02.B13. Parental Discipline Of The Sons Of God

Chapter 28 PARENTAL DISCIPLINE OF THE SONS OF GOD. The Terms Defined. The revealed plan of God in regard to His children, while He continues them in the world, is to develop and perfect in them every form of virtue possible to their nature. Every form of such virtue has its specific conditions of growth and development, and we must be subjected to these conditions, or we cannot become possessed of the corresponding virtues. Subjecting believers to these conditions, for the purpose designated, is called in the New Testament the paidela, or child-discipline of the sons of God. To this subject the apostle refers with most impressive interest in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. He there refers particularly, not to afflictions which come upon us in consequence of our own sins, but to the contradictions and tribulations to which we are subject in consequence of our testimony against the sins of others. He calls upon believers to "consider Him who endured such contradictions of sinners" against Himself, lest they, in consequence of meeting with similar trials, "should be wearied and faint in their mind." They, as Christ had done before them, "had not resisted unto blood, striving against sin." The apostle then goes on to specify God’s plan and purpose in permitting His people to be subject to such tribulations, and to afflictions in all their forms, whether they descend upon us in the arrangements of Providence or as reproofs for sin. All in common come upon us for one and the same purpose, child-discipline -- the discipline of virtue. Such discipline, therefore, should be patiently endured. Christ "learned obedience from the things which He suffered." So should we. Our parents subjected us to child-discipline, and we gave them reverence. "Shall we not rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us" (subjected us to child-discipline, the literal rendering of the original) "after their own pleasure: but He" (subjects us to such discipline) "for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." Such is the light in which all afflictive providences, from whatever immediate causes they may descend upon us, should by us be regarded -- that is, as forms of necessary child-discipline, forms of discipline in virtue, which, when patiently endured, will not fail to "yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness" -- "peace, quietness, and assurance for ever." All who do not thus regard and improve such providences, the apostle assures us, "are bastards, and not sons." In all our afflictions we may have, and should have, this life-imparting assurance -- namely, we are the sons of God, and He is dealing with us, even when He seems severe, "as sons." With what infinite reason does the apostle bring home the exhortation to our hearts, "Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees"!

What it is to Endure Chastening or Child-Discipline

"If ye endure chastening" (child~discipline), says the apostle, "God dealeth with you as with sons." "My brethren," says another apostle, "count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations, knowing that the trial," or discipline, "of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Again he says, "Blessed is he that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive a crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him." "Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience (endurance) of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord" -- that is, the blissful consummation to which He conducts those who endure -- "how that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." All the sacred writers speak thus of God’s discipline of His sons and daughters, the words, "temptation," "trials of faith," "fiery trials which are to try you," and "chastening," or child-discipline, being frequently employed by them as synonymous terms. In reflecting upon this subject, we should ever bear this in mind, that to be merely subject to afflictive providences, and to endure "chastening," "temptation," "trials of faith," or child-discipline, are very different things. To endure is to maintain our fidelity while under discipline -- that is, during the time while the pressure of the trial is upon us. He that blesses at the time when he is reviled, remains meek, quiet, and unangered at the time when heavy provocations are heaped upon him -- "whose spirit lies down and is still," lies down in quiet submission in the centre of the sweet will of God at the very time when great afflictions press upon him -- that "chooses rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," "enduring as seeing Him who is invisible,"- and replies to every temptation to sin, "I cannot do this great wickedness, and sin against God," -- these, and these only, "endure chastening," "endure temptation," and. "endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ."

Remember this, reader, that if, at the moment when you are under the trial, your faith fails you, you may, by subsequent repentance, escape condemnation, but that you suffered an irreparable loss by missing the golden opportunity then presented to become disciplined in virtues, which would have insured to you an "eternal weight of glory," over and above what you will now receive. At the time when tribulations encircle us, then and there is the time and opportunity for you to "wash your garments, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb."

Special and Peculiar Characteristics of the Child-Discipline of the Son of God.

"No chastening" -- that is, no form of child-discipline, says the apostle, "for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous." "Wherein," says the apostle Peter, "ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." God is able, we should bear in mind, to keep His people, at all times and under all circumstances, so full of joy and gladness that no providence would "seem to be grievous," and they should never be "in heaviness" at all. It is only "if need be" -- that is, if the discipline of their virtues require it -- that they should ever be possessed of less than perfect fulness of joy. When the discipline of virtue requires, on the other hand, then the Spirit will, for the time, shed no more of the love of God abroad in our hearts, grant us no more of present peace and joy, and suffer to descend upon us just the degree of heaviness, and no more than is requisite, to develop and perfect that virtue in its divinest form. The grace of patience, for example, can be developed and perfected but under the pressure of tribulation. That "patience may have her perfect work," we must have grace to endure, but not the fulness of joy, which would cause the affliction to seem, for the time being, not "grievous," but "joyous."

"Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord." God designed that this, His servant, should not only be possessed, in a preeminent degree, of this divine virtue, but that he should be to the world, in all coming time, an example of patience, as Abraham is of faith. As a means to this end, Job was, first of all, overwhelmed with unexampled calamities, and this under circumstances which for a time shut him out from the sympathy of all his friends, even the mother of his children being estranged from him. Under these circumstances the man of God was sustained by the most distinct inward assurance of the genuineness of his piety, of the divine approval, and that, after he should be tried, God would lead him out of the furnace, and more than restore to him all that he had lost. To render the discipline perfect for the work intended, however, God withheld, for the time being, the light of His countenance from the afflicted one, and "left him to tread the wine-press alone." This was requisite that "patience might have her perfect work," and that the sufferer might become "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Suffering having fully accomplished its sacred mission, God more than restored "the light of His countenance" as formerly enjoyed, became to the sufferer, as He never could have been before, "an everlasting light," placed him on high as among "the foremost of the sons of light," and all the world, and heaven too, now regard him as one of the happiest of men.

I will now allude, in further illustration of the great truth before us, to an important fact of my own experience. During the dark period of my life, the period in which I dwelt amid the ruins of the great university which I began to found, I was for the time about as completely isolated from former friendships and associations as was Job when God "chose him in the furnace of affliction." With one or two exceptions, "no man stood with me," but "all forsook me." At the same time, "the light of the divine countenance" was so far withdrawn that all my afflictions pressed with great "heaviness" upon all my susceptibilities, providential disappointments defeating all my plans and efforts for relief. Such were the temptations, trials of faith, and chastening to which I was subject. Such, on the other hand, were the divine helps and strengthening by which I was sustained during all that period. God gave me the most absolute inward assurance that my interior and outward life was fully approved by Him, that these sufferings were for an end of infinite moment to me, and were preparatory to greater fruitfulness in the kingdom of grace than was otherwise possible; that the immutable condition of ensuring this personal good and divine fruitfulness was that "the corn of wheat" must at that very time "fall into the ground and die;" in other words, that until God, in His own time and way, should send deliverance, I must remain in absolute submission and content in the centre of the divine will, entertaining no desire or choice that the pressure of affliction should be less severe or of shorter continuance than God should choose. At times Christ directly manifested Himself to me, not in a manner to fill me with rapture, but to assure me of His deep and abiding sympathy, of the divine results which were being worked out in my interior life, of the fruits that were to follow, and of "the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory", which lay in reserve in the great hereafter. At other times, the Spirit would open upon my mind a vision of Christ Himself in Gethsemane, in the judgment-hall, or on the cross, and everywhere so meekly submissive to His Father’s will, and so patiently enduring when His "soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Tribulation, affliction, and sorrow, even unto "great heaviness," now became sacred in the mind’s regard; and one desire and choice possessed the whole being -- namely, to have nothing occur but as God willed. I knew well what Paul meant when he said, "Unto you it is given, in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." When my will had come into this sweet and absolute acquiescence in the divine will, and was rooted and grounded in that acquiescence; and when all the sensibilities had also become disciplined to similar subjection, so that there was nothing in the heart or soul to dispute the absolute reign of Christ over the whole being, then the paideia, "patience, having had her perfect work," had consummated its mission, and "heaviness" and "great tribulation" could do no more for the discipline of virtue. Deliverance accordingly came; and when "the Sun of Righteousness" passed out from that temporary eclipse, and I stood in the broad sunlight of the face of God, I well knew why I had been thus disciplined in the school of sorrow -- namely, that I might become possessed of the great and enduring joys, "the everlasting consolations and good hope through grace," amid which I am now permitted to have my present dwelling-place. Do you ask me, reader, why it is that I affirm, with such absolute assurance, that "we are complete in Him," that "we can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth us," and that "we may learn in whatever state we are, therewith to be content"? I should refer, as one of the main reasons, to the paideia of which I have been speaking, and to other like seasons in which God put me into "the furnace of affliction," subjected me to great "heaviness," but put strength into me to endure, and disciplined my whole being into sweet acquiescence in His holy will, and thus did for me there in that sacred place. Do you ask me why it is that what the prophet meant in the following wondrous words are so real in my experience? "The sun shall no more be thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; but the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." I should still, as one of the main reasons, refer you to the paideia, in which Christ taught me "obedience from the things which I suffered." The "endurance of temptation" not only disciplines the will to subjection to the will of God, but also capacitates the whole mental being for fellowships, intercommunings, and fruitions, for which nothing else can so fully prepare us. My object in writing these things, reader, is this -- that you "may know your God, understand His way, and find grace in His sight." When you put yourself under the will of God, and do it "with all your heart, and with all your soul," remember this, that you have His absolute word of promise that He "will instruct you, and teach you the way you should go, and guide you by His eye." Do not, therefore, mark out for yourself any particular and specific forms of experience through which you must be led. Let this be your only concern, to keep your hand in the hand of God, and your will in absolute subjection to His. While conscious of this relation to Him, do not be disturbed by any providences which may encircle you, or any "heavinesses which for a time, if need be," may be laid upon you. While you shall "keep the faith," "endure as seeing Him who is invisible;" and "shall cry, My Father, my Father," "not as I will, but as thou wilt," remember this, that God will deal with you but as His son or daughter, all of whose interests are as dear to Him as the apple of His eye. If His parental discipline may sometimes seem severe, bear this in mind, that it is all "for your profit, that you may be a partaker of His holiness." Thus "following on to know the Lord," "your peace," at length, "will be as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea," and your deepest sorrows will be found to be but birth-throes of joys and consolations as great as your mental being can receive, and as enduring as "the eternal years of God."