Hebrews 12:5 Commentary and Bible Study

We are all enrolled on God’s training course. ‘You have forgotten’, says the writer, and the Greek is just a little stronger: ‘You have entirely forgotten the exhortation.’ You could equally translate that ‘the consolation’. It doesn't necessarily imply a stern exhortation. It comes from a word meaning ‘to call near’; it could be fatherly counsel. It could be very comforting. ‘Which speaketh unto you as unto the children’. We are addressed in the verse as children. You may be a father, a mother, a busy parent taking responsibility for young ones, but before God you are his child and you are addressed with great affection. And here is the quotation from Proverbs: ‘My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him’. Why should the writer address these words to the Hebrews? Why should he say this? Does he know something about them? Possibly. There is nothing in the epistle so far to suggest that they are neglectful believers. They have their problems, just as we all do, but they are not a conspicuously bad company of people. In fact, there are many commendations in this letter. But this is a comment under inspiration, which happens to be true of all Christian congregations everywhere. The word ‘chastening’ really means the education of the young. ‘Chastening; is perfectly right in the context but the root of the word refers to a child under training, so we should not chastening to mean punishment. It includes punishments, but essentially it is the education process, the training course. It's not as fierce a word as it appears to us. This training course we are under will never be harmful. Yes, we may have to be punished, but the essential training itself is not harmful. Parents do not harm their children. In fact throughout the training we have access to our heavenly Parent, our heavenly Father. We are often very poor parents, but God is the perfect parent. Our disciplines may result from being inconvenienced by the child’s behaviour, or even irritated. We train the child largely for our convenience. Our training tends not to be intelligent and positive, as it should be. We should in this regard, try to be more like the Lord. Our education from God comes primarily from the word of God. That is why if you do not read it, you have ducked out of the education. You read it looking for standards, objectives, reproofs, and conviction. We have the Holy Spirit within who moves our conscience when we err and that we heed it or should heed it. And then there are various providences that God sends into our lives to train our patience, to give us the opportunity to respond prayerfully to every situation and sometimes to toughen us up and harden us up. ‘Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him’; the whip is not permanent. Maybe prayers go unanswered, because you are off the track; maybe joys are removed and even sickness comes. It may be painful, but don’t faint. Don’t become bitter and resentful, or sulk, feeling harshly treated. You are being treated this way because the Lord delights in you and he wants to bring you back. This is one of the sources of assurance that we have. I know that I am the Lord’s because I am on the training course and my conscience works. There are two levels of chastisement here. ‘Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord – that is one level – ‘nor faint when thou art rebuked of him’ – that is the more severe level. You do that in your nurturing of your children. You start with some small punishment, whatever it might be, some depravation of privilege maybe, and then if that is ignored you have to proceed to something firmer. That is just as the Lord does. He doesn’t bring out the big punishment straight away.