Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
There is a problem with pain: we don’t like it because the eternity placed inside of our hearts that longs to return to Eden cries out, “fowl!” Why do bad things happen to good people? Why must sin remain in the world though Christ came and took care of sin through His sacrifice?
The author of Hebrews does not answer these questions in totality.* To answer these questions with only the words of Hebrews 12:3-8 would paint an incomplete and insensitive picture of the problem and purpose of pain.* The author of Hebrews is addressing the pain that the original audience of Hebrews was enduring, namely, persecution from those outside of the church.*
In their story, and often in ours, God, as the best Father ever, uses the pain of this life to teach us. Sometimes that pain comes from the consequences of our own sin. Other times this pain comes from the consequences of the sins of others. Other times we experience the brokenness of this world and the pain of our inability to reconcile the gap between the paradise we lost (Eden) and the reality we live in (a fallen world). Regardless, God uses them to teach us.
The discipline that the author of Hebrews refers involves using pain to course-correct us (not to be confused with punishment, which was poured out on Christ for those who receive Him).* Further drawing from the coaching metaphor used earlier in Hebrews 12, the imagery is that of a coach steering athletes toward correct practice.*
Coach Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys reportedly once said,
“The job of a coach is to make men do what they don’t want to do, in order to be what they’ve always wanted to be!”*
It takes great effort to move humans from where they are to where they need to be. Even so, God isn’t just our coach… He’s our Father.
Hebrews goes on explain that the proof that we are God’s children is that He disciplines us.* We do not merely run a race for a coach; we walk through life with our Father.
Life is hard, and God knows. He uses all of that to discipline us toward Christ. The temptation to respond wrongly to God’s discipline is twofold: 1) to minimize it by refusing to learn from it, or 2) to lose heart from the weight of it.* The original readers of Hebrews were facing these two temptations.
I have often fought a nagging sense of abandonment. I find it difficult to receive the truth that God loves me regardless of my performance, that He is delighted with me, and that I am His child. The author of Hebrews tells me that if I want proof of my sonship, I need only look to God’s discipline. Now that, I can see! I can see God using the pain of my life to teach me and shape me to be more like Jesus! I see that, so I see that I am a child of God!
God’s discipline is intended to help us to change into the image of Christ. Letting people believe that they don’t need to change is a disservice. To allow people to believe that they don’t need to change is to rob them of the perspective that would give their pain a purpose. Allowing people to think that God does not discipline them leaves them feeling like orphans without a Father.
The discipline of God is a gift to me. It’s a gift to all of us.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to see your pain as something that God can use to change you further into the image of Jesus. Perhaps today God wants you to know that He loves you deeply as a good and perfect Father who loves His child. Maybe God wants you to know that the difficulty of your life isn’t neglect, it’s life, and He wants to use it for your good. Perhaps today God wants you to challenge someone you love to be more like Christ.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus.
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*Stedman, R. C. (1992). Hebrews (Heb 12:4–13). IVP Academic.
Grindheim, S. (2023). The Letter to the Hebrews (D. A. Carson, Ed.; pp. 621–624). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
France, R. T. (2006). Hebrews. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews–Revelation (Revised Edition) (Vol. 13, pp. 169–172). Zondervan.
Guthrie, G. (1998). Hebrews (pp. 400–401). Zondervan Publishing House.