1. “What son is there whom the father does not discipline?” (Heb. 12:7).
God’s disciplinary judgment on the believers is based upon His love. He disciplines not only because He is our Father but also because He loves us. He is not simply our Father; He is our loving Father. He must discipline us because He loves us. What children are loved by their father but are not disciplined by their father? God disciplines us not because He dislikes us but because He loves us. He strikes us in discipline because He loves us. Therefore, God’s love for us as our Father is the basis of His disciplinary judgment upon us. For this reason, God’s disciplinary judgment can be considered His loving discipline, His loving judgment.
2. “For what is profitable” (Heb. 12:10).
On the one hand, God’s disciplinary judgment on the believers is based upon His love, and on the other hand, it is also based upon His good pleasure toward us. Hebrews 12:10 says that God disciplines us, judges us, for our profit. His good pleasure for us causes Him to think about our profit and to discipline us. Whatever comes to us through His disciplinary judgment is out of the arrangement and exercise of His good pleasure toward us. Thus, His good pleasure toward us is also a basis for Him to judge us in His discipline.
1. “For what is profitable that we might partake of His holiness...It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:10-11).
The judgment of God’s discipline of the believers results in profit for the believers by causing them to partake of His holiness and to bear the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Believers should be separated from the world and live a holy life that matches God’s holy nature. Our behavior and actions should match God’s righteousness, and we should be harmonious and peaceable toward God and man. However, we often do not live like this after we are saved; instead, we continue to mingle with the world. Our living often does not match God’s holy nature, and our behavior does not match God’s righteous procedures. We have problems and strife with God and man. This forces God to discipline and punish us. Every time we pass through God’s disciplinary judgment, however, we come out of the world a little more. This makes our living more in accord with God’s holy nature and our behavior more in accord with God’s righteous ways. It brings us into more harmony and peace with God and man. If everything in our life were easy, if we were healthy, if things went smoothly, if we did not have God’s disciplinary judgment, it would be very easy for us to be in the world. It would be easy for us to be loose and to have problems with God and man. But when God disciplines us, we must leave these conditions because God causes us to partake of His holy nature and to match His righteous ways. We also have more peaceable fruit. These are the result of God’s exercising His disciplinary judgment.
2. “That we may not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:32).
The result of God’s disciplinary judgment upon the believers is not merely to profit us but also to cause us to escape from being condemned with the world. God will judge all sinners, and God cannot avoid judging man’s sinful actions because He is righteous. However, God does not want His children to be condemned and judged with the world. Therefore, before God judges the world, He will exercise His discipline to punish and judge His children, as indicated in 1 Peter 4:17, which says that God’s judgment begins “from the house of God.” This is typified by both God’s judgment of David (2 Sam. 12:13-18) and God’s promise to David and his descendants (7:14-15).
The judgment of the church and God’s disciplinary judgment both deal with the believers for their profit in order to separate them from the world. Both are matters of God’s governmental administration within His own household.
God will also exercise judgment upon believers at the judgment seat of Christ where the actions and work of every believer will be judged. The sins of a believer, which occurred before salvation, were judged in the first judgment of God at the cross of Christ; after a believer’s salvation, God continues to exercise judgment upon a believer’s sins through the church and through His discipline in order to correct the believers. However, after a believer is saved, his actions and work before God must also be judged at the judgment seat of Christ. Our actions and work after salvation must pass through a final pronouncement of judgment. This judgment, which will occur at the judgment seat of Christ, is the fourth judgment in God’s administration of His government. Since it is something that will happen to us in the future, we must pay careful attention to it.