race set before us,* making straight paths for our feet, that thus even the weak and lame may not stumble, but gain strength and skill in the divine and peaceful path. (*Verse 13 returns to verse 1 [Hebrews 12:1;Hebrews 12:13.])