Thanks to subscriber “robbo 4 JESUS CHRIST” for asking about this topic!
The chastisement of God is a mysterious and frightening thing for many people. Simply mentioning the word ‘chastisement’ conjures up thoughts of severe beatings, pain, suffering, and many other kinds of punishment.
Today we will be looking at God’s chastisement as defined in the scriptures in the light of the New Covenant in Christ. It is through Jesus that things can be clearly seen, and when dealing with something as intimidating as divine chastisement, it benefits us to have the clear perspective of Jesus’ atonement.
What Is Chastisement?
The word chastisement conjures up a lot of thoughts and emotions, usually negative. But the first step in understanding God’s chastisement is to comprehend the word itself. There are several words in scripture, both Hebrew and Greek that have been translated as chastise, chasten, or chastisement in our English bible, and this muddies the spiritual waters a bit because our minds frame those words in a somewhat confusing and frightening way as a punishment. Indeed the word can be used that way, but it is not always exclusively used in a negative context.
The most famous (or should I say infamous?) example of this is Hebrews chapter 12, where verses five and six usually strike fear in the hearts of readers, thinking that we must endure regular punishment or continual suffering in our Christian walk. Indeed, many believers have had that thought planted in their minds, and it can greatly weaken us, and make us vulnerable to attack because we will start to see every unpleasant occurrence as God chastising us, so we will accept it without question. However, if every unpleasant thing was really God chastising us, then there would be no reason for us to have His armor.
The primary meaning of “chastening” from the most common versions in Hebrews chapter 12, is child training, education, and discipline — but not discipline in the way we think of it, with beatings and punishment, but discipline as in “learning a discipline.”
Understanding the definition behind these words is vital for having and keeping a proper perspective of God is we read scripture, and not allowing a skewed vision to detract from our unity in Christ. No-one wants to get close to someone who beats them. When I saw God as an angry judge, or someone who wanted to smack me down, I ran away from Him.
But we can see that chastening as defined in scripture is not a fearful thing, but a very good thing. God does chasten us, but not the way that we think; He educates us and teaches us, but not with sickness, disease pain or suffering — that’s human thinking, human reasoning, and human methodology — God is far above our level and does things in a far superior way.
But before we get to that point we need to answer the question of why.
The Purpose of God’s Chastening
If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent many hours, days, weeks, and perhaps years, wrestling with the idea of why God does the things He does; especially concerning the typical ideas surrounding chastening. This is why I said that step one in our exploration of this topic must be to understand the biblical picture of what chastening is; if you view it as punishment or torture, then it casts a very negative shade on God and a lot of foundational characterizations about God fall apart.
However, once we see that chastening is training, education, and the learning of a discipline, things start to become clear. This realization about what chastening is also helps us to understand the purpose. Ask yourself one simple question: what does God want to teach you?
Now if you have a mind filled with legalism, rules and traditions, you might answer with the typical Christian minutia such as patience, self-control, or any of the other behavioral traits that we ascribe to moral excellence. However the scriptures highlight only one major thing that God wants us to know…
1st Corinthians 2:2 says that the one principal thing to know is Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
In John 15:5, Jesus says that apart from Him, we can do nothing (yes, absolutely nothing)
And furthermore, in John 17, during Jesus’ final prayer before going to the cross, He mentions specifically that He came to reveal the name of God, and reunite us with Him.
What do all of these things have in common? They show us that God wants us to understand, know, and receive our spiritual identity, of being reborn into Christ, with His righteousness imputed to us and not a slave to sin any longer!
Romans 6:13 says do not present yourself as unrighteousness, rather present yourself as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. because the way you present yourself is the one that you serve.
It’s so critical that we understand what Jesus accomplished on the cross because usually do precisely what the book of James tells us not to do, we come to God with divided loyalty. We say that we believe Jesus saved, us and completed the work with one side of our mouth, and then we quickly proclaim that we are still sinners out of the other side of our mouth!
This matters because If we identify as sinners we give ourselves permission and an excuse to sin. That’s something that we don’t need to roll over and submit to— in-fact as we just read, we are not not to submit to unrighteousness!
But, good news! If we identify as righteous then we do not own the sinful identity anymore and all of that old stuff gets off of us and we can live through Christ as intended. This is why Jesus came, this is why Jesus sacrificed Himself and rose again, so that we could be reborn into Him. And this is why God instructs and chastens us— it’s not about performance, self-effort or works… it’s not about the fruit, it’s about the root. (That’s catchy! You can quote that if you want) It’s not about the fruit, it’s about the root.
We get very caught-up and focused on the fruit, we try to be more, loving, more patient, more self-controlled, more of what we consider to be moral, and pure, and right. But we forget what Jesus said in John 15, that apart from Him, we can do nothing. He’s the vine, we are the branches. That’s why the name of this ministry is “ThrivingBranch, because we thrive as branches connect to His vine. We don’t strive to perfect ourselves, we thrive in Christ. Get it?
So, yes, God does indeed teach, educate, and train us, but not to improve our performance or some kind of behavior modification. He trains us to accept and yield to the righteousness of Christ and His holiness. Do you see? It’s not our own righteousness and holiness, it is His.
How God Chastens Us
Look at Hebrews 12:9-10:
“ 9Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
10For they truly for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.”
These verses present a descriptive picture and a contrast between how earthly fathers train, versus how our Heavenly Father trains us. Give attention to this:
We have had fathers of our flesh (our earthly body), and they corrected our earthly body through various painful methods. The scripture says that they did so after their own pleasure. They corrected us, punished our body however they wanted, good or bad.
In contrast, God is the Father of spirits. And that is how He chastens us… not by marring or mangling our bodies, but by teaching and educating us in spirit. Jesus tells us in John 16:8 that the Holy Spirit convicts believers of righteousness, not sin, guilt or condemnation, because a believer in Christ cannot be condemned. But God wants us to know how truly righteous we are in Christ.
As we see here God our Father chastens us for our profit, so that we may be partakers of His holiness. We do not work for, strive for, or earn our holiness, we partake of His. And it all happens as we receive the righteousness of Christ.
Be blessed.