May 14, 2025 - Hebrews 12:6 - "Whom the LORD Loves He Chastens"

Hebrews 12:6

"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."

This verse is often misunderstood as a reference to divine punishment, but for the believer in Christ, redeemed by His finished work at the cross, there is no punishment left to bear. Christ bore the full wrath of God for all the sins of His people, fully satisfying Divine justice on their behalf. Therefore, God never punishes His children for sin; to do so would deny the sufficiency of Christ’s death on the cross. Rather, in His fatherly love, God corrects and disciplines them, not to condemn, but to draw them in continual repentance and faith to Christ. His chastening is not retributive, but restorative, purposed for their growth in grace and deeper dependence upon Christ.

God doesn’t punish us for our sins as His elected redeemed ones: 

    The death of the LORD Jesus Christ was so complete and perfect as payment for the sins of His people that the all-knowing God no longer sees their sin. While their sin was legally charged against them in their first head, Adam, this changed when Christ came and paid the debt in full. As Romans 8:1 states: “There is therefore NOW no condemnation…” 

     Although justification and forgiveness of sins were determined upon Christ the Surety from before the foundation of the world, God withheld the imputation of sin to His people until Christ fulfilled His justice on the cross. Once the payment was made in full, God declared them forgiven and justified, as explained in Romans 3:24-26: “Being NOW justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” (Romans 5:9) 

God may chasten us by our sins as His children: 

    The wanderings, rebellions, and falls of the LORD’s chosen ones do not change their standing before God because of the salvation Christ accomplished for them on the cross. It has been said that there is not an ounce of God’s wrath in chastening His children. Yet, the LORD mercifully uses our sins to chasten us, humble us, and tenderly turn our hearts back to Christ in repentance, as seen in Luke 22:32, "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren."

God will get the glory even in our sinfulness

Ephesians 1:11–12 — “...being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory...” God, in His absolute sovereignty, works all things—not merely good things—according to the counsel of His own will. This includes even the sins of His children. In a way that only the Sovereign Lord can, He causes all things, including our failures, to ultimately serve His purpose and bring glory to His name.

What a profound comfort this is to believers: because of the death of Christ—through which we have been redeemed and justified—no sin can ever separate us from the love of God. As Paul writes in Romans 8:38–39, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

When the Lord uses our sin and sinfulness as a means of chastening—not punishing—it is not to condemn us, but to correct us in love.

Hebrews 12:11 declares, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Though the experience of chastening may be painful, it produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness—the fruit of what Christ accomplished at the cross for our full, free, and complete justification before God. Therefore, as God's elect, we are never condemned for our sin; instead, we are lovingly corrected. This correction causes us to rejoice, not in ourselves, but in Christ and the effectual work He finished on our behalf. Sin remains a real and active enemy within us, but even it is under the sovereign hand of our Redeemer, Who lovingly disciplines us as His dear children.

Those who are without chastening are not to be envied, but pitied and feared. Hebrews 12:8 solemnly warns, “But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” Chastening is not a sign of God’s rejection, but of His Fatherly love and our true adoption in Christ.