Whom the LORD Loves He Chastens

“For whom the LORD loveth he chasteneth,

and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”

(Hebrews 12:6)

A slogan on a marquee reads: “God doesn’t punish you for your sins but may punish you with them.” While the origin and application of that statement are questionable, there is some truth to it regarding redeemed sinners.

1. God Doesn’t Punish You for Your Sins:

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)

2. God May Chasten You with Your Sins:

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 His chastening of His children. Yet, the LORD mercifully uses our sins to chasten us, humbling us and tenderly turning our hearts back to Christ in repentance, as seen in Luke 22:32.

God is sovereign and will use even the sins of His children to correct them. If you are chastened by your sin, rejoice in the LORD Who died for your sin. You are not condemned by it but rather chastened (corrected and disciplined) by it. Sin is a real enemy within each of us as God’s children. While a child of God may enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, the Holy Spirit will convict him in due time, causing him to renounce it out of love for the LORD Jesus. How can a child of God cherish any sin that caused the LORD Jesus to go to the cross to pay that sin debt?

Those who are without chastening are not to be envied but rather feared. As Hebrews 12:8 says: “But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.”