Hebrews 12:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

If God chastens you, He does so for correction, not for torment, torture, or suffering. See how the Apostle, by the very thing through which they thought themselves abandoned, assures them that they are not abandoned.

It is as though he says: while enduring such misfortunes, do you already think that God has abandoned and hates you? No. If you did not suffer, then you would have reason to fear this. For if He scourges every son whom He receives, then one not scourged is perhaps not a son.

But you will say, do wicked people not suffer? Of course they suffer. How could it be otherwise? Yet he did not say, “Everyone who is scourged is a son,” but, “He scourges every son.”

Therefore you cannot say, “There are also many wicked people who are scourged, such as murderers, robbers, sorcerers, and grave-robbers.” They are punished for their own wicked deeds. They are not scourged as sons, but punished as evildoers. You, however, are scourged as sons.

Do you see how he draws proofs from every side? He takes them from events mentioned in Scripture, from sayings, from his own reasoning, and from examples that occur in life.

Yet there will be no lack of those who compare the sweetness of righteousness, and the inward joy that comes from it, with all bodily hardships and sufferings borne by the human race because of its mortal condition.

They will also compare that joy with everything unjustly stirred up against those who live righteously because of their righteousness. Even without considering the hope of the life to come, they would rather suffer joyfully for love of truth than feast luxuriously from a desire for drunkenness.

2. But there are also those who think God unjust when they see the righteous in afflictions and hardships. Or at least, if they do not dare to call God unjust, they think that He does not care for human affairs.

Others think that He once established the necessity of destinies, and that even He does nothing against it, lest instability appear to violate the order of things established by Him.

Some think something else, namely, that God is powerless in some respect and cannot remove these evils from the righteous.

Here one must answer that there would be no righteousness in men if God did not care for human affairs. For all that human righteousness, which the human soul can both hold by acting rightly and lose by sinning, would not be stamped upon the soul.

This would be so unless there existed a certain unchangeable righteousness. It is found in all its fullness by the righteous when they turn to it. It is wholly abandoned by sinners when they turn away from its light.

This unchangeable righteousness truly belongs to God. He would not extend it to enlighten those who turn to Him if He did not care for human affairs.

If He permits the righteous to endure hardships because He does not wish to act against the order of things established by Him, then He Himself is not righteous. This is not because He wishes to keep His ordinance.

Rather, it would be because He established that very order of things in such a way that the righteous are subjected to undeserved punishments.

Whoever thinks that God is powerless in some respect to avert the evil suffered by the righteous is mad. He does not understand that it is no more permissible to deny that God is almighty than to call Him unjust.

3. Once all this has been briefly established according to the circumstances of the question raised, there is no more probable reason why righteous men mostly bear hardships in this life than that these hardships are useful to them.

Only utterly destructive impiety can doubt that God exists, and that He is righteous and almighty.

One righteousness now belongs to men and serves for the acquisition of eternal salvation. Another righteousness was to have been given to man in paradise, so that he might keep and not lose that same eternal salvation.

For just as the righteousness of God consists in prescribing what is useful, and in rendering punishments to the disobedient and rewards to the obedient, so human righteousness consists in obeying useful commands.

But as health is to the body, so blessedness is to the soul. Therefore, as some medicines are prescribed for the body so that good health may not be lost, others are prescribed so that health once lost may be restored.

So also in the whole condition of man, some commandments were given at first so that he might not lose immortality. Other commandments are now offered so that he may regain that immortality.

With regard to bodily health, if someone does not carry out the physician's prescriptions needed to preserve good health, he falls into some sickness. He then receives other prescriptions so that he may be healed.

These prescriptions are often not enough when the sickness is severe, unless the physician adds some aid. This aid is usually burdensome and painful, yet it serves to restore health.

Thus it happens that, although a man is already submitting to the physician, he still suffers. He suffers not only from the sickness itself, which has not yet been healed, but also from the physician's treatment.

In just the same way, man fell through sin into the diseased and wretched mortality of this life. At first he refused to submit to the commandment that preserved eternity and kept health.

Having become sick, he received new commandments. If he submits to them, he is no longer called righteous in vain. Yet the sufferings he still endures are borne either because the disease itself is not yet healed, or because of the help of the medicine.

To this help belongs the saying: "For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives."

Those who do not fulfill the most saving commandments and live unrighteously increase their diseases again and again. Even in this life they endure countless hardships and sufferings from their very diseases.

Or else, through additional punishments, they are mercifully made aware of the evil in which they abide. What is unhealthy is struck and made to suffer, so that they may turn to healing and become healthy by the grace of God.

If they neglect all this, namely the commandments of words and sufferings, they lay up for themselves a just eternal condemnation after this life.

Therefore only one who thinks that there exists only this mortal life which we now lead can say that all this happens unjustly. Such a person does not believe in the future foretold by God.

He will bear the heaviest punishments for stubbornly remaining in sins and for his unbelief.

Do you see where affliction lifts you? To a hope that is not ashamed. Are you sick? Be of good courage, because “the Lord chastens whom He loves.” Are you poor? Rejoice, because the good things of Lazarus await you. Do you endure dishonor for the name of Christ? You are blessed, because your dishonor will be turned into angelic glory.

One of the prophets, speaking of Israel, hardened and uncircumcised in heart, says, “O Lord, You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction” (Jer 5:3).

And again, “The people does not turn to Him who strikes them” (Isa 9:13). And again, “My people have turned away with an evil turning” (Isa 8:5), which at last will crush and destroy them. Thus “it is fearful,” brethren, “to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).

Thus every son is scourged, but not everyone scourged is a son. Murderers, robbers, grave-robbers, sorcerers, fornicators, and many like them are also scourged. Yet the son is scourged out of love, that he may become still better. Wicked people are scourged because of disfavor toward them, so that they may not depart still worse.

Many wicked people are not even scourged, as being wholly incorrigible, in order that there, in the life to come, they may undergo fearful punishment, like that rich man who was in torments (Lk 16:23).