Hebrews 12:4 - Meaning and Application

Here the apostle urges patience and perseverance by pointing to how mild and measured the believers’ sufferings had been. He says, “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood, while striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4). They had suffered much, but not as much as some others, and not yet to martyrdom.

Their struggle was against sin, and that is a good cause. Sin is the worst enemy of both God and man, so fighting against it is honorable and necessary. Every Christian is under Christ’s banner and must strive against sinful teaching, sinful actions, and sinful habits, both in themselves and in others.

The Lord Jesus, the captain of our salvation, does not usually begin with the hardest trials. He trains his people with smaller sufferings so they can face greater ones later. He is a gentle shepherd who does not drive the young sheep too hard. Christians should notice his kindness in matching their trials to their strength, and they should not make their troubles seem bigger than they are.

They should also pity those called to fiery trials, who may be required to stand firm even to death, not by killing others, but by sealing their witness with their own blood. Believers should be ashamed to grow weary under lighter trials when others bear much heavier ones. If they are worn out by running with foot soldiers, how will they race with horses? If they tire in a time of peace, what will they do in the floodwaters of Jordan? (Jeremiah 12:5).

The apostle also teaches that these sufferings, though brought on by persecutors, are still fatherly discipline from God. Their heavenly Father has a wise purpose in them, and he has already warned them not to forget this (Hebrews 12:5). Persecution from people can be a correction from God. Men may persecute believers because they are religious, while God may correct them because they are not more faithful in their religion. Men may oppose them because they will not give up their profession, while God may chasten them because they have not lived up to it.

God has also shown his people how to act under affliction, and they must avoid two extremes. They must not despise the Lord’s discipline by treating trouble lightly or becoming dull and careless under it. Nor must they faint when he rebukes them by sinking into despair, fretting, or refusing to bear up with faith and patience. If they fall into either extreme, it shows they have forgotten their Father’s loving warning.

When affliction is rightly endured, it is still a sign of God’s fatherly love and care. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son he receives” (Hebrews 12:6, 7). Even the best of God’s children need correction, because they still have faults and foolish ways. God may let others go on in sin, but he will not leave his own children alone when they need correction. He acts like a true father, who must notice faults in his own children more than in others.

To be left without God’s discipline is a bad sign, because it may show a person is not truly his child. Such people may call him Father because they belong to the church, but they are not his true children (Hebrews 12:7, 8). Those who reject this discipline act more poorly toward God than they would toward earthly parents.

The apostle then points to the respect children owe their earthly fathers. They gave them reverence, even when those fathers corrected them. Children ought to submit to their parents’ rightful commands and also to their correction when they have done wrong. Parents have authority from God to discipline their children when needed, and children are commanded to receive that discipline well. To be stubborn and resentful under proper correction is a double fault, because it adds rebellion against the father’s correction to the original disobedience.

From that lesser example, he moves to the greater one. Earthly fathers are only fathers of our flesh, but God is the Father of our spirits. Our earthly parents were the means of giving us our bodies, which are frail and mortal, formed from the dust. Yet because they were used by God to bring us into life, we owe them reverence and affection. How much more, then, should we honor the One who is the Father of our spirits, since our souls come directly from him?

Sometimes people do this to satisfy their own anger, not to improve our behavior. That is a weakness all fathers in the flesh are prone to, and they must guard against it carefully. Otherwise, they dishonor the authority God has given them, and they weaken the effect of their discipline.

But the Father of our spirits never grieves us without good reason, and he never afflicts the children of men, much less his own children, except for their good. He always does it for our profit. The benefit he means for us is nothing less than our becoming partakers in his holiness. In other words, he uses correction to cure the sinful disorders that make us unlike God, and to strengthen the graces that are God’s image in us, so that we may think and act more like our heavenly Father. God loves his children and wants them to be as like him as possible, so he chastens them when they need it.

The fathers of our flesh corrected us for only a few years, while we were children and under age. Even then, when we were weak and often hard to please, we still owed them respect, and when we grew up we valued and honored them all the more for it. Our whole life here is a time of childhood, immaturity, and weakness, so we must submit to the discipline that belongs to such a life. When we reach perfection, we will fully agree with all of God’s ways of dealing with us now.

God’s correction is never a sentence of condemnation. His children may at first fear that affliction has come to destroy them, and they may cry, “Do not condemn me, but show me why you are contending with me” (Job 10:2). But that is far from God’s purpose toward his own people. He chastens them now so that they may not be condemned with the world (1 Corinthians 11:32). He does this to keep them from the death and ruin of their souls, so that they may live to God, be like God, and dwell with him forever.

The children of God, when they suffer, should not judge God’s dealings by present feelings alone, but by reason, faith, and experience. “No chastening for the present seems joyful, but painful; afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11). Sense says that affliction is painful and unpleasant. The body feels it, the heart grieves under it, and the soul groans. But faith corrects that judgment and says that sanctified affliction produces the fruit of righteousness. That fruit brings peace, because righteousness quiets and comforts the soul. If bodily pain can help produce inward peace, and brief suffering can produce lasting blessing, then believers have no reason to complain or lose heart. Their main concern should be that the discipline they are under is endured with patience and used to grow in holiness.

They should endure affliction with patience, which is the apostle’s main point here. He returns to urge them again that, for the reasons already given, they should “lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees” (Hebrews 12:12). A heavy burden tends to make a Christian discouraged and weak, but he must fight against that. He should do so, first, so that he can run his spiritual race more steadily. Faith, patience, and holy courage help a believer walk more firmly, stay on the right path, and avoid wavering. Second, he should do so to help, not discourage, others who are walking the same road with him. Many who are on the way to heaven still walk weakly and unevenly. Such people can easily dishearten one another, but they should take courage, act in faith, and help one another forward toward heaven.

They should also improve their affliction so it leads to greater holiness. Since this is God’s purpose, it should also be the purpose of his children. With renewed strength and patience, they should “follow peace with all men, and holiness” (Hebrews 12:14). If God’s children grow impatient in suffering, they will not walk as peacefully with others or as faithfully before God as they should. But faith and patience will help them pursue peace and holiness with steady effort, like a man faithfully following his work. Christians must follow peace with all people, even with those who may be used as instruments of their suffering. That is a hard lesson and a high standard, but it is what Christ calls his people to. Suffering can make the spirit sour and the temper sharp, yet God’s children must still follow peace with all men.

Peace and holiness belong together. There can be no true peace without holiness. A person may show prudence, patience, and outward friendliness, but true Christian peace is never found apart from holiness. We must not, under the excuse of being peaceable, leave the way of holiness. Instead, we should cultivate peace in a holy way. And without holiness no one will see the Lord. Seeing God our Savior in heaven is reserved as the reward of holiness, and holiness is a central part of salvation, though a calm and peaceable spirit also helps prepare us for heaven.

Where suffering for Christ is not received as the loving correction of our heavenly Father, and is not improved in that way, it becomes a dangerous trap that can lead to turning away from the faith. Every Christian must watch carefully against that (Hebrews 12:15, Hebrews 12:16). So the apostle gives a serious warning against apostasy, that is, abandoning the faith, and supports it with a terrible example.

He first warns against apostasy in Hebrews 12:15. Apostasy means falling short of the grace of God. It is like becoming bankrupt in religion because a person has no solid foundation and does not use proper care and diligence. It means coming short of true grace in the soul, even while having the outward means of grace and making a profession of religion. In that way, a person comes short of God’s love and favor now and forever. The result of apostasy is that, when true grace is missing, a root of bitterness springs up. Corruption spreads and breaks out. This bitter root produces bitter fruit for the person and for others. It gives rise to corrupt ideas, which lead to apostasy and are strengthened by it, along with destructive errors that corrupt the doctrine and worship of the Christian church, and corrupt practices as well.

People who fall away from the faith usually grow worse and worse. They often sink into very serious sin, and that usually ends in open unbelief or deep despair. Their fall also harms others, especially the church they once belonged to. By their false ideas and bad behavior, many are troubled, the church’s peace is broken, minds are disturbed, and many are polluted and drawn into harmful practices. In this way, the church suffers both in purity and in peace. But in the end, the apostates themselves suffer the most.

The apostle strengthens this warning with a serious example, that of Esau, the son of Isaac and brother of Jacob. Esau was born inside the visible people of God and, as the firstborn, had the birthright, the special rights of the eldest son. That birthright carried great honor and privilege in his family. Yet he was so careless and worldly that he despised those sacred privileges and sold his birthright for a single meal.

Esau’s sin was that he treated the birthright as worthless and gave up everything attached to it. Apostates do the same when they avoid persecution and choose comfort and pleasure instead of holding fast to Christ. Though they had been known as children of God and seemed to have a real claim to blessing and inheritance, they give up all claim to it. Esau’s punishment matched his sin. Later, his conscience woke up and showed him his foolishness, but it was too late. He wanted to inherit the blessing afterward, and he sought it with tears, but he could not recover it.

His punishment had two parts. First, he was condemned by his own conscience, because he finally saw that the blessing he had treated so lightly was worth far more than he had thought. Second, he was rejected by God. He found no place for repentance with God or with his father, because the blessing had already been given to another, the one to whom he had sold it for a simple meal. Esau had made the bargain in his great wickedness, and God, in righteous judgment, confirmed it and did not allow Isaac to reverse it.

From this we learn that turning away from Christ grows out of choosing the pleasure of the flesh over God’s blessing and heavenly inheritance. We also learn that sinners will not always have such low thoughts of that blessing. A time is coming when they will think no effort too great, and no tears too many, to recover what they lost. And when the day of grace is past, as it sometimes can be even in this life, they will find no place for repentance. They cannot repent properly of their sin, and God will not reverse the sentence he has passed on it.

So Christians should never give up their right and hope to their Father’s blessing and inheritance. They should not expose themselves to his unchangeable wrath and curse by abandoning their holy faith to avoid suffering. What wicked people call persecution is, for God’s children, only a rod of correction in their heavenly Father’s hand. He uses it to draw them closer to himself, and to shape them more into his likeness and fellowship. This is the force of the apostle’s argument from the suffering of God’s people, even when they suffer for righteousness, and the reasoning is very strong.