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Elengchos is balanced by elengcho in Heb. 12: 5 where it is translated `rebuked'.
Now the quotation, "the just shall live by faith", in Heb. 10: 38, takes us back to the
same word, for, as we have seen in Hab. 2: 1, we find it in the word `reproved'. In
Heb. 12: the Apostle quotes Prov. 3: 11, 12, already set out above. This `rebuke',
`correction', or `discipline' is an essential accompaniment of sonship and growth.
Let us now look at one or two passages that illuminate the purpose and instruments of
chastening:
"Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years
in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart,
whether thou wouldst keep His commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy
fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. Thy raiment
waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years. Thou shalt also
consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth
thee" (Deut. 8: 2-5).
We are apt to fix our minds upon the painful side of chastening, and, by reason of our
folly, there is often a need for that phase, but it is good also to notice that a part of this
discipline or chastening was the provision of the daily manna, the marvelous preservation
of clothing, and the care of the wanderers' feet!
"The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. Blessed is the man
whom Thou chasteneth, O Lord, and teacheth him out of the law" (Psa. 94: 11, 12).
"We are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world"
(I Cor. 11: 32).
Here is another comfort; chastening is not condemnation. Chastening is for sons,
condemnation for the world. Man's thoughts are vain, he needs a twofold treatment;
chastening to remove folly, teaching to supply the needed instruction. Chastening is not
only the work of the Father, for Christ Himself says to the church: "As many as I love, I
rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent" (Rev. 3: 19).
The Apostle puts the matter of this chastening before the reader in a variety of ways.
First, the attitude of mind towards it. Do not despise it. Do not faint when rebuked.
Perhaps `despise' is too strong a word. Rather what is meant is to hold lightly, to have
very little concern about a thing. That is one attitude to be avoided. There is the opposite
extreme however, that is, of magnifying the chastening endured, and so `fainting' at the
rebuke. This also is wrong. We have to remember that the chastening has to do with us
`as sons' (Heb. 12: 5-7). It comes to us from One Who loves us (Heb. 12: 6). To be
without chastening is to be without proof of sonship. The little gutter child, unkempt,
uncorrected, uncared for, is free from the discipline, restraint, training, care and
correction that loving fatherhood imposes, but who, knowing the truth, would exchange
the `discipline' of the one for the `liberty' of the other?
The Apostle proceeds to reason from the lesser to the greater. We have had fathers in
this life whose discipline was brief, and as far as they knew right, but which was