The testings which are the daily experience of those apprehended of God for sonship are designed to develop inner character worthy of one’s calling to reign with Christ. Our Father rules and overrules in each test, working for our benefit a spiritual growth that sometimes takes the form of chastening, as we read:
“If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chastens not?” Hebrews 12:7
Ordinarily we think of the word “chastisement” as signifying correction for wrongdoing, but this scripture is especially used to convey the idea of education or instruction in righteousness. The word in Greek which is translated “chasten” is ‘paideia’, which means tutorage, or instruction. The verb is ‘paidu’, and also has the meaning of ‘to train, to educate, to instruct, to teach.’ This chastisement is therefore a DIVINE DISCIPLINE — the training, education, instruction, and correction God gives to deliver us from ignorance as He is providing the experiences needed for a son’s learning.
Those so instructed are called and chosen to be faithful as He molds Christ’s power and authority within our hearts. Spiritual insight is provided even through practical lessons that reveal the truth of honesty being written by the Father within our inner character in lessons of the very highest order, executed in our daily life. Consequently sons and daughters of God do receive active chastening such as no other human being. They receive training that subjects them to certain truths, an awareness that is necessary to be conformed to the mind of Christ.
Sons are thereby made strong to do God’s will and taught to know His ways are profitable in every instance. Even now He guides us into circumstances that test our very character. God is loving His sons when chastening His sons and daughters in trainings as only He can. He is educating us, Fathering us, and bringing us under tested disciplines. He does not condemn us because we have done things wrong, but He does actively instruct us as what is right. A correct way may be apprehended to be like His characteristics of love, joy, and peace.
Discipline is much more than punishment. Discipline is something we do to teach our child, not to punish our child. Parental discipline is instruction built into our children’s character that gives them a path, a correct way of living. Corrective discipline is necessary for children, as babies are innocent little thieves who take everything they can lay their hands on, constantly misappropriating it. Babies need to be closely watched because they lack the understanding of many inherent dangers, so loving parents have to teach children about everything.
Great blessings come when children are taught right ways, raised in firm love that corrects and restrains erroring ways. Pampered children become spoiled brats, demanding their own way when permitted to be on their own. They are little masters doing their own things when they would be better off with more severe disciplines that would mature them to meet life’s challenges. Godly chastisement is much more educational than punishment for doing wrong. Clearly any man who has a mental pattern of beating his children with negativity, always grumbling, complaining, and criticizing, never praising or encouraging them, will encourage them to repeat the same characteristics.
God is a loving Father Who now wants to encourage all of us to develop spiritual qualities of godliness. Godly chastisement works out a direct tutorage for our soul to be corrected by God, convicted of sin, taught by His Spirit to draw upon Christ with our inner spiritual character. Christ provides, so we are not found deficient in godly qualities of mercy and truth and we know true love.
Christians can be babes, spiritually deficient so as to be immature, spoiled, and troublesome, only wanting to receive blessings, to receive and use spiritual things that benefit themselves. Today many babes in Christ follow leaders to receive guidance into earthly blessings they perceive as the highest benefits. They are taught prosperity, seeking the rich blessings of the earth that give them places of honor. As the Lord provides, however, the mature can endure every obstacle, using it to gain SPIRITUAL prosperity and growth. So, too, we face adverse conditions in Christ, who brings pleasant disciplines to our personal life. We know that:
“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” Proverbs 22:15
We are not to despise the chastening of the Lord but to see the trying circumstances in our daily life as being from God to mold His correct image into our matters. Even the ones that seem insignificant to us have purpose. In severe pain of rejection, we are not to faint when we are rebuked or admonished by Him. We have come to recognize His Word corrects us for our good and is part of our individual transformation as we are each uniquely a son or daughter. Consider the truth of these wise words:
“He that spares his rod hates his son: but he that loves him chastens him betimes…” Proverbs 13:24
Fathers who spare the rod, not correcting a child, really are hating them. Those who fail to discipline their children are not really loving them. Many parents we know want their child to love them, so they do not correct them. Yet the parent that truly loves his child chastens them betimes. The word “betimes” carries a special significance also, for it figuratively means “be up early at any task” with the implication of early use with earnestness and frequency.
The Godly chastisement of a son forms inner characteristics that will be the best part of the son's future. True chastening is done entirely in the light of what must be done to train, educate, instruct and teach each of us correctly. It is done to get a measured development of the right godly characteristics. Chastisement is the necessary action God uses to bring His sons near into oneness with the ideal character, the way of being which is intended by the Father.
He has an exact image of mercy, righteousness, and great love for His entire family of sons and daughters. It is God’s business to perfect the followers of Jesus, so He chastens us. He does it with an earnestness and perseverance that we need to be open to receive, as from a higher realm we hear a welcoming into His understanding. It is a deep mystery how our Father could mold each of us, chasten each of us, yet not be punishing us for failing to be what we know we should be.
Our Father is still determined to make us one in His purposes. What a wedding, a harvest, and great change He has purposed! He continues to make us chaste, pure, clean, and undefiled, bringing us into the likeness of Jesus when He also:
“…scourges every son whom He receives…” Hebrews 12:6
Scourging represents pretty strong actions. “Scourging” is the word used to describe the beatings that were given with a whip called the “cat of nine tails.” It was a whip with nine tail lashes, with little balls of lead, nails, tied to the end of the lashes doing greater damage when brought down on the bare back of the victim. The victim is tied to a post, his back made bare, and beaten over his back side, spine chipped and broken, ribs exposed, wounded skin and muscles cut to shreds, a beating one would never forget.
This is what Jesus suffered just before His crucifixion. Our English word “scourge” literally means to strip the hide off, and when the scourging is over there is little skin left on the victim’s backbones. It is instructive to note that the first five letters of that word spell “scour.” When pots and pans have a residue of dirt, grease, or cooked items as undesirable substance on the surface of it, that spoils its appearance or usefulness, so we scour it to remove the film that should not be there. Usually an abrasive material is used to remove this film, such as Comet or Brillo pads. When the scouring is finished, the film is removed and the vessel shines forth in all of its original beauty, ready to be used again.
Like the Father allowed Jesus to be scourged, He has many ways to scourge us to get rid of our fleshly ideas, to instruct us in righteousness, and to be loosed from our carnal mindedness. He stops fleshly efforts to serve Him, washing away the religious and worldly viewpoints which would mar the beauty of Christ who is formed within our spiritual being. Our Father needs to chasten and scourge each of us to actually strip away our selfish human nature and instruct our awakened spirit to be filled with the Spirit of His divine nature.
God is Fathering personal things in our spirit. He is doing this in our everyday life in daily chastening trials that test us with trying circumstances. In these situations, if Christ is applied correctly, it removes the filthy film of our worldly soulish thinking and it TAKES THE HIDE (COVERING) OFF OUR CARNALITY, our religious ways, until our vessel shines with the beauty of Christ’s light. We become a great host, made useful vessels of honor in the kingdom of God.
When receiving scourging from life’s many problems, there is not much pleasantness about it. It is not an occasion of great fun, joyful shouting, or happiness, but like the apostle Peter stated, we are found;
“…in heaviness through manifold testings…” I Peter 1:6
Yet when we consider there is an end of every test, we can be thankful for what He is producing in our lives, for truly;
“…the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, be found unto praise and honor and glory at the unveiling of Jesus Christ…” I Peter 1:7
As we submit to our Father’s leading in our daily lives, the unveiling of Jesus is breaking through to humble us to see an inner process to which we can submit. It’s a process of following His Spirit even into trials that test us deep within, trials that bring forth a transformation in our inner lives in order to now know His righteousness, His beauty, and His perfection. No other process can make us holy, as He is holy, yet the Father is making the spirits of just men perfect. “BE THEREFORE PERFECT AS OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN IS PERFECT.” Patient endurance has been given to the saints as they are being dealt with as His sons or daughters.
Death’s covering needs to be completely removed from us now that we belong to Christ Jesus. Christ must instruct our soul until Christ becomes all in all of us. We can do those things we see our Father do, and speak those words which we hear from Him, to be just like Jesus. Our spirit is joined to the Lord as one spirit, so there is no room for inner interference that would keep us persuaded from always doing the will of our heavenly Father wholly. Man's religious efforts of being holy in church showmanship can never do this, yet overcomers of the candlestick churches are enabled as they have had Christ formed deep within them.
We are submissive when the Father’s will is obeyed. We are called to join Him in Mount Zion, to spiritual liberties that become a way of life, showing the way to live long and the way to live forever. God sees if there has to be sufficient stripping away of any tough soulish hide that dominates any so called “son” to hinder their spiritual development. In this way, Christ is formed within our spirit. God has caused us to be conformed to His Son’s image, a purpose we too must endure with hardships in suffering the loss of all things. We are taking with us the words of the book that it is for discipline that we endure all our trials,
“It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom His father does not discipline?” Hebrews 12:7 NAS
Suffering the scourging necessary is indeed the only real pathway of sonship. Sad to say, there are many who glibly mouth the truths of sonship but who are not firmly placed under the inner disciplines which are common to all the habitations of God. Scripture states some majority of His followers err, not entering the Kingdom, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. These religious leaders do err in representing God and He considers some of them as bastards, not sons.
We would do well to remember at all times that our calling to sonship is a divine process that is accomplished by becoming ONE WITH GOD ALONE. Sonship is not just a message, a revelation, a doctrine, or even a truth to be put into memory and rehearsed. GOD IS A DIVINE UNCTION THAT IS APPLIED TO OUR INNER MAN AND WALKED OUT IN OUR LIVES. Sonship involves spiritual training and true discipline. All who are apprehended by the Father for sonship in the third heaven must pass through the disciplines, instructions, corrections, and trials that test us to prove we are qualified and sealed as HIS SONS. That state is only gained by the Father writing upon our life and bringing us to chastisements. If needed, scourgings transform our life from earthly ways into heavenly ways, as the scriptures reveal.
We have precious faith and are being strengthened through Christ at this time of intense preparation to have steadfast confidence in looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Jesus partook of the suffering we have, so also with Him is our CONSOLATION. The most sound advice for us is that we must pass through the fiery trials of life and tests of character even when meeting severe dealings while now on earth. May we find comfort in these inspired words:
“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:9-14 NAS
The emotional reactions of an angry parent to the misdeeds of a child is not like the chastening of the Father AT ALL. Yet many church leaders defend their own angry declarations in ways that are as spoiled brats holding on to an unshareable toy. The soulish application of the scripture used as legal guidance covers men only in head knowledge of the law.
The letter of the law is removed from us as the light of Christ shines forth within our spirit. The Father “scourges every son He receives”. He does this inner work of deliverance that can be quickly accomplished when applied to our momentary afflictions. These afflictions are working out a transcendence that strengthens us to endure any hardship patiently, enabling us to pass every test in the strength of Christ.
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:13