Hebrews 12:9

Heb_12:9-10

Subjection unto the Father of spirits

Divine correction

I.

THE DUTY IS SUBJECTION. Shall we not be in subjection? This is not opposed to insensibility. There is no patience, no resignation, in bearing what we do not feel. If you do not prize what you give up at the call of God, there can be no value in your obedience. But it is the repression of everything rebellious--in our carriage--in our speech--and in the temper of our minds.

II. Let us consider THE REASONS BY WHICH THIS DUTY IS ENFORCED. Here are four motives.

1. The first is derived from the relation in which God stands to us. He is our Father. But to what does this lead? The conclusion, says the apostle, is obvious. If He pre-eminently fills this relation, His claims to duty are proportionally great. You gave the fathers of your flesh reverence. And shall a man obtain more obedience than God?

2. This brings us to the second reason of submission. It is taken from the danger of resistance. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? Clearly intimating that disobedience will end in death. There cannot be a more awful presage of future misery than to counteract the afflictive dispensations of Divine Providence, and despise the chastening of the Almighty. It provokes the anger of God, and operates penally in one of these two ways. Either, first, it induces God to recall the rod, and give a man up to the way of his own heart, or, secondly,

He turns the rod into a scorpion, and fulfils the threatening: If ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary unto Me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

3. The third motive is taken from the brevity of the discipline. They verily chastened us; but it was only a few days. The child soon became a man, and the course of restriction and preparation resulted in a state of maturity. This is to be applied to our heavenly Father, and contains an encouraging intimation, that the whole season of trial, when opposed to our future being and blessedness, is but a short period.

4. The last motive is derived from the principle and design of affliction. Men are imperfect, and their actions are like themselves. Hence, when as their children they chastened us, it was frequently for their pleasure. They would do it. It was to give ease to their passions; to vent their feelings. It was to show their authority, or maintain their consequence, regardless of our welfare. But this is not the case with God. He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. He does it only if needs be--He does it for our profit. What profit? A profit that infinitely weighs down every other advantage, and which, above all things, yea, and by any means, you should be anxious to secure: spiritual profit; Divine profit--that you might be partakers of His holiness. If God chastens us to make us holy, we learn

(1) The importance of holiness, and the value of it in the eye of a Being who cannot be mistaken.

(2) We learn how defective we all are in this attainment; seeing God deems such trying means necessary, in order to promote it.

(3) We learn that if anything can promise a happy deliverance from trouble, it is the sanctification of it: when the end is answered, the rod is laid by.

(4) We learn that whatever our afflictions may do for us, they have not fulfilled the Divine purpose unless they have made us more holy. (W. Jay.)

The purpose of Divine chastisements

In nothing, perhaps, is it so hard to feel for ourselves and to help others to feel that God is good, as in lifes great afflictions. We are so prone to look only at the present sorrow and forget the future joy. Why is this so? Can it be that there is mercy in such seeming wrath? God condescends to reason with us, from the analogy of parental affection, drawing both argument and illustration. We have often felt the beauty of the methods elsewhere used for presenting the same essential truth, as, for example, where God compares Himself to the refiner of silver, melting His people down in the crucible of affliction to purge away their dross; but in this comparison is couched the beauty of an unutterable tenderness. He addresses our parental instincts, and asks us whether we do not ourselves know that love and chastening are not contradictory or inconsistent. I need not say that this doctrine of love as the impulse and interpreter of affliction is peculiarly Biblical. When calamity befell a pagan he beheld in it a mark of Divine displeasure, and at once set himself at work to appease the wrath of Deity. Even the ancient people of God were very slow to accept the right view of Gods chastisements.

I. The first element of contrast suggested by the text is this. OUR HUMAN PARENTS PUNISH PASSIONATELY, AND NOT ALWAYS DELIBERATELY. Without meaning to, without, perhaps, being conscious of it, they are sometimes simply giving vent to impatient, excited, or even angry feeling, in chastising their offspring. The impatient impulse, the caprice of the moment, rules us and puts into the correction the severity, it may be violence, of an indignation by no means wholly righteous. God is not susceptible of anything like passion as we understand it--either in its impulsiveness, impetuosity, malice, or malignity. Even Gods anger is the unchanging hatred of evil--the anger of principle, not of passion--calm even in its fury, slow even in its haste, cool even in its heat. Our anger is like the agitation of a shallow lake, rippled with every breeze. All this is our assurance in affliction that God cannot deal harshly, severely, or unjustly with us. With the calmness of eternal patience, the steadfastness of eternal love, He afflicts us solely for our good.

II. Again, our earthly parents chastise us PUNITIVELY AND NOT CORRECTIVELY. They aim more to punish the offence than to correct the evil and reform the evildoer. Here is another way in which passion often inflicts chastisement. An earthly father is grieved and rightly angry because the son has offended against truth, virtue, honesty, integrity. This is a far nobler passion than the caprices of ill-temper, yet it is doubtful whether a parent can be sure of inflicting profitable correction under its influence. It hurries one into a method of punishment which hardens rather than softens which is ill-adapted to the peculiar temperament of the child, which may restrain from similar offences, if at all, only from fear of the rod, and not at all from love of the right. It should ever be borne in mind that the highest purpose of all punishment is not the vindication of a principle, but the reformation of an offender, or at least the salvation of others from similar sins. To contend for a principle is noble, but oh, how insignificant all else in comparison with the welfare of a soul! Oh, let us not forget that true love of the parent may help to kindle that true love of the right which is stronger than any fear of correction. The word here rendered chasten, means educate. All Gods chastening is meant to educate His children; His dealings are designed as a discipline. He must punish our offences; but the grand end He proposes to Himself is to secure our sanctification and salvation. God teaches us that with Him fatherly pity prompts His chastisements. In all Gods afflictions He consults the exact temperament of His children. He knoweth our frame. It is one of the most palpable facts of history that the men who have wielded the mightiest moral influence have been prepared for it by the severest Divine discipline. No less means would have subdued that great will and made its stubbornness an element of steadfastness anti stability. A degree of heat that must melt down the harder metals is far more intense than that which melts the softest; yet when made into vessels, that which it took the hotter fire to fuse is far the stronger and more serviceable; while you can bend and twist the other, this is unaffected by hard usage. So does God use the chastening rod with tender consideration for our temperament and constitution, adapting His discipline to our need. If we desire the largest fitness for service, we must submit to His wise chastening.

III. Again, our earthly parents chastens us IMPERFECTLY, NOT INFALLIBLY; according to their own fallible judgment of right and wrong. This thought is suggested in the text by the phrase, according to their own pleasure, literally according to what seemed good or right to them. Parental love is imperfect, and so is parental wisdom, so that with the best possible intentions grave mistakes may be committed in a childs discipline. Hero appears perhaps the principal emphasis of the text: They, according to what seemed good: He, according to what is good for us. God reminds us that He cannot err. The chastening He inflicts is for our profit--and let us grasp the full meaning--not only for our profit is it designed, but adapted. Not what seems best, but what is best. Oh, let us remember the perfect fatherhood and fatherliness of God! This is the profit for which He chastens us, as He Himself defines it, that we might be partakers of the Divine holiness.

IV. Once more, our earthly parents chasten us TEMPORARILY, NOT PERMANENTLY, as the text says, for a few days. This phrase means more than it seems to imply. It probably refers to the fact that much of our parental training looks to immediate results, not remote ones--it is with reference to a few days, or at most to our short earthly life. The effect is transient, not permanent. Now, Gods chastening always looks to eternal results. That which is near at hand impresses us most vividly; we are therefore always emphasising present good and undervaluing the more precious things of the hereafter. How different must all this appear to God, whose omniscient eye sees the end from the beginning, and to whom the remotest future is as vivid as the present, the remotest result as real as the present process! (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)

Our virtues witnesses against us:

There is a very interesting argument involved in this saying of the apostle--the argument from what we are as men to what we ought to be as Christians. A dutiful child submits meekly to a fathers correction; why, then, do we not submit meekly to the correction of God? The mere fact of submission to the human goes far towards showing that it is not through any actual inability that we refuse submission to the Divine Parent. The reasoning, in short, is a reasoning from what men are as members of society to what they ought to be as creatures of God; and they may be brought under condemnation if they fail to act towards God, displaying Himself under certain characters, as they act towards their fellow-men, who bear those same characters, though only subordinately. And this reasoning is of very wide application--so that what we may term our social conduct will furnish overwhelming evidence against us at the last, if we are not found among those who have loved and served God. If God demand faith in His Word, are we not capable of believing? Are we not accustomed to believe, yea, and to allow our belief to influence our practice, whenever there is a sufficiency of testimony? And will not this, our capacity of believing, demonstrated as it is by facts of daily occurrence, justify our condemnation, if we fail to put faith in the declarations of Scripture? In like manner, if God demand from us gratitude and love, does He demand what we are unable to give? On the contrary, we are so constituted that we naturally feel thankful to a benefactor; and any one of us who could receive kindness, and yet show himself void of all affection towards the giver, would make himself an object of scorn and abhorrence, as wanting the common sensibilities which characterise our nature. If, then, God manifestly bring Himself into the position of a benefactor, it is very evident that He has right to ask from us in return gratitude and love; that in asking them He only asks what we continually prove ourselves able to give, and that, consequently, if we refuse what is asked of us, there will be needed nothing beyond our conduct in the several intercourses of life to prove us without excuse, if finally condemned for not giving God our hearts. And once more--if God asks obedience to His laws and submission to His authority, He asks only what we are in the daily habit of rendering to earthly superiors. He may surely appeal to our conduct in reference to earthly magistrates, as proving us without excuse if we wilfully violate His laws. Thus our text involves a principle of very general application; and we perhaps little think what material of condemnation we heap up against ourselves by the conscientious discharge of every relative duty, whilst we remain virtually strangers to the power of religion. Now, I have thus engaged you with the general argument, rather than with the particular case presented by the text. Now, however, we will confine ourselves to that case, the case being that of parents and children, and the implied argument, that the reverence which we show to our earthly father will be a swift witness against us, if we fail in the reverence which is due to our heavenly Father. There is no more beautiful and graceful affection of our nature than that which subsists between parents and children. We must admire this affection, even as exhibited amongst inferior animals. There is no page in natural history more attractive than that which tells how tenderly the wild beasts of the forest will watch their young, or with what assiduousness the fowls of the air will tend their helpless brood. And in the human race the affection goes far beyond this; for if not more intense at the first, it is abiding and reciprocal. And this affection of a parent for a child is not merely a graceful and beautiful sentiment, shedding a charm over the privacies of domestic life; it is one of the chief mainsprings of human activity, and contributes perhaps more than anything else to the keeping together the elements of society. It is quite extraordinary, if you come to think, how this single affection or instinct will tie down a man to unwearied occupation, so that he will toil night and day to gain subsistence for his family. He might betake himself to another scene, where, having only himself to provide for, he might live in comparative ease; but his young ones have nestled round his heart; he cannot be tempted by any prospect of relief to desert those who lean on him as a father, and therefore, with a heroism which would draw on itself intense admiration if it were not so common, will he employ all his energies, and wear down all his strength, in obtaining a sufficiency for those beneath his roof. Thus is society virtually knit together by and through the parental affection; and you have only to suppose this affection extinguished, so that fathers and mothers cared nothing, or only for a short time, for those to whom they gave life, and you destroy the fine play of a healthful activity, and slacken the bonds which make fast communities. And whilst parents are thus abidingly and profitably actuated by affection for their children, children maintain an affection towards their parents scarcely less graceful and scarcely less advantageous. This is not so much an instinct as a principle; and, accordingly, while the Bible contains no precept as to loving children, it contains a most express precept as to honouring parents, so that there is given to the latter the character of a high duty, to whose performance we are urged by a distinct and full promise. And the point to which I have to bring you is, that this duty is very generally and very faithfully performed. It is comparatively but seldom that children show want of affection towards a father and a mother, when that father and that mother have done their part as parents; whether it be in the highest or the lowest families of the land, there is generally a frank yielding to its heads of that respect and that gratitude which they have a right to look for from their offspring. There is no disputing the first statement of the text; for it is the general rule--We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. But how now as to the inference which St. Paul draws from this statement? How as to our subjection to another and a higher Father, the Father of spirits? If it be the common rule, the exceptions not being such as to bring the rule into question, that children give reverence to their fathers, surely, if God be a Father, He too will be reverenced. Once establish the relationship, and the reverence and submission will follow almost of course. Children! listen ye to this; parents! listen ye to this--children, who are never wanting in dutiful affection towards your parents; parents, who are never unmindful of what you have a right to look for from your children--children, who will do all in your power to soothe the declining years of a father or a mother, who feel it a privilege to pay back by labours of love the tenderness lavished on you from infancy upwards, who attach a sacredness to the every word and the every wish of persons so beloved and revered; parents, who feel cat to the heart by the ingratitude of a child, who are conscious of being robbed of your incontrovertible rights, whenever a son or a daughter is deficient in attachment and respect--yes, children and parents, listen ye alike to this; ye are self-condemned, ye are swift witnesses against yourselves, if as members of the universal family ye fail to be what ye are as members of particular households; and oh! ye must be speechless at the judgment, if the simple argument of our text should be worked out against you--if the Judge should say to you, Ye had fathers of your flesh, and ye gave them reverence, and should follow this up by the thrilling and unanswerable question, Why, then, were ye not in subjection to the Father of spirits, that ye might live? I do not know whether you have been accustomed to follow for yourselves such trains of thought as the words of our text have thus led us to open; but we own that we regard the subject which has been under discussion as one of no common importance and interest, presenting, as it does, all that is amiable and admirable in domestic life as fraught with testimony to be delivered at the great day of assize. Is there the merchant amongst you of unimpeachable rectitude, who would sooner die than be guilty of a fraud? Why, that mans ledger is one of the books that shall be opened at the judgment; the hatred of everything base which it displays will be a witness against him if he have robbed God of His due. Is there the tradesman who would abhor the overreaching a customer, whom nothing could persuade to use the false weight and balance? Why, that mans shop will be referred to hereafter; it will prove him rigidly conscientious towards his fellow-men, and therefore self-condemned if he have defrauded his God. Or is there a patriot, who, with a fine love of liberty, would do and dare nobly to uphold the free institutions of his country? That mans generous ardour will be quoted hereafter; could he be indignant against all lesser tyranny, and yet be excusable in making no struggle against the tyranny of sin? Is there the son or the daughter amongst you who has shown reverence to parents? That man or that woman will have nothing to plead when God shall affirm Himself to be a Father, but a Father neglected by His children. Or are there servants amongst you who answer the apostles description--Obedient to their own masters, not answering again, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity? Their unblemished characters will rise against them at the judgment; so true to their employers, what shall be said for them if false to their Maker? Ah, it may sound strangely, but, nevertheless, we may confidently assert that virtues, the want of which must exclude us from heaven, may themselves doom us to a lower place in hell. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The Fatherhood of God in the sufferings of life

This chapter contains one of the clearest expositions in the Bible of the Divine philosophy of suffering. In this chapter we trace two great convictions which, when combined, form the apostles explanation of suffering--the belief in a Father, and the belief in His purpose to make man divinely glad. He does not attempt to explain this by any assertion of laws and penalties; he says nothing about inherited sin or transmitted judgment; his one solution is this--the Father is educating His child.

I. THE PURPOSE OF LIFES SUFFERINGS.

II. GODS PURPOSE IN SUFFERING IS TO EDUCATE MAN THROUGH HOLINESS INTO JOY. For the attainment of this end two things are requisite

1. The vision of a higher world. It is manifest that unless we are delivered from the thraldom of the present world, we cannot resist its temptations or escape its snares. Until we realise the world of God and the angels, we can reach no true holiness. And for this the discipline of sorrow fits us. It isolates us from the turmoil of the present, and opens the spirits eye.

2. Divine power is the second requisite for the full attainment of this joy. Until we are strong, we cannot be partakers of His holiness. We become strong by self-surrender, for self-surrender is self-control. We must glance at the practical lesson which is here suggested, Shall we not be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? The question arises, How can this be realised? In three ways

(1) By accepting the fact--by believing that all life is a discipline, that its sorrows and its joys are intended to train you into holiness, and therefore into blessedness.

(2) By endorsing it with your choice. Choose what God has chosen for you. Heartily accept His will as your will. Ask neither for joy or sorrow, success or failure, life or death.

(3) And then, lastly, by acting under that choice. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)

The proper view and improvement of affliction

I. THE LIGHT IN WHICH AFFLICTION OUGHT TO BE VIEWED BY CHRISTIANS.

1. As coming from God.

2. As merited by our sins,

3. As the effect of fatherly wisdom and love.

4. With a desire that His gracious design may be fulfilled in us.

II. THE TENDENCY WHICH AFFLICTION HAS TO BENEFIT US. That we may be partakers of His holiness. Now the way in which affliction tends to produce this great end is

1. By giving us a just idea, giving us a practical impression, of the evil of sin.

2. Affliction tends to convince us of the insufficiency of the present world.

3. Submission to the will of God.

4. Sympathy.

5. Affliction weans us from the world, and fixes our thoughts on another state.

Lessons:

1. Let the afflicted derive comfort.

2. Let those who have been afflicted seriously consider what has been the effect of their trials upon themselves. If no effect has been produced, what can they expect but sorrow upon sorrow? (R. Hall, M. A.)

Afflictions salutary

I have read of a mariner who got tossed by the storm, lost his reckoning, and was driven he knew not whither by the raging winds and darkness and danger. But when all was calm and clear he found he was actually nearer home than he could possibly have been under ordinary circumstances. Shall not I be glad, when my night of storm and trial is past, to find (which I think I shall) that I am nearer God and heaven than I should otherwise have been? (Geo. Brazier.)

The profitableness of chastisements:

Absalom sends once or twice to Joab to come and speak with him; but when he saw that he could not come, he commands his corn-field to be set on fire and so he fetched him with a witness; so children of God, when they stand off upon terms, and will not see His face, the fire of affliction will make them seek Him early and diligently. It is the custom of our gallants, when their horses be slow and dull, to spur them up. If iron grows rusty, we put it into the fire to purify it, and so doth God; in our backwardness to duties, He pricks us on, or, being in our filthiness, casts us into the hot embers of tribulation to purify us. (John Barlow.)

Suffering advantageous:

There is a great want in those Christians that have not suffered. (R. M. McCheyne.)

Afflictions salutary:

Bitter pills bring sweet health, and sharp winter kills worms and weeds, and mellows the earth for better bearing of fruits and flowers. The lily is sowed in its own tears, and Gods vines bear the better for bleeding. The walnut-tree is most fruitful when most beaten; and camomile, the more you tread it the more you spread it. Aloes kill worms, and stained clothes are whitened by frosting. (J. Trapp.)

The Father of spirits:

Men are not animals plus a soul, but spirits with an animal nature. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

Submission

John Newton said he would rather be able to pronounce these three sentences in his mother tongue from his heart than be master of all the languages of Europe: What Thou wilt; when Thou wilt; how Thou wilt.

Gratitude for affliction

A lady, from injuries received in a railway accident, had to keep her bed in much pain and suffering for tong weary months. Upon the anniversary of the accident she gathered some of her most intimate friends into her room, and there, still a prisoner to her bed, she held a meeting of praise, counting up all the mercies of her year of sickness. (Mrs. Reaney.)

Subjection to God

A lady one day, in her husbands absence from home, lost two children by cholera; but she laid them out with a mothers tenderness, and spread a sheet over them, and waited at the door for her husbands return. A person lent me some jewels, she said, when she met him, and he now wishes to receive them again; what shall I do? Return them, by all means, said her husband. Then she led the way, and silently uncovered to him the forms of his dear children. (C. Leach.)

The accepted will of God:

When Dr. Bushnell was dying, his wife repeated to him, slightly transposing the words of the text, The good and perfect and accepted will of God. He replied, Yes, and accepted. (Bushnells Life.)

Father teaches me:

Passing through a narrow street in an old town, under the shadow of an equally old church, with its tall spire pointing heavenward, a woman hurries on her way to the station with a troubled heart and a load of care, none the less heavy that it is more worry than trouble. Two little mites of children, happy and merry-looking, are peering over their school-lessons. She catches the words of one as she passes, spoken with the ring of a childs loving pride, Father teaches me; and then comes the answer from the other child, How nice to have a father to teach you! with an emphasis on the name which showed that she knew something, small though she was, of what a fathers love and teaching might and should mean. The womans face brightened as she heard, and she turned with a grateful smile to the two little ones, pausing to look at them for a minute before she went hurrying on again. And as she went her face kept its brighter look, for she thought to herself, Surely, many beside that little child can say, Father teaches me.

That we might be partakers of His holiness

The benefit of afflictions

I. THE LIGHT IN WHICH AFFLICTIONS OUGHT TO RE VIEWED, AND THE DISPOSITION WITH WHICH THEY OUGHT TO BE RECEIVED.

II. CONSIDER THEIR TENDENCY, WHEN THUS VIEWED AND RECEIVED, TO PROMOTE OUR SPIRITUAL INTEREST. That we might be partakers of His holiness; that is, of the holiness which He requires. Holiness consists in conformity to the will of God. Afflictions have a tendency to promote the great work.

1. They teach you the evil nature of sin, on account of which they are sent, and point you to the Saviour. Practical lessons are the best of all lessons.

2. The utter insufficiency of this world, as a portion for the soul. In days of prosperity you may not be thoroughly convinced of this.

3. Afflictions excite and increase some of the most amiable and pious dispositions of the human heart. Such as resignation and patience.

4. When viewed in their true light, and received with a proper spirit, they are most satisfactory proofs of the love of God.

Remarks:

1. In the light of this subject we see the reason why so many instances of affliction fail to produce any good and lasting effect. The agency of God is not acknowledged in them.

2. This subject furnishes solemn reproof and warning to such as have experienced affliction, and yet have not repented.

3. This subject affords instruction and peculiar encouragement to Christians. Those who wear the white robes in heaven came out of great tribulation. (John Matthews, D. D.)

Sanctified affliction:

The following is from a letter of John Frederic Obeilin, pastor of Waldbech, to a lady, who had suffered many bereavements: I have before me two stones, which are in imitation of precious stones. They are both perfectly alike in colour; they are of the same water--clear, pure, and clean; yet there is a marked difference between them as to their lustre and brilliancy. One has a dazzling brightness, while the other is dull, so that the eye passes over it, and derives no pleasure from the sight. What can be the reason of such a difference? It is this. The one is cut but in a few facets; the other has ten times as many. These facets are produced by a very violent operation. Nevertheless, the operations being over, it is done for ever: the difference between the two stones always remains strongly marked. That which has suffered but little is entirely eclipsed by the other, which alone is held in estimation, and attracts attention.

The profit of adversity:

Surely we deceive ourselves to think on earth continued joys would please. It is a way that crosses that which Nature goes. Nothing would be more tedious than to be glutted with perpetual jollities. Were the body tied to one dish always (though of the most exquisite flavour that it could make choice of), yet, after a small time, it would complain of loathing and satiety; and so would the soul, if it did ever epicure itself in joy. Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. I know not well which is the more useful: joy I may choose for pleasure, but adversities, are the best for profit; and sometimes these do so far help me, as I should without them want much of the joy I have. (O. Feltham.)

Sanctified affliction for the future:

It is not so much by the symmetry of what we attain in this life that we are to be made happy, as by the enlivening hope of what we shall reach in the world to come. While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.(H. W. Beecher.)

The father loved for correction:

On one occasion a minister found it necessary to punish his little daughter. But Mary climbed into his lap, and throwing her arms around his neck, said, Papa, I do love you. Why do you love me? the father asked. Because you try to make me good, papa. It is in this spirit that Gods people should accept the chastisements He sends, remembering that it is in love He rebukes and chastens; not for His pleasure, but for their profit, that they may be partakers of His holiness.

Truth seen in adversity:

A diamond had slipped from its setting, and rolled away, none knew whither. Diligent search was made in every apartment where its owner might have been, but in vain. At length evening drew on, and, sitting in a careless mood, her eye caught the sparkle of a tiny ray, almost imperceptible, but bright as only a diamonds glance can be. Out of the darkness it gleamed, and one might stoop and take that which daylight had failed to reveal, though sought with tears. And thus it is in the Christians experience. In the daylight of prosperity he seeks in vain for the precious presence of the Holy Spirit. Yet when the night of adversity draws nigh, suddenly there shines a light amidst the darkness of spiritual despondency which reveals to him the unsearchable riches of Christ.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 12:9-11. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh — Natural parents, from whom we derived our bodies and mortal lives; which corrected us — For our faults; and we gave them reverence — Submitted patiently and quietly to their discipline, neither despising nor fainting under their correction; and shall we not much rather — From the strictest principles of filial duty; be in subjection — Submit with reverence and meekness; unto the Father of spirits — Who has regenerated our souls; and live — And thereby at length obtain eternal life, as a reward of our patience and obedience. “Here the apostle seems to have had Deu 21:18 in his eye, where the son that was disobedient to his father was ordered to be put to death. This is one of the many instances in which the apostle conveys the most forcible reason in a single word.” By distinguishing between the fathers of our flesh, and the Father of our spirits, the apostle seems to teach us that we derive only our flesh from our parents, but our spirits from God. See Ecc 12:7; Isa 57:16; Zec 12:1. For they verily for a few days — During our nonage, (so our corrections shall last only during our abode in this world, and how few are even all our days here!) chastened us after their own pleasure — As they thought good, though frequently they erred therein, either by too much indulgence or severity; but he — God, always, unquestionably; for our profit — That our corrupt inclinations might be more and more purged out, and a heavenly, divine nature more and more implanted in us; that we might be partakers of his holiness — That is, of himself, his glorious image, and heavenly divine nature. Now no chastening — Whether from God or man; for the present — That is, at the time it is inflicted; seemeth to be joyous, but grievous — Is not cause of joy, but of sorrow, to the person chastised; nevertheless afterward — Not indeed of its own nature, but being blessed and sanctified by God; it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness — That holiness and reformation which gives peace of conscience; to them who are exercised thereby — That receive the exercise as from God, and improve it according to his will. See on Isa 32:17.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Heb_12:9. Father of spirits.—See Num_16:22; Num_27:16; Zec_12:1. “The Creator of all spirits, who is the Giver of life to all, who knows the spirit which He has made, and can discipline it by chastening.”

Heb_12:12. Lift up the hands.—Lit. “straighten out the relaxed hands and the palsied knees” (Isa_35:3).

Heb_12:15. Root of bitterness.—See Deu_29:18.

Heb_12:16. Fornicator.—The Scriptures do not thus describe Esau. Farrar thinks that the writer must have in mind the Jewish Hagadah, in which Esau is represented in the blackest colours, as a man utterly sensual, intemperate, and vile. And this also was the view of Philo.

Heb_12:17. Place of repentance.—In his father. There is no reference to repentance in relation to God. He could not induce his father to change his mind in regard to the matter. The reference is entirely to the transfer of the rights of primogeniture to the younger of the twins, Jacob. The rest of the chapter pleads for watchfulness and steadfastness on the ground that everything under the-new dispensation is of a milder aspect, and of a more inviting, encouraging nature, than under the old. For the references to Old Testament Scriptures, see Exodus 20, 21; Deuteronomy 4, 5.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_12:9-17

Heb_12:9-11. The Father of Spirits.—The contrast here presented between our earthly father and our heavenly Father, and the arguments for the superior claims of our heavenly Father, are based upon a distinction which needs to be more fully recognised. Our earthly father is father of the body and the animal life that we have; our heavenly Father is Father of the souls that we are. The natural relations illustrate the spiritual, but the spiritual are altogether higher than the natural.

I. We recognise authority in the natural relation (Heb_12:9).—That sense of parental authority is the basis of moral character. It associates right and wrong with the will of a person, and prepares us to see absolute right and wrong as the will of God. It is to rise into the higher plane of being to recognise the authority of God in the spiritual relation.

II. We yield to the natural authority, even though we know it is imperfect (Heb_12:10).—The sense of fatherly unwisdom comes to the son. His judgment does not go with his father’s. He is keen enough to see that the father is serving his own ends, rather than doing the best for him; and, nevertheless, the loyal and good son yields to his father, does what he wishes, submits himself in obedience. How much more then should the submission and obedience be offered when the Father’s wisdom and judgment and motive are absolutely unquestionable, and the child knows that the fatherly dealings are altogether for his profit?

III. When there is full trust in the natural relation, things painful can easily be borne.—This may be illustrated by things required to be done or borne in times of illness. The assurance that parental love aims at restored health and strength enables the child to endure. And in the higher, spiritual relation we may be so sure that our heavenly Father is ever working to produce the “peaceable fruits of righteousness in us,” that we may find it easy to bear chastening which, “for the present, is not joyous, but grievous.”

Heb_12:12-17. Christian Ways of helping One Another.—It is evident that the writer had the passage from Isaiah (Isa_33:3) in mind. Four ways of mutually helping under the Christian strain are here indicated.

I. By considerateness for the weak.—Lit. “Straighten out the relaxed hands and the palsied knees” (Heb_12:12). Make one effort to invigorate the flaccid muscles which should be so tense in the struggle in which you are engaged. This, however, unduly confines the advice to the Christian’s work upon himself. It seems better to refer the words to the way in which the strong ones in a Church can bear the infirmities of the weak. In the Christian chain there always are weak links. They may be a peril. They should be an anxiety. They can be strengthened. That is the work of the experienced and strong-principled.

II. By personal example.—“Make straight paths for your feet” (Heb_12:13). Let those about you see you “walking worthily of the vocation wherewith you are called.” Every steadfast Christian is a power; every beautiful Christian is an inspiration. Integrity helps all who watch it.

III. By wise ordering of relationships.—“Follow peace with all men” (Heb_12:14). That is, shape your conduct, meet your obligations, and show a graciousness in all the daily associations of your life: they shall disarm your foes, and make peaceful all your human relations. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” And those who follow after holiness always find that holiness makes for peace.

IV. By anxious watchfulness and resolute dealings with the beginnings of evil.—“Looking carefully” (Heb_12:15-17). The care concerns things and persons.

1. Things. “Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you.” Things include opinions, teachings, attractions of worldly pleasure, neglects of duty, self-indulgences, etc.

2. Persons. “Lest there be any profane persons.” Persons are always more mischievous than things, because there is life, and activity, and power of influence in them. It is the person whose word, example, or influence is morally mischievous against whom the writer inveighs.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Heb_12:10. Different Principles in the Chastening of Sons.—R.V. “Chastened us as seemed good to them.” It is an indication of the thoughtful observation and intelligent insight of this writer, that he discerns the weakness usually attaching to the discipline of earthly parents. It is the expression of the father’s ideas and wishes, rather than a careful. adaptation of method and rule to meet the differing dispositions of the children. So often the family rules are applied without modification, and the maintenance of the parental authority is more cared for than the moral well-being of a particular child. It has also to be said, that the yet graver mistake made by human parents is punishing when in a temper, and making the chastisement represent the wounded personal feeling, rather than the care for the child’s good. On these sides of parental weakness there can only be contrast between man and God. We may never think of the heavenly Father as losing His self-control under any aggravation of His sons. And we may think of Him as so concerned for the individual well-being of each son as to adapt the outworking of His parental principles so as to secure the “profit,” the moral and spiritual good, of each. Restlessness of sons under the weak fatherhoods of earth may be reasonable. The restfulness of sons under the strong, wise, gracious fatherhood of God should be expected.

Heb_12:11. Grievous Now, Joyous By-and-By.—It seems to be an ever-working law of life for moral beings that joy shall not come first—that joy shall always be a consummation, an issue, of something which, in one form or another, involves struggle, self-restraint, “strain and stress.” Things can only gain moral character out of conflict. The moral life is recognising the good and the evil, with inclination to choose the evil, and judgment, based on knowledge, approving the good; and then a conflict resulting in following the judgment, and not the inclination. That struggle must come first; it is always grievous; but triumph brings joy.

The Happy Fruit of Righteousness.—εἰρηνικός is that which bestows happiness or produces it. This corresponds with the writer’s design, who means to say that afflictions, rightly improved, will be productive of fruit that will confer happiness, such fruit as righteousness always produces.—Moses Stuart.

The Purpose of Affliction relieves the Pain of Affliction.—“Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” That may be true as a fact of observation, but we must never think it be true as a matter of Divine appointment. If we could clear away all the troubles which men bring upon themselves, there would be very little, if any, trouble left in the world to account for. Concerning earthly trouble we may say, Man made it, by disturbing the Divine order in His wilfulness; but God overrules it, takes the evil thing up into His service, and works out a surprising benediction—a benediction that could not be wrought in any other way—by means of it. But the use which God makes of it must never be allowed to blind our eyes to the evil of it. Trouble is trouble, though we may be lifted up, by our confidence in the fatherliness of God, to call it chastisement and correction. But though man is the cause of all, or almost all, the trouble under which this fair earth of ours groans continually, we have the perplexing fact to deal with, that those who suffer are by no means always those who sin; and it is not easy for us to discern why those who suffer need the chastening. The tower in Siloam falls in a way that men call accidental, but those who were crushed to death were not sinners above all who dwelt in Jerusalem. The Judæan Christians suffered bitter persecutions at the hands of Jewish brethren and heathen neighbours, but the troubles were not brought upon them through their evil-doing, but through their well-doing. See these things standing on the level with them, and they are hopelessly perplexing, and it is easy for us to say, There either is no God, or He is a very inefficient one. This kind of thought has troubled the people of God from the times of Job and Asaph, and led many to make shipwreck of faith. The writer of this epistle does not propose to explain to the Hebrew Christians the meaning of their troubles and persecutions from the level. He tries to lift them up above, so that they may look down upon them, see how they are being overruled, and what they are working towards. On the level you can only see the things that are close to you; up above you can see other things, you can form some idea of the relations of things, and begin to trace how things work together. Up above we can begin to discover working principles, and Divine purposes and meanings. But precisely our difficulty is the difficulty of getting and keeping up above. If we follow the lead of the writer of this epistle, we shall find that the best way is to fill our minds and hearts full of the glory of the Lord Jesus; the marvellous wisdom and grace of His mission; the moral life that He quickens; and the power of His abiding presence in the world as its Redeemer, not only from sin, but also from all the woes that sin has brought in its train. Enter into the mind of Christ, and you will rise above the level of earthly troubles; and looking down upon life as He looks, you will see a great moral purpose being outwrought: the world is being kept, and afflictions are the moral salt that is keeping it; the world is being cleansed, and human troubles are the refiner’s fires and the fuller’s soap, that are doing the cleansing work. Just this seems to be expressed in our text, which the R.V. gives in a somewhat sharper form: “All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous, but grievous: yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.” Mr. Spurgeon has a clever illustration of the point of this text. There is a little plant, small and stunted, growing under the shade of a broad-spreading oak, and this little plant values the shade that covers it, and greatly does it esteem the quiet rest which its noble friend affords. Once upon a time there comes along the woodman, and with his sharp axe he fells the oak. The plant weeps and cries, “My shelter is gone, every rough wind will blow upon me!” “No,” says the angel of the flower, “now will the sun get at thee, now will the shower fall on thee in more copious abundance than before, now thy stunted form shall spring up into loveliness, and thy flower, which could never have expanded itself to perfection, shall now laugh in the sunshine, and men shall say, How greatly hath this plant increased, how glorious hath become its beauty through the removal of that which was its shade and delight!” This is the truth now presented to us—the purpose of affliction relieves the pain of affliction.

I. Affliction passing over us is hard to bear.—The heap of wheat as it is brought in from the fields, and spread out all over the threshing-floor, cannot but feel it hard when the heavy threshing-roller, with its cutting teeth, is drawn backward and forward over it. That tribulum-work, that tribulation, cannot be joyous, but grievous. But presently it appears what good work has been done by the severe discipline: the husks have been split, and have fallen away from the grain; and it only needs now the winnowing fan to secure the pure corn for the food of man. In every human life there is a mission for the threshing-roller of afflictive discipline. Human trouble takes on a great variety of forms, but it never takes any that are easy to bear at the time. It is in the very nature of trouble that it must be pressure, strain, distress. It would not have its ministry in character if it were not. It is easy to classify the afflictions that befall humanity. They take form as suffering, as sorrowing, as sinning.

1. The form of suffering. Suffering, pure and simple, without the element of sin embittering it, is part of the economy of nature; man only shares it in common with the creature, and we need to speak cautiously and carefully concerning it when we speak of it as evil. It would be possible to show that even important animal qualities, and much more moral qualities, can only be wrought by simple suffering. At once it will come to mind that the motherliness of motherhood, both in the creatures and in humanity, follows upon, and can only follow upon, the suffering of the birth-time. Think closely, and it will soon appear, that moral character can never be made anywhere, save by the agency of suffering. Of Christ it is said, “Though He were a son, yet learned He obedience by the things that He suffered.” We must therefore speak thoughtfully and wisely on this matter. But this is certainly true, and always true—suffering is hard to bear. Personal suffering, taking shape as sickness, frailty, pain, always is. Disease comes in so many painful and repulsive forms. It comes at what seem such unfitting times. It brings in with it such a trail of other woes. It breaks into the enterprise of life, disturbing and imperilling our business relations. It often wholly upsets the plan of our life, and leaves us, when convalescent, to battle again for lost position. It brings strain and stress on those whom we love more than we love ourselves. Hezekiah is the type of all sick folk in his experience of the hardness of his lot: put aside, in pain and helplessness, when life’s schemes were just working out well, but nothing seemed really accomplished. It was hard to be cut off in the midst of his days. It is hard to be sick for a while; it is hard to be frail and weak all life long. While the cloud hangs low over us, we can but walk in the darkness, and feel depressed by it. No personal suffering for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. It has to feel grievous; it is just its ministry to make us feel burdened and distressed. Do not be surprised that you find your frailty hard to bear: it is precisely what you ought to find it and feel it.

2. The form of sorrowing. A very large portion of human affliction is not personal, but relative, suffering. It is such affliction as David knew when he wailed over his ruined son. It is such sorrow as St. Paul knew when he feared his companion would be taken away, and he would have “sorrow upon sorrow.” It is such sorrow as our Divine Lord felt when He stood by the tomb of His friend Lazarus, with the heart-broken sisters beside Him. It is the sympathetic entering into the sorrows of others which brings their burdens to lie on our hearts. And the sympathy is keen according to our dispositions. There are some who can pass amid the suffering with a chilly self-control, a calmness that keeps them from undue distress; but there are many who, in the quickness and keenness of their sympathy, sorrow unduly, suffer more than the actual sufferers. Perhaps many of us can see, in looking back over our lives, that we have known more affliction through sympathy than through personal suffering. Maybe we have had to deal with great sufferers, or to come helpfully near to those who have been in overwhelming distress; and the strain for us has almost been overstrain. And sometimes our utter helplessness, our inability to meet occasions, the misery of having to stand by with folded hands while the great billows of woe have rolled over our beloved, has been overwhelming woe for us. Even public distress may try us greatly. What do the clergy feel when they bury the bread-winners, and the mothers for whose love and tending the children will lift a life-long wail? Sometimes one is disposed to say that the burdens of sympathetic sorrowing are far heavier than the burdens of personal suffering. How much is suggested when it is said of our great High Priest, that He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities”!

3. The form of sinning. The bitterness of suffering, to us moral beings, lies in our conviction of its close association with sin. But this is no overwhelming distress while we keep to the general fact, that the Divine order has been disturbed by human wilfulness, and the penalties fall upon the whole race, and, vicariously, fall heavy on some members of it. The weight of the woe comes when we are distinctly able to associate personal sin with personal sufferings. What revelations the doctor could make to us if he would be open and true in dealing with us! We go with him round the wards of the hospital, and he could say—There, that miserable sufferer is reaping the drink-seed that he sowed; that wreck of humanity on whom you can hardly bear to look is ending in unspeakable wretchedness a life of vice. When that association of sin and suffering comes close into our spheres, when our prodigal comes home to die, our wilful girl drags life-ruin upon herself, then we have sorrow upon sorrow—sorrow in which is the bitterness of death. That sorrow is hardest of all to bear. While passing over us it is altogether grievous. And you will have found in your experience, that it is very hard to deal with sufferers when you know that they are sinners, and when the sufferings take offensive and repulsive forms, as they always do when they come directly out of sin. It seems so wonderful that our Divine Lord could be so sympathetic with outcasts and sinners, and could deal so graciously with those who were possessed with the devil of uncleanness. But it is the Christliness of Christ that He could take the sin with the suffering, and help at once the sinner and the sufferer. They let a sufferer down through the roof, right in front of Him. Jesus looked upon him, and saw a sinner. But He did not therefore despise him. He only saw the severest feature of his need, the root of all the mischief, and He dealt first with that. It is our Christlikeness likeness if we can bear the suffering that comes out of sin, though that kind of affliction is hardest of all to bear. Whatever form our human troubles take, our text—the first half of it—certainly is true: “No affliction for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.” While passing over us it is hard to bear.

II. Affliction passed by is good to remember.—The psalmist must have felt that it was when he said, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now will I keep Thy word.” Affliction had done something for him, and something so good that he liked to think about it. It is well to remind ourselves of the temporary character of all human suffering and affliction. It is always “a light affliction, and but for a moment.” It is always a cloud, light or dark, high or low, that is passing on, and drops its rains upon us as it passes. We always have a chance of standing under a clear sky, watching our clouds sail away to the west. We have had our troubles, but they never stayed. They came and went. And when they were gone right past, somehow we began a little to understand them; and the farther they receded into the distance, the more clearly we saw how they—strange puzzle-pieces though they were—fitted into the plan of infinite Wisdom. They bore to us a mission. They carried out their mission. They left us with the blessing of their mission. What have the suffering and sorrowing times of our lives done for us? Perhaps it would be wiser not to try and read the answer by going over the scenes of our own lives. We can never be quite sure of being just to ourselves. It is better to see what suffering did for Jesus. There is so much in that sentence, “Made perfect through suffering.” But we may also each one of us think of some saintly soul who has come, like the silver, through a seven-times refining. It is quite safe for us to trace in them what sublime moral and spiritual agencies these our human afflictions prove to be. We watch them, and see “what almighty grace can do,” and then we hope that almighty grace is doing it for us. Only a word or two can be given to this point, but they may suffice to guide thought along helpful and comforting lines. We can sometimes see—

1. How afflictions have loosened the grip of the world upon the soul. What an enslaving power things seen and temporal have! What would they have if God did not break in upon them with His afflictive dispensations? The claims and rush of life keep our souls looking down and around. The visions and quietness of sorrow-times lift our souls up and away. The other life is far off, and the world is near, while health and energy are with us. The other life comes near, and the world-interests recede, when God puts us into desert places of sickness and trouble. It is said that we never really see the full splendour of God’s sky in the smoky towns. Go out into the broad desert spaces, away from the world, and the stars fairly glitter, and the blue is unspeakably beautiful. Can we not look back and see how trials that were hard to bear loosened our hold of life a little? And what is the mystery of all life save this—gradually getting loosened from the world, and getting soul-anchored in the city of habitations, whose builder and maker is God? It is good to remember how God has been loosening our world-grip, and teaching our hearts to say, “This is not our rest.”

2. We can see how afflictions have tightened our trust in God. Have you held a child’s hand in a first railway journey. It just lay quietly in yours, for the child felt all safe with father; but then the train rushed screaming into the dark tunnel, and the child’s grip tightened, and held tight till long after the calming sunshine had come back again. That is the way it is with us and the Father-God. When the strain-times of life come, we grip His hand hard. And after the strain-times of life are passed by, we love to remember how our Father’s hand clasped ours in the time of fear, and thrilled our souls with the feeling of uttermost safety. We should never be trusting God as we are trusting Him to-day, if it were not for those experiences of sorrow and trouble which are passed and gone long since. The writer of this epistle has a very suggestive term for the issues of Divinely sent afflictions. He calls them the “peaceable fruits of righteousness,” or “it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.” Why does he call it “peaceable fruit”? I think he must have had this in mind: When our life-troubles first come to us, the trouble in the trouble is the resistance of our wills, the warfare that we make over submission and obedience. But as we learn the Christ-lessons of afflictions, we gain the Christ-mastery over self-will, and then gradually, as afflictions come, there is little or no resistance, little or no warfare. Our souls gradually gain the peace of righteousness, the peace of right-mindedness, that can quietly say, facing each new woe—

“Is this Thy will, good Lord?

Thy servant weeps no more.”

“To them that have been exercised thereby.” You have had many a trouble; but have you been “exercised thereby”? Has your soul-life of love and submission and trust been exercised thereby? Can you gratefully recognise what God has done for you through times of strain and stress? Let us sit down beside St. Paul, and feel that he is writing for us, as truly as for himself, when he says—“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Heb_12:13. The Removal of Hindrances.—There are two ways of training children, and two ways of exerting our influence in the associations of life:

1. We may directly mould the child-mind, habits, and life to a pattern which we ourselves form.

2. We may watchfully and carefully take out of the child’s way everything that would hinder the child from naturally and healthily developing itself. This is the kind of influence which can be so wisely and helpfully exercised in the Church, and in the ordinary associations of life.

Heb_12:14. The Christian’s Race and Goal.—The idea running through this chapter is that this world is the Christian’s training for heaven. Our Christian course is compared to a race, which implies our effort; not to a voyage, in which we are borne by the effort of others. The images employed in Scripture imply the most sustained effort. A race which is to be run; a narrow path by which many shall seek to enter into life, and those only who strive shall enter; a battle to be won, which requires the whole armour of God, and this we are invited to put on. How far has the reception of the good news that “Christ died for all” really had the effect of leading men to live “not unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again”? How, then, are we to run this race that is set before us? The answer is, “Looking unto Jesus.” He is our pattern. Christian holiness is a growing conformity to the image of Christ. He saves both from the guilt and from the power of sin—gives purity as well as pardon. He has brought in everlasting righteousness.—Robert Barclay.

Peaceableness and Purity.—The connection between “peace” and “holiness” may profitably be thought out.

1. Peace as a state and condition, peace as an atmosphere, is the surrounding in which Christian holiness can alone thrive. Other good things may thrive in time of war: holiness cannot. There is a bloom on it which cannot stay unless the air is still.

2. But there is a more precise point in the text. It is this—the man who seeks peace, who “follows after peace,” is the man who will be sure to seek also holiness, and follow after purity. Let any one make for peace, keep peace, that man will be sure to make things clean, and keep things clean. He knows that the one thing that spoils peace is self-indulgence and sin.

The Peaceful Temper.—Christianity and worldly wisdom meet in conmending the duty of this text. Wise advice is, Beware of getting into quarrels with people. The reason for “following peace” which worldly prudence suggests is the quietness and happiness of life, which are interfered with by relations of enmity to others. The reason which religion gives is the duty of brotherly love, of which the peaceful disposition is a part. The frequency of the advice indicates that there is some strong prevailing tendency in human nature to which it is opposed. What can that tendency be? Some rush into quarrels from simple violence and impetuosity of temper, which prevents their examining the merits of a case, and permits them to see nothing but what favours their own side. And there is the malignant temper, which fastens vindictively upon particular persons. Men of this character pursue a grudge unceasingly, and never forget or forgive. There are also many persons who can never be neutral, or support a middle state of mind. If they do not positively like others, they will see some reason for disliking them; they will be irritable if they are not pleased; they will be enemies if they are not friends. This disposition has the necessary result of placing them in a kind of enmity towards numbers of persons to whom there is not the slightest real reason for feeling it. It is simply irksome to them to maintain an attitude of indifference and neutrality. The relation of peace towards others is exactly that which the temper described has such a difficulty in adopting. A state of peace is precisely this middle state to which such objection is made. It is not a state of active love and affection; nor is it a state that admits of any ill-feeling; but it lies between the two, comprehending all kindly intentions, forbidding the least wish for another’s injury, avoiding, as much as possible, dispute and occasion of offence, consulting order, quiet, and contentment, but not arriving at more than this. Peace implies the entire absence of positive ill-will. The apostle then says that this is our proper relation toward all men. More than this applies to some, but as much as this applies to all. Be in fellowship with all men, so far as to have nothing wrong in your relation to them—nothing to disunite. Is any other principle of conduct and kind of temper indeed fit for this world in which we live? There are so many obstacles to mutual understanding in this world, and so very thin a veil is enough to hide people from each other, that any other line is hopeless. Two reasons have much to do in promoting the temper to which we are referring:

1. It is very irksome to keep watch over ourselves, and to repel the intrusion of hostile thoughts by the simple resistance of conscience, when we are not assisted by any strong current of natural feeling in doing so.

2. The hostile classes of relation are evidently accompanied by their own pleasures in many temperaments. There is a kind of interest which people take in their own grievances, their own grudges, their own causes of offence at various people, their own discords and animosities, which occupies their thought, it must candidly be said, in a manner not disagreeable to themselves. They enjoy these states of mind towards others in their own way. It is with the entire knowledge of these weaknesses and frailties of human nature, and these elements of disturbance, even in minds of average goodness, that St. Paul said, “Follow peace with all men.” It is not without design that the two things “peace” and “holiness” were connected together by the apostle. A life of enmities is greatly in opposition to growth in holiness. All religious habits and duties—prayer, charity, mercy—are formed and matured when the man is in a state of peace with others, when he is not agitated by small selfish excitements and interests, which divert him from himself and his own path of duty, but can think of himself what he ought to do and where he is going.—J. B. Mozley, D.D.

Holiness bringing Sight of God.—

1. Seeing God is, to all Scripture writers, the very highest conception of bliss. Such a conception attests their superiority to ordinary men. What a sublime conception it is! It really means full, satisfying, up to capacity, knowledge of God. Present knowledge is not restful; the knowledge which comes by faith is. The future knowledge of God may be called “seeing,” in the sense of restful, satisfying, sure knowledge, but not in the sense of being absolutely complete. He must be God who can fully see God.

2. Holiness is, for all Scripture writers, the necessary condition of bliss. Here also is a conception beyond the reach of ordinary men. Holiness is an idea wholly limited to religion. The ordinary man reaches to conceive of goodness according to the standard of the Golden Rule. The religious man reaches to conceive of goodness as “godliness,” according to the standard of his spiritual apprehension of God. With that altogether higher conception all his life becomes higher-toned. See what belongs to the Scriptural idea of holiness.

(1) Sincerity—no guile.

(2) Right-principled.

(3) Right-hearted.

(4) Separated from.

(5) Consecrated to.

(6) Sanctified and sanctifying; white and whitening.

3. How does holiness become the condition of seeing God?

(1) Holiness is the trained vision that alone gives perfect sight.

(2) Holiness fully seen and apprehended is God. It is inseparable from Him. He is the embodiment of it to us. Like alone sees like. The holy alone can see the Holy One. But as our apprehension of holiness grows, we lift it more and more away into the future. It seems to be something attainable in the by-and-by alone. Then there is the danger of our becoming content with an imperfect Christian life now. It should therefore be duly impressed upon us that the Scripture sets holiness before us as present, and practical, and attainable. Absolute perfection is unattainable anywhere, in any world, by a dependent creature; but high measures of holiness are attainable by us, though we are creatures—attainable, if we will live the life of faith.

Heb_12:15-16. The Perils of Churches.—Our Lord made it quite clear that the sincere and insincere would be blended in His earthly Church; that no strict attempts could ever be wisely made to separate them; and that the presence of the insincere would have a disciplinary influence on the sincere. Dr. A. B. Bruce says: “In the parables of the tares and the drag-net, especially in the former, we are warned that in the future history of the kingdom there will appear a revolting and unnatural mixture of good and bad men, Christians and anti-Christians, children of the heavenly Father and children of Satan.… Christ deliberately recommends patience as the least of two evils, the other being the uprooting of wheat along with tares in headlong zeal to get rid of the noxious crop [of tares]; which implies a close inter-relationship between the two kinds of growths that may well seem an additional calamity.” St. Paul, in his address to the elders of Ephesus, pointed out the main sources of peril for Christian Churches. “I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” It is a point of importance to see that the supreme peril of any Church never comes with its circumstances, but always from the character and conduct of its members. The Church’s foes are traitors within the city.

I. Peril comes from the inconsistent member.—The man who is sincere, and has the grace of God; but fails to respond worthily to the grace; fails to order his life by the grace; fails to rise to the spiritual level to which the grace would lift him. The man who permits his life to be below the Christ-standard.

II. Peril comes from the quarrelsome member.—That is the “root of bitterness”—the man who makes disturbance, because nothing is ever to his mind, and somebody is always hurting his feelings. The quarrelsome man does the supreme mischief of introducing the quarrelsome spirit.

III. Peril comes from the insincere member.—There are those who are in the Church, but not of it. Their insincerity may be indicated in their

(1) profanity;

(2) in their immorality. There never can be any right sense of God when there is no cleanness, no moral self-restraint, in the life.

Heb_12:16. Selling the Birthright.—“So Esau despised his birthright.” It was done in a moment; but such moments cannot occur except as the epitome of years. There is a plant which is fabled to rush into crimson blossom once only in a hundred years; but even then all the hundred years have been causing, have been maturing, that one crimson flower. So it is with every great sin. It is but the ripened fruit of hundreds of little tendencies. Esau’s guilty moment was but the expression and heritage of all his past life. It was as a youth that he had sold his birthright; it was as a man, it was forty years afterwards, that the seed of that youthful profanity set into the bitter fruit of irreparable grief. It was forty years afterwards that he stood before his aged and trembling father, and found that what he had sold for a mess of pottage was not only the birthright, but the blessing, the glory, the dominion, the prosperity, of years. Then he read his boyish sin under the terrible glare flung upon it by its consequences. It is the epitome of retribution. What was Esau’s sin? He sold his birthright because he despised it; and he despised it because it was not a thing which he could see, or eat, or drink, or grasp with both hands; because it was a glory and a blessing which pertained not to the body, but to the soul. And is this sin rare? Is it not the very commonest of all sins? Is it not distinctly the sin to which every one of us is tempted? And why? Because all men have not faith; and this sin is the absence of faith, the opposite of all faith. For faith is the power to recognise the spiritual, and to trample on the carnal. Want of faith often looks like the sin of a moment, but it is the abstract of a tendency, it is the habit of a life. It is that profane self-indulgence to which an ideal blessing is as nothing compared to a momentary pleasure. What then is the birthright that each one of us has? It is the synthesis of all spiritual blessings. It is a body rightly endowed: it is a mind thrilling with bright affinities for all things beautiful and high; it is a spirit, in which are folded the wings which can soar to heaven, and hold communion with the Divine. It is life; the innocent brightness of childhood, the spring of youth, the force of manhood, the snowy and sunlit heights of age. Do men keep their birthright? Our birthright is innocence, holiness, peace with God, life, light, immortality. Where is the holiness of the liar, the schemer, the blasphemer? Where is the innocence of the drunkard? Where the peace with God of the impure? Yet there are among these crowds some who have not sold their birthright—some who, even in Sardis, have not stained their raiment; the holy, and the brave, and the merciful; the white souls who have toiled, and fought and overcome—souls “transparent as crystal, active as fire, unselfish as the ministering spirits, sweet and tender as grace; strong, generous, and enduring, as the hearts of martyrs.” But how comes it that all are not such? It is because, for one morsel of meat, they have sold their birthright. The one aim and object of all God’s education of us in life is the cherishing, the preserving, the securing, of our birthright. It is in youth that the birthright is most often sold. This should be the aim of every man who would make something of his life—to keep his birthright unimpaired, not to sell it for a mess of pottage, not to sell it for the careless hour or the sensual snare. That youth is in the highest sense well educated who by God’s grace passes into the battle of life strong, self-denying, pure; scorning mean pleasures, scorning vulgar comforts, scorning idle uselessness; brave to meet danger, brave to defy sin, brave to fight in the cause of God; strenuous to do and to do dare; ready to spring to the front in every good cause; not following the multitude to do evil. To be thus is to have the birthright of a man. To strengthen the higher, to control the lower, to enlist on the side of the higher every pure spiritual influence, to help you to win the tranquil mastery over yourselves—this should be your aim.

“One there is can curb myself,

Can roll this strangling load off me,

Break off my yoke and set me free.”

That one is Christ.—Farrar.

Profanity in the Home.—In Scripture there are few characters more profitable for study than Esau. Here is a man who came to sin by birth into it, by the sins of others as well as his own, by every-day and sordid temptations, by carelessness, and the sudden surprise of neglected passions. There is everything about Esau to engage us in the study of him. The mystery that haunts all human sin, the pity that we feel for so wronged and genial a nature, only make clear to us more fully the central want and blame of his life.

I. Esau was sinned against from his birth.—His father and mother were responsible for much of the character of their son. The marriage of Isaac and Rebecca began in a romance, and it ended in the sheerest vulgarity, just because, with all its grace and wonder, the fear of God was not present. Their introduction was very picturesque. The Nemesis of picturesqueness without truth is always sordidness; the Nemesis of romance without religion is always vulgarity; and vulgarity and sordidness are the prevailing notes of Isaac and Rebecca’s wedded life. Throughout we see a divided house—father and elder son upon one side, mother and younger son upon the other. Of such a false and hasty mother was Esau born, and he had her haste. Sin, whatever form it assumes, always works itself out, if not in the first generation, then in the next, to violent ends. The faults that spoiled Rebecca’s character were the same faults that ruined Esau’s life.

II. Esau got his “profane” character at home.—“Profane” means “thoroughfare.” A “profane” character means an open, common character, unhallowed, no guardian angel at the door, no gracious company within, no heavenly music pealing through it, no fire upon the altar, but open to his dogs and his passions, to his mother’s provocations, and his brother’s fatal wiles. The home was not walled in by reverence and truth, and the steadfast patience of father and mother.

III. In the subsequent tragedy we see the climax of minor vices.—Two habits came to their fatal head in Esau’s confession and his offer to sell his birthright (see Gen_25:30-34).

1. First, his hunger; second, exaggeration. The physical selfishness of hunger, stimulated by the mental selfishness of thinking and feeling in an exaggerated way about oneself, sprang to fatal empire, and at their bidding the deluded man sold his birthright, his life, and his honour. There are more people cheated out of their spiritual birthrights by ordinary selfishness than by great crimes. The habit of insisting upon getting our own way in every little matter distorts the true porportion of life to our eyes. The habit of thinking in an extravagant way about oneself, how often it cheats us out of the great chances of life, and renders us unfit for life’s noblest callings! Some are needed to take the lead in Church or State, for inspiration in the crowd, for God’s work; but a base love of comfort, a selfish exaggertion of their impotence or weakness, a cowardly succumbing to the sorrow that should have been the flood-tide to carry them to triumph, turned them from their idea and their God-given right.

2. The other point in the development of Esau’s tragedy is this—his passion made him the prey of the first designing man he came across. There is not a pleasure or a passion which to-day tempts any one, but there are men and women waiting to make something out of it for themselves, and to make fools of us. Let no one be deluded by either of the two great temptations to a life of pleasure—by the fancy that you are going to play the full-grown man in it, or by the fancy that you are going to enjoy a cordiality and a friendship that you will fail to find in more sober or steady circles.

IV. Let us get back to this word “profane.”—It is the centre of the whole evil. Fence your characters; make yourselves not common. Guard against little vices. Keep the virtue of truth. Jealously guard your hearts from the vulgar world; jealously fill them with the inhabitants of the world of holiness and truth. An empty mind is the unsafest and unhallowedest thing in the world.

V. God has provided something more for us than guardian angels: He has given us a Saviour.—A Saviour sufficient for the world. Let Him dwell in your hearts by faith, and, like Jacob, you may be lifted from your low level to the very heights of spiritual character and genius.—Prof. G. Adam Smith.

Heb_12:17. Lost Opportunities.—This verse is easily misapprehended. It is quite misused when it is made to mean that a man may at some time want to repent, and find repentance impossible. It is equally misused when it is made to mean that a man may seek forgiveness from God, and fail to gain it. All that is said is, that Isaac, having given the blessing, refused to undo what he had done.

Estimating the Value of Things Lost.—Wonderful is the intelligence with which we can perceive the value of anything we have lost. The collector of household treasures is cited, who in his daily walks may see in a shop-window a little bit of china, a picture, an apostle spoon, a quaint old volume, which he intends to bargain for one day when he shall have leisure; so he passes it a hundred times, indifferent as to its merits, half uncertain whether it is worth buying. But he discovers some day that it is gone; and then in a moment the doubtful shepherdess becomes the rarest old china, the dirty-looking bit of landscape an undeniable Crome, the battered silver spoon an unquestionable antique, the quaintly bound book a choice Elzevir. “The thing is lost; and we regret it for all that it might have been, as well as for all that it was, and there are no bounds to the extravagance we would commit to regain the chance of possessing it.” This is but the subjunctive or potential mood of what is simply but largely indicative in Scott’s sufficiently commonplace couplet—

“Those who such simple joys have known

Are taught to prize them when they’re gone.”

Francis Jacox.

Blessings Estimated when they have Vanished.—Possession drowns, or at least mightily cools, contentment. Want teaches us the worth of things more truly. How sweet a thing seems liberty to one immured in a dungeon! How dear a jewel is health to him who is in sickness! I have known many who have loved their dead friends better than ever they esteemed them in their lifetime.… When we have lost a benefit, the mind has time to reflect on its several advantages, which she then finds to be many more than she was aware of while in possession of it. It is a true remark, that blessings appear not till they have vanished.—Owen Feltham.

Belated Appreciation of Blessings Past.—Coming home faint from the field, Esau, that cunning hunter and man of the woods, preferred to his birthright a meal of Jacob’s bread and pottage of lentils. Behold, he was a-hungered; felt even at the point to die of hunger: what profit should that birthright do to him? Let it go. And it went. Thus Esau despised his birthright. Time passes; and we see the red hunter, even Edom, plying his aged father with savoury meat, that Isaac may eat of his son’s venison, and bless his elder-born, before he die. But the blessing is forestalled. The subtle purchaser of the birthright is the fraudulent possessor of the blessing. In vain, for all too late, is Esau’s great and exceeding bitter cry, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!” The blessing is gone, like the birthright. For one morsel of meat was the birthright bartered. And he who stigmatises the barterer as a “profane person” tells us that we know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance—τόπον μετανοίας: by some of our best commentators referred to Isaac, who could not be induced to alter his decision, though the disinherited suppliant sought it carefully with tears. A morsel of meat was worth more than the birthright till the birthright was gone. Gone, the valuation of it was declared with streaming eyes and an exceeding bitter cry, with, as it were, groanings that could not be uttered—a flood of unavailing tears, shed all the more because shed in vain. And such is the way of the world.—Francis Jacox.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

12:9 The author argues from lesser to greater (see study note on 9:14). Here, the lesser situation is the respect shown to an earthly father when he is giving discipline. We should submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits in the more important context of our relationship with God. We should adopt a posture of yielding to God as to a good Father, trusting that he is helping us grow even through painful circumstances.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Heb 12:9. Εἶτα) then. A particle, which follows the argument that had been laid down, and urges still further the hearer. See note on Chrysost. περὶ ἱερως., p. 462.—τοὺς μὲν τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν πατέρας, the fathers indeed of our flesh) An antithesis to τῷ πατρὶ τῶν πιευμάτων, to the Father of spirits. Generation by men is carnal; by GOD, is spiritual. Here the propagation of the soul by parents is not denied, even as by mentioning spirits it is not denied that our flesh, i.e. our nature, is formed by GOD.—εἴχομεν) we had, we endured with equanimity, in early life.—καὶ ἐνετρεπόμεθα) The fruit of discipline is to be turned to virtue and practice. Eustathius observes in Homer, ἐντρέπεσθαι, τὸ ἐπιστρέφεσθαι, μετα βάλλεσθαι; but also the LXX. have ἐντρέπεσθαι for נכנע, 2Ch 7:14; 2Ch 12:7; 2Ch 12:12; 2Ch 30:11; 2Ch 36:12, etc.—τῷ Πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων, to the Father of spirits) An exquisite title; comp. πνεύμασι, to the spirits, Heb 12:23. So LXX. Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς τῶν πνευμάτων, the Lord God of the spirits, Num 27:16, also Num 26:22.—καὶ ζήσομεν, and we shall live) in the spiritual and everlasting life. This is explained in the following verse. Often spirit and life are mentioned together: καὶ, and, has the consecutive (consequential) power (and therefore, and so), as just before καὶ ἐνετρεπόμεθα, and we reverenced.

Heb 12:9. That passage, John 6, concerning the eating of Christ’s flesh and the drinking of His blood, is very emphatic; we must not however stretch the meaning of the words too far. For Jesus there (as He sometimes did against harsh gainsayers) used a metaphorical mode of expression quite extraordinary, which He did not use to His disciples either before or after. The word truly must be explained from Joh 15:1, I am the true vine: where the metaphor however remains, and that too in the predicate. In that sentence, My flesh is truly meat, the word truly does not affect the predicate, but the copula is; so that the fact may be established (asserted) in opposition to the contradiction. From the beginning and at the end of the conversation, the eating of Christ’s flesh and the drinking of His blood (as John 3 the new birth) are resolved into Faith. By such representations the precaution is used, that no one may understand faith in too weak and shallow (slight) a sense; and we are taught by the phrases concerning faith, that the harshness of these representations (the difficulty in the images used to represent it) does not exceed what is just and proper.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb_12:9-10, a second argument follows. The readers must not become disheartened at the sufferings imposed upon them. For not only is there to be seen, in the fact of their having to struggle with afflictions, the manifestation that God treats them as His children; it is, moreover, the heavenly Father who visits them with this chastening, and that for the very reason that He has their own highest good in view.

εἶτα] then, further, deinde. Not to be taken as an interrogative particle, with Alberti, Raphel, Heinrichs, and others. For otherwise the discourse would have proceeded in the second half of the verse with καὶ οὐ πολὺ μᾶλλον, instead of the mere οὐ πολὺ μᾶλλον. Ingeniously, but without constraining reason, does Reiche (Commentar. crit. p. 121) conjecture εἴ τε instead of εἶτα, while quite unsuitably Hofmann will comprehend εἶτα with the closing words of Heb_12:8.

τοὺς τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν πατέρας] fathers of our flesh, i.e. our bodily, earthly fathers.

εἴχομεν παιδευτὰς καὶ ἐνετρεπόμεθα] we had as chasteners, and heeded them, i.e. we gave heed when we had them as chasteners. Inasmuch as the author is addressing grown-up persons, the imperfects characterize the period of the bygone youth (we used to give heed). The combining of ἐντρέπεσθαι, however, with the accusative of the object is in later Greek style the ordinary one. With the earlier authors the genitive is used.

The absolute statement εἶτα … ἐεντρεπόμεθα takes the place of a hypothetical premiss (comp. Heb_10:28 f.; 1Co_7:18; 1Co_7:21, al.), and the whole verse contains an argument a minore ad majus.

οὐ πολὺ μᾶλλον ὑποταγησόμεθα τῷ πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων καὶ ζήσομεν;] shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and (i.e. so that we in consequence thereof) live? By ὁ πατὴρ τῶν πνευμάτων naturally God is meant. With Hammond, to think of Christ, is forbidden by the connection (comp. Heb_12:7). To the Father of spirits, i.e. God, who is Father in regard to the higher spiritual domain of life. That God, as the Creator of all things, is the Final Cause also of the bodily life of man, is a fact not excluded by the expression; only that which is the main thing as concerns Gods fatherly relation is here emphasized. ὁ πατὴρ τῶν πνευμάτων does not designate God as Creator of the souls, in the sense of Creatianism as opposed to Traducianism (Calvin, Estius, Justinian, Beza, Jac. Cappellus, Drusius, Carpzov, Delitzsch, Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 678; Kurtz, al.). Nor as the One who makes provision for our souls (Morus, Dindorf, Kuinoel, Böhme, and others). Just as little is πνεύματα to be understood of the angels (Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact: ἢ τῶν ἀσωμάτων δυνάμεων), or the gifts of the Spirit (Theodoret: πατέρα πνενμάτων τὸν πνευματικὸν πατέρα κέκληκεν ὡς τῶν πνευματικῶν χαρισμάτων πηγήν. Comp. Chrysostom, Oecumenius, and Theophylact). It is possible there was present to the mind of the author the characterization of God, LXX. Num_16:22; Num_27:16, as a θεὸς τῶν πνευμάτων καὶ πάσης σαρκός.

καὶ ζήσομεν] Declaration of the result of this obedience, in the form of a parallel arrangement. ζῆν of the enjoyment of the everlasting life of bliss, as Heb_10:38; Rom_8:13, and frequently.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 12:9 . With εἶτα a fresh phase of the argument is introduced. [Raphel in loc . is of opinion that εἶτα here as frequently in the classics is “nota interrogantis cum vehementia et quasi indignatione quadam”; but it gives a better construction if we take it in the sense of “further” as in 1Co 12:5 ; 1Co 12:7 , and Mar 4:28 , πρῶτον χόρτον , εἶτα στάχυν , εἶτα πλήρης σῖτος .] The argument is, “the fathers of our flesh we used to have as trainers, and we had them in reverence; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of our spirits and live?” The article before πνευμάτων makes it probable that there is no reference to angels but only an antithesis to τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν . The position of the two words σαρκός and πνευμάτων confirms this. καὶ ζήσομεν is unexpected, and is inserted to balance καὶ ἐνετρεπόμεθα [on this verb see Anz. p. 269] in the rhythm of the sentence. The thought is that only by subjection to the Father of our spirit can we have life. Delitzsch maintains that this verse strongly favours the theory of Creationism and quotes Hugo de S. Victore, “Nota diligenter hanc authoritatem, per quam manifeste probatur, quod animae non sunt ex traduce sicut caro”. It is safer to say with Davidson, “It is as a spirit, or on his spiritual side, that man enters into close relation with God; and this leads to the conception that God is more especially the Author of man’s spirit, or Author of man on his spiritual side, and to designations such as those in Num 16:22 ”. Modern science scouts Creationism; although if Wallace’s idea of the evolution of man be accepted it might find encouragement.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thirdly, if all men yield this right to fathers, to whom next after God we owe this life, that they may rightfully correct their children, shall we not be much more subject to that our Father, who is the Author of the spiritual and everlasting life?

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

fathers . . . which corrected us--rather as Greek, "We had the fathers of our flesh as correctors."

subjection--See the punishment of insubordination, Deu 21:18.

Father of spirits--contrasted with "the fathers of our flesh." "Generation by men is carnal, by God is spiritual" [BENGEL]. As "Father of spirits," He is both the Originator, and the Providential and Gracious Sustainer, at once of animal and spiritual life. Compare "and LIVE," namely, spiritually; also Heb 12:10, "that we might be partakers of His holiness" (Pe2 1:4). God is a spirit Himself, and the Creator of spirits like Himself, in contrast to men who are flesh, and the progenitors of flesh (Joh 3:6). Jesus our pattern "learned obedience" experimentally by suffering (Heb 5:8).

and live--and so, thereby live spiritually and eternally.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 9. We have had fathers of our flesh] The fathers of our flesh, i.e. our natural parents, were correctors; and we reverenced them, notwithstanding their corrections often arose from whim or caprice: but shall we not rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits; to him from whom we have received both body and soul; who is our Creator, Preserver, and Supporter; to whom both we and our parents owe our life and our blessings; and who corrects us only for our profit; that we may live and be partakers of his holiness? The apostle in asking, Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? alludes to the punishment of the stubborn and rebellious son, De 21:18-21: "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and mother lay hold on him and bring him to the elders of the city, and they shall say, This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice: and all the men of the city shall stone him with stones that he DIE." Had he been subject to his earthly parents, he would have lived; because not subject, he dies. If we be subject to our heavenly Father, we shall LIVE, and be partakers of his holiness; if not, we shall DIE, and be treated as bastards and not sons. This is the sum of the apostle's meaning; and the fact and the law to which he alludes.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, etc. This comparison has several parts: the first is, that if we showed so much reverence to the fathers from whom we have descended according to the flesh, as to submit to their discipline, much more honor is due to God who is our spiritual Father; another is, that the discipline which fathers use as to their children is only useful for the present life, but that God looks farther, having in view to prepare us for an eternal life; and the third is, that men chastise their children as it seems good to them, but that God regulates his discipline in the best manner, and with perfect wisdom, so that there is nothing in it but what is duly ordered. He then, in the first place, makes this difference between God and men, that they are the fathers of the flesh, but he of the spirit; and on this difference he enlarges by comparing the flesh with the spirit.

But it may be asked, Is not God the Father also of our flesh? For it is not without reason that Job mentions the creation of men as one of the chief miracles of God: hence on this account also he is justly entitled to the name of Father. Were we to say that he is called the Father of spirits, because he alone creates and regenerates our souls without the aid of man, it might be said again that Paul glories in being the spiritual father of those whom he had begotten in Christ by the Gospel. To these things I reply, that God is the Father of the body as well as of the soul, and, properly speaking, he is indeed the only true Father; and that this name is only as it were by way of concession applied to men, both in regard of the body and of the soul. As, however, in creating souls, he does use the instrumentality of men, and as he renews them in a wonderful manner by the power of the Spirit, he is peculiarly called, by way of eminence, the Father of spirits.

When he says, and we gave them reverence, he refers to a feeling implanted in us by nature, so that we honor parents even when they treat us harshly. By saying, in subjection to the Father of spirits, he intimates that it is but just to concede to God the authority he has over us by the right of a Father. By saying, and live, he points out the cause or the end, for the conjunction “and” is to be rendered that, — “that we may live.” Now we are reminded by this word live, that there is nothing more ruinous to us than to refuse to surrender ourselves in obedience to God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(9) Furthermore we have had fathers.—Rather, Furthermore we had the fathers of our flesh as chasteners (i.e., to chasten us). The thought of the former verses has been, “He chastens as a lather.” From likeness we here pass to contrast. The contrast drawn is between our natural parents and “the Father of spirits” (comp. Num_16:22; Num_27:16; Zec_12:1)—the Creator of all spirits, who is the Giver of life to all, who knows the spirit which He has made (see Psa_94:9-10) and can discipline it by His chastening.

And live.—Since the life of the spirit subsists only in union with Him.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. unto the Father of spirits] God might be called “the Father of the spirits,” as having created Angels and Spirits; but more probably the meaning is “the Father of our spirits,” as in Num_16:22, “the God of the spirits of all flesh.” God made our bodies and our souls, but our spirits are in a yet closer relation to Him (Job_12:10; Job_32:8; Job_33:4; Ecc_12:7; Zec_12:1; Isa_42:5, &c.). If it meant “the Author of spiritual gifts,” the expression would be far-fetched and would be no contrast to “the father of our flesh.” Here and in Heb_7:10 theologians have introduced the purely verbal, meaningless, and insoluble dispute about Creationism and Traducianism—i.e. as to whether God separately creates the soul of each one of us, or whether we derive it through our parents by hereditary descent from Adam.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh,.... Earthly parents; who are so called, because they are the immediate causes and instruments of the generation of their children, and of their fleshly bodies and worldly beings; and to distinguish them from the Father of spirits: and this shows, that they have not the spirit or soul from them, only the flesh or body, and which is frail and corrupt; and therefore goes by this name.

Which corrected us; early, and at proper seasons, in love, and for instruction, and to prevent ruin, and death:

and we gave them reverence; by submitting to their correction, and hearkening to it; by taking shame to themselves, and acknowledging the offence committed; by retaining the same affection for them; and, by a carefulness not to offend for the future.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? that is, to God, who is so called; not because he is the Creator of angels, who are spirits; but because he is the Creator of the souls of men; the soul is the more noble and excellent part of man: it bears a resemblance to God; it is, the life of man, and is immortal; it is exceeding precious, and the redemption of it; this was at first immediately created by God; and he still continues to create souls, which he preserves in their being, and has the power of saving and destroying them. Besides, God may be so called, because he is the author and donor of all spiritual gifts, and particularly of regenerating grace; it is he who renews a right spirit in them, and puts a new spirit into them: now such ought to be in "subjection" to him; not only as creatures to a Creator, and as subjects to their prince: but as children to a father, and particularly to him, as and when correcting; they should bow to his sovereignty, resign to his will, be humble under his mighty hand, be still and quiet, and bear all patiently; the advantage arising from such a subjection is life: "and live"; or "that ye may live"; or "and ye shall live": more comfortably, and more to the glory of God, in communion and fellowship with him here, and in heaven to all eternity.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

Ver. 9. And we gave them reverence] Pater est, si pater non esses, &c., It is my father, &c. This cooled the boiling rage of the young man in Terence. Nicolas of Jenvile, a young French martyr, when he was condemned and set in the cart, his father coming with a staff would have beaten him; but the officers, not suffering it, would have struck the old man. The son crying to the officers, desired them to let his father alone, saying he had power over him to do what he would.

And live] For corrections of instruction (and God never chastiseth but withal he teacheth, Psa 94:12) are the way of life, Pro 6:23; Pro 15:31. See my Love Tokens.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Furthermore - As an additional consideration to induce us to receive chastisement with submission. The argument in this verse is derived from the difference in the spirit and design with which we are corrected by God and by an earthly parent. In God everything is without any intermingling of passion or any improper feeling. In an earthly parent there is often much that is the result of hasty emotion, of an irascible temper, perhaps of the mere love of power. There is much that is inflicted without due reflection, and that produces only pain in the bosom of the parent himself in the recollection. Yet with all this imperfection of parental government, we were patient and unmurmuring. How much more should we submit to one whose paternal discipline is caused by no excited feeling; by no love of power; by no want of reflection, and which never furnishes occasion for regret!

Fathers of our flesh - Earthly fathers; those from whom we have derived our being here. They are contrasted here with God, who is called “the Father of spirits,” not because the father does not sustain the paternal relation to the soul as well as the body, but to designate the nature of the dominion over us. The dominion of God is what pertains to a spiritual kingdom, having more direct reference to the discipline of the soul, and being designed to prepare us for the spiritual world; that of the earthly father pertains primarily to our condition here, and the discipline is designed to subdue our unruly passions, to teach us to restrain our appetites, to inculcate maxims of health and prosperity, and to prevent those things which would impede our happiness in the present world. See, however, many curious instances of the manner in which these phrases were used by the Jewish writers, collected by Wetstein.

We gave them reverence - We submitted to them; honored them; loved them. Painful at the time as correction may have been, yet when we have fully understood the design of it, we have loved them the more. The effect of such discipline, properly administered, is to produce real veneration for a parent - for he who in a timely and appropriate manner restrains his child is the only one who will secure ultimate reverence and respect.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection - Since God’s government is so much more perfect; since he has so much better right to control us; and since his administration is free from all the defects which attend parental discipline on earth, there is a much higher reason for bowing with submission and reverence to him.

The Father of spirits - Thus, in Num 16:22, God is called “the God of the spirits of all flesh;” so also Num 27:16; compare Job 33:4. The idea seems to be that, as the soul is the most important part of man, this name is given to God by way of eminence, or he is eminently and supremely our Father. It was his to create the immortal part, and to that spirit which is never to die he sustains the relation of Father. The earthly father is parent to the man as mortal; God is the Father of man as immortal. God is himself a spirit. Angels and human souls, therefore, may be represented as especially his offspring. It is the highest designation which could be given to God to say that he is at the head of the universe of mind; not implying that he is not also at the head of the material universe, but designing to bring into view this high characteristic of the Almighty, that all created minds throughout the universe sustain to him the relation of children. To this Great Being we should, therefore, more cheerfully subject ourselves than to an earthly parent.

And live - Meaning that his fatherly chastisements are adapted to secure our spiritual life. He corrects us that he may promote our final happiness, and his inflictions are the means of saving us from eternal death.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us: he enforceth the duty of not despising nor fainting under the Lord’s chastening, from the consideration of his being our Father, and better than any earthly one, and from his goodness in that relation, and therefore we ought to submit to it: We have had our natural parents, as we are children, and who were the subordinate cause of our being as to our bodies, Heb 7:5,10, and they were instructors and correctors of us, made use of the rod as well as the word for our nurture; they have whipped and chastised us, putting us to smart and pain, 2Sa 7:14; Pro 22:15.

And we gave them reverence; enetrepomeya, imports a turning of bowels and spirits within them towards their fathers, covered with shame and blushing for their faults, and afraid to look them, when offended, in the face; reverencing them chastening, and submitting to the penalty, so as to reform and turn from the faults for which they were corrected.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits? The expostulation shows the vehemency of the argument more than a simple position. It is the highest reason, of all right we must and ought (being as much our privilege as duty) to deny ourselves, and be in in that subjection, the free and willing subordination of our spirits to God, as the rod calls for it, receiving the correction, reforming under it, and resigning our souls to him who is the Creator of them as to their natural and spiritual being, and the Sovereign, Guardian, Protector, and Disposer of them; men nor angels have any power over them, but this Father of them only, and his great work and concern is about them, Gen 2:7; Num 27:16; Ecc 12:7; Zec 12:1.

And live; by his chastening of our spirits, our immortal souls, Joh 3:6; Rom 8:5,6, he is furnishing them with more spiritual life, whereby they are enabled to live and move wholly to God, from grace to glory. He makes them live more the life of God, which God in flesh lived on earth, Gal 2:20; Eph 4:18; Phi 1:21; 1Pe 4:6; 1Jo 3:9. This chastening promotes this honourable life as an instrument and means in God’s hand, and advanceth it daily, till it is perfected in eternal life, Act 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; 8:18; 2Co 4:17,18; Jas 1:12; Jud 1:22.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. Furthermore—The parallelism of the divine Fatherhood with the human tells infinitely for the former, and for the rightness of the chastisement. The human is often capricious, the divine always right.

Fathers of our flesh… Father of spirits—Here appears a clear distinction between the origin of our flesh, or bodies, in the course of nature from our parents, and the origin of our spirits, above nature, from God. Not without some apparent reason have some of the earliest and greatest Christian doctors distinguished between the vegetable, the animal, and the spiritual elements in our natures. The first, man shares in common with all vegetable nature, being the vis formativa, the formative energy, the organizing principle, the plastic power which forms the body according to its type; which is simply the divine agency, as cause of causes, acting under form of finite causations and successions. It implies no thought or personal intelligence in the organism itself. Next comes the animal soul, a sensibility of the five senses to external objects, with powers of association, and impulses to action in accordance with the forces of impressions. Both these are the offspring of the course of nature. Above them, and embracing and absorbing them into itself, is the spirit, whereby man is cognizant of the Infinite, and knows God, and is conscious of himself, and learns his own immortality. As this comes from God alone, so human parents are only the fathers of our flesh, while God is the Father of spirits. And these views, perhaps, furnish a settlement of the dispute between the Traducianists, who believed that the entire human soul is born of the human parent, and the Creationists, who held that all souls are created. The human spirit is created, the vegetable and animal elements in man are born. And physiology seems to show that the human embryo passes through these three stages. See notes on 1Co_15:44.

In subjection… and live—Live, namely, that spiritual life which depends upon our obedient subjection unto the Father of spirits.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us (more correctly, we once had, or, we used to have, the fathers of our flesh as chasteners), and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? This introduces an fortiori argument. We are reminded of the days of our youth, while we were under parental discipline, and bore with it submissively: much more should we submit to the discipline of our heavenly Father, to whom we are as children under training all our life long! Commentators differ as to what is exactly meant by the contrast between "the fathers of our flesh" and "the Father of spirits (twn pneumatwn)." Some (among moderns Delitzsch) find here a support to the theory of creationism as against traducianism; i.e. that the soul of each individual, as distinct from the body, is a new creation, not transmitted from the parents. This view would have more to go on than it has, were we justified in implying hmwn after pneumatwn (our spirits," in opposition to our flesh," preceding). But twn pneumatwn seems evidently meant to be understood generally; and the expression (suggested probably by Num_16:22 and Num_27:16, "The God of the spirits of all flesh") need imply only that, though God is the original Author of flesh as well as spirit, yet the latter, whether in man or otherwise existing, has in a peculiar sense its parentage from him. (cf. Gen_2:7, "The LORD GOD formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul;" also Job_33:4, "The Spirit of the LORD hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life Our earthly parents transmit to us our carnal existence; our spiritual part, in whatever mysterious way derived or inspired, is duo to our Divine parentage; and it is in respect of this that we are God"s children and accountable to him. But, as has been intimated above, it is not human spirits only that are here in the writer"s view. God is the Father of all "the spirits," whether in the flesh or not; all are of Divine parentage, for God himself is Spirit Pneuma o Yeov . (Joh_4:24) Chrysostom explains thus: Tw patri twn pneumatwn legei, htoi twn eucwn yucwn htoi twn aswmatwn dunamewn ..

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And we reverenced them - We neither despised nor fainted under their correction. Shall we not much rather - Submit with reverence and meekness To the Father of spirits - That we may live with him for ever. Perhaps these expressions, fathers of our flesh, and Father of spirits, intimate that our earthly fathers are only the parents of our bodies, our souls not being originally derived from them, but all created by the immediate power of God; perhaps, at the beginning of the world.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The object of God’s chastening:

v. 9. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live?

v. 10. For they, verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.

v. 11. Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

v. 12. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

v. 13. and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

Another consideration of the argument is here introduced: Further, fathers of our flesh we had to discipline us, and we gave them reverence; should we not much rather subject ourselves to the Father of spirits and live? The conclusion is from the smaller to the greater. We Christians, with the average run of humanity, had human fathers, parents of our own flesh and blood, who had charge of our training, including the necessary chastening, which cannot be omitted without disastrous results. To these fathers we gave honor and respect according to the Fourth Commandment. But if we did so much for our earthly fathers, who were, after all, merely human, does it not follow that our attitude toward the heavenly Father, the Father of spirits, whom we worship, with whom we come in contact, in the spirit, should be one of cheerful and obedient subjection? For in doing so, aside from the fact that the duty seems so obvious, this obedient relation toward God, flowing out of faith as it does, gives us the true spiritual life.

That this thought is altogether reasonable, and should appeal to all readers at once, the author now shows: For they, indeed, for a few days disciplined us as it seemed best to them, but He for our advantage, that we may be partakers of His holiness. The truth of the comparison is obvious. The earthly fathers had charge of our training for only a short while, during the short period of childhood and youth, and the training which they gave during this time was certainly done in accordance with the ideals which they had set before them, subject nevertheless, however, to mistakes, especially as to the means employed and the degrees of severity used in various instances. But the discipline of God is without fail, always to our advantage; He never makes a mistake in the kind and in the amount of suffering which He has us endure. For it is by this training that we are brought to that degree of holiness which He desires us to possess. His chastening constantly reminds us of the duty which we owe Him, and we are thus trained in His discipleship more and more.

The author here answers an objection which some reader may make: All discipline, indeed, seems for the time to be not joy, but grief; but afterwards it yields, to those that are disciplined by it, the peaceable fruit of righteousness. The writer has throughout spoken of God’s discipline in a most enthusiastic strain, and his ardor is not dampened by the objection which will tend to arise, at least in the hearts of such as are still weak in faith, that suffering of all kinds is a most unpleasant experience. That, indeed, is true: while the discipline lasts, while God permits the suffering to strike us, it certainly is a matter of pain and not of joy. But without training, correction, wholesome restraint, strict regulations, and an occasional punishment the aim of God cannot be accomplished with regard to His children. It is therefore solely in our interest that He uses this method. The result invariably is that those who are exercised and trained by it will be able to bear such peaceable fruit of righteousness as is well-pleasing to the heavenly Father. It is through this training of the Lord that our faith is rendered pure, true, precious, that we ourselves are thoroughly prepared, strengthened, founded unto eternal salvation, 1Pe 1:6-9; 1Pe 5:10; Rom 8:25; Rom 5:3-5.

This being true, the appeal may be made with full force: Wherefore lift up the listless hands and the paralyzed knees, and make the paths straight for your feet to walk in, that the lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed. Listless, nerveless hands and weak, paralyzed knees are not the members which should be found in true Christians, Isa 35:3. Knowing that the Lord always has thoughts of peace with regard to them, they can rely upon His promise, which He will keep without fail, Isa 40:29-31. Instead of walking with unsteady feet, as under the weight of a heavy load, which tends to bear him down to the ground, every Christian should let his feet go straight before him along the path of sanctification as prepared by Christ, swerving neither to the right nor to the left, Pro 4:26-27; Isa 30:21. If this is the case, then also the lame and limping, those Christian brothers that are still weak in the faith, will not be discouraged and turned quite out of the way, but will be given an opportunity of being healed of their spiritual infirmity. If the stronger believers are always firm and steadfast in all matters pertaining to sanctification and the discipleship of Christ, then their example will serve as an aid to the weaker brethren, causing them to follow the Master without doubt and without flinching until they reach the goal above, Isa 35:5-6.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These words are a fresh argument to persuade christians to a patient enduring of divine chastisements; the argument is drawn from the less to the greater, thus: "If our earthly parents chastened us only for a few days, and after their own pleasure, and yet we were subject to them, how much more ought we to be subject to God our heavenly Father, who chastens us for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness?"

Note here, 1. Earthly parents do and may chastise the children of their flesh, and they ought to reverence them for so doing, and pay a reverential submission for their parental chastisement.

Note, 2. That the motive of, and rule which parents too often follow in correcting of their children, is their own will and pleasure: They have frequently a greater regard to their own passions, than to their children’s advantage, and correct oftener in humour than in reason; erring sometimes in the matter, sometimes in the manner, sometimes in the measure, of their correction.

Note, 3. That great is the difference between divine and parental chastisements.

1. In their author; one is the father of our flesh, the other of our souls and spirits, they are the immediate product of his power, which is a fundamental reason for our patient submission to God, in and under all afflictions.

2. In their end; the one for their own pleasure, the other for his children’s profit, to make them partakers of his holiness, by renovation, sanctification, and mortification: The carrying on of these things in us, is that which God designs in all his chastisements.

Learn hence, that we can have no greater pledge and assurance of divine love in afflictions than this, that God by them brings us nearer to himself, and makes us more like himself; if under divine chastisements we find no increase of holiness, they are utterly lost, and we have nothing but the trouble and sorrow of them.

Note lastly, The duty we owe to God, the Father of spirits, and that is, subjection, together with the benefit and advantage of it: By being in subjection to the Father of spirits, we shall live.

Now this subjection unto God, consists in an acquiescence in his right and sovereignty to do what he will with his own, in an acknowledgment of his wisdom and righteousness in all his dealings with us, in a mighty sense of his care and love, and in an entire resignation of ourselves to his holy will in all things.

And behold the advantage and benefit of this subjection to God in our chastisements; we shall live a spiritual life on earth, and an eternal life in heaven. The rebellious son, under the law, that refused subjection to his earthly parent, was stoned to death, Deu 21:18 and died without mercy; but they who yield subjection to God in their chastisements shall live and not die.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. We have had fathers … which corrected us. Every judicious father corrects his children in some way. Shall we not then submit cheerfully to the heavenly Father's correction? Father of spirits. Our earthly parents are the parents of our bodies; God is the creator of all spirits, and the author of our spiritual life. When we are born of the Spirit our new life is due to God and we are begotten as his children.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!

The author uses an exclamation to emphasize that we should obey God the Father. This can be expressed as a statement. AT: "Therefore even more so, we should obey the Father of spirits and live." (See: Exclamations)

the Father of spirits

This idiom contrasts with "fathers in the flesh." AT: "our spiritual Father" or "our Father in heaven" (See: Idiom)

and live

"so that we will live"

so that we can share in his holiness

This metaphor speaks of "holiness" as if it were an object that can be shared among people. AT: "so that we may become holy as God is holy" (See: Metaphor)

it produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness

"Fruit" here is a metaphor for "result" or "outcome." AT: "it produces the peaceful result of righteousness" or "it produces righteousness, which results in peace" (See: Metaphor)

who have been trained by it

"who have been trained by discipline." The discipline or correction done by the Lord is spoken of as if it were the Lord himself. This can be stated in active form. AT: "whom God has trained by disciplining them" (See: Personification and Active or Passive)

translationWords

obey

God the Father

spirit

life

holy

peace

fruit

righteous

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

9. ἐνετρεπόμεθα. In classical Greek this verb is found with the gen. but in later Greek with an acc. as here. Comp. Mat 21:37, ἐντραπήσονται τὸν υἱόν μου, Luk 18:4, ἄνθρωπον οὐκ ἐντρέπομαι.

τῷ πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων. God might be called “the Father of the spirits,” as having created Angels and Spirits; but more probably the meaning is “the Father of our spirits,” as in Num 16:22, “the God of the spirits of all flesh.” God made our bodies and our souls, but our spirits are in a yet closer relation to Him (Job 12:10; Job 32:8; Job 33:4; Ecc 12:7; Zec 12:1; Isa 42:5, &c.). If it meant “the Author of spiritual gifts,” the expression would be far-fetched, and would be no contrast to “the father of our flesh.” Here and in Heb 7:10 theologians have introduced the purely verbal, meaningless, and insoluble dispute about Creationism and Traducianism—i.e. as to whether God separately creates the soul of each one of us, or whether we derive it through our parents by hereditary descent from Adam.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9.] Then again (εἶτα brings in a fresh argument: “furthermore,” as E. V. “deinde considerare debemus,” Primas. It is taken interrogatively here by Raphel, al., as in Plato, Apol. Socr. p. 28 b, εἶτʼ οὐκ αἰσχύνει, ὦ Σώκρατες κ.τ.λ.; But, 1. this would be only admissible in the case of strong indignation being expressed, which is not so here: and, 2. it would certainly require καὶ οὐ πολὺ μᾶλλον κ.τ.λ.),—we once had (imperfect, of a state of former habit) the fathers of our flesh (see below) as chastisers (τοὺς πατ. is the object, παιδευτάς the predicate: not as E. V., “we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us” (πατέρας μὲν τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν εἴχομεν τοὺς παιδεύοντας)) and reverenced them (reff.: ἐντρέπομαι is found in classical Greek with a gen. of the object, e. g. τί βαιὸν ἐντρέπει σῆς συμμάχου; Soph. Aj. 90: but in later (e. g. LXX, Polyb., Dionys., Diod. Sic., Plutarch, al.) and N. T. Greek with an accus.): shall we not much rather be in subjection (so the E. V. well expresses the subjective force of the fut. pass.) to the Father of spirits (or, ‘of our spirits,’ understanding ἡμῶν again. But (see also below) the other is more majestic, and more in accord with the text which probably was before the Writer’s mind, Num 16:22, θεὸς τῶν πνευμάτων καὶ πάσης σαρκός, and again 27:16) and live (viz. in life eternal, as in reff.)? An enquiry arises out of the πατέρας, τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν and πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων here, in what sense our earthly fathers are said to be the fathers of our flesh, and God the Father of (our) spirits. To deal with the latter first: several explanations have been given. Understanding ἡμῶν, some have taken it as, the Creator of human souls. So Primasius (“creator animorum”), Thl. (as Chrys. below, but preferring this), and among the moderns, Calvin, Beza, Jac. Cappell., Estius, Justiniani, Wetst., Heinrichs, Ernesti, al., and more recently Delitzsch, as a proof of the doctrine of Creationism (the direct creation of every man’s soul by God) against Traducianism (the derivation of our souls ex traduce from parent to parent). Some again, as the originator of spiritual life: so Seb. Schmidt, Calov., Cramer, Grotius, Hammond(par.), Limborch, Corn. a-Lapide, and more recently Bleek, De Wette, Lünem., Ebrard. Others, not understanding ἡμῶν, take it as the Father of the spirit-world, of spiritual existences. So Erasm. Schmid, Bretschn. (lex.), al. All these three meanings are enumerated by the ancient expositors: by Chrys. without deciding between them, τῷ πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων· ἤτοι τῶν χαρισμάτων λέγει, ἤτοι τῶν εὐχῶν (read ψυχῶν), ἤτοι τῶν ἀσωμάτων δυνάμεων: so Œc.: Thl. says, πατέρα δὲ πνευμάτων ἢ τῶν χαρισμάτων ἢ τῶν ἀσωμάτων δυνάμεων· ἤ, ὅπερ καὶ οἰκειότερον, τῶν ψυχῶν· πρὸς γὰρ ἀντιδιαστολὴν τῶν σαρκικῶν πατέρων εἶπε τὸν πνευματικόν. Thdrt. takes the meaning, Author of spiritual life, alone: πατέρα γὰρ πνευμάτων τὸν πνευματικὸν πατέρα κέκληκεν, ὡς τῶν πνευματικῶν χαρισμάτων πηγήν· διʼ ἐκείνων δὲ ἡμῖν δέδωκε τὸ τῆς υἱοθεσίας ἀξίωμα. Others understand by πατέρα not the originator, but the upholder, cherisher: so Morus, Dindorf, Kuinoel, Böhme (“quorumlibet hominum tanquam immortalium pater, i. e. patronus, tutor, sospitatorque”), Bretschn. (lex. under πατήρ, “qui animum castigat, docet, emendat”). But, though this latter sense must not be excluded, being as it is manifestly operative in inducing present submission, to remember present dependence, so neither must the idea of origination be excluded, for it is from that fact that all a father’s rights and loving-kindnesses spring. In endeavouring to decide between these meanings, one safe standing-place may, I think, be gained, by getting free from that class of meanings which understands ἡμῶν, any further than it is necessarily involved in all spirits. τοὺς τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν πατέρας, and τῷ πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων without ἡμῶν, are widely and surely purposely distinct. He is described here as the Father of spirits, not as the Father of our spirits. And therefore I would understand the expression as an exalted contrast of God, a Spirit Himself, and the Creator of spirits, His like, to men, flesh themselves, and the progenitors (“creatores, quod ad similitudinem attinet”) of fleshly bodies, their like. On the consequence, as regards Creationism and Traducianism, I will not here enter. It would require far more comparison of other passages and more deliberate estimation how far this one propounds a further truth than the argument requires, to be included in a mere note. Cf. Delitzsch’s argument here.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Furthermore [ειτα] . Everywhere else in N. T. this particle marks a succession of time or incident. See Mr 4:17; Mr 8:25; Luk 8:12; 1Co 14:5, 7. Here it introduces a new phase of the subject under discussion.

Fathers of our flesh [τους μεν της σαρκος ημων πατερας] . Up to this point the suffering of Christians has been explained by God 's fatherly relation to them. Now the emphatic point is that their fathers, with whom God is compared, were only earthly, human parents. The phrase paterav thv sarkov N. T. o, but kindred expressions are found Rom 4:1, Rom 9:3; Gal 4:29; Heb 2:14.

Which corrected [παιδευτας] . Lit. "we have had fathers of our flesh as chasteners." Only here and Rom 2:20. In LXX, Sir. 37 19; Hos 5:2; 4 Macc. 5 34; 9 6.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection [ου πολυ μαλλον υποταγησομεθα] . The comparison is between the respect paid to a fallible, human parent, which may grow out of the natural relation, or may be due to fear, and the complete subjection to the divine Father.

To the Father of spirits [τω πατρι των πνευματων] . Contrasted with fathers of the flesh. Their relation to us is limited; his is universal. They are related to us on the fleshly side; he is the creator of our essential life. Our relation to him is on the side of our eternal being. Comp. Joh 4:23, 24; Zec 12:1; Isa 57:16. The phrase N. T. o. Comp. LXX, Num 16:22; Num 27:16; Rev 22:6. Clement of Rome styles God the benefactor [ευεργετης] of spirits, the creator and overseer [κτιστης, επισκοπος] of every spirit, and the Lord [δεσποτης] of spirits. Ad Corinth. 59, 64. And live [και ζησομεν] . Have true life; not limited to the future life. Comp. Joh 5:26; Joh 6:57; 1Jo 5:11; Rev 11:11; Act 16:28; Rom 6:11; Rom 14:8; 1Jo 4:9, and see on living God, Heb 3:12.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. elra...dverpenoucba] Furthermore we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us,and we gave themregara ..- This particle εἶτα has been takenasan interrogative : ‘Is it so then that we had...,’ according to common classical use, but in this case the following sentence would naturally begin with καί (καὶ οὐ πολὺ μᾶλλον). It is better thorefore to regard it as introducing a second argument: further, yet again. In. 8 the Apostle has shown the universality of filial discipline: he now shews in what spirit it should be borne, drawing his conclusion from natural experience. There is no exact parallel in the N. T. to this use of εἶτα, which is used in enumerations (eg. 1 Cor. xii. 28; xv. 5,7) as well as in sequences (69. Mk. iv. 28).

The word παιδευτής (Vulg. eruditores) is found again in Rom. ii. 20; Hos. v. 2; Hcclus. xxxvii. 19. It expresses not only the fact of the disciplino, but the parental office to exorciso it.

"Evrpéwopa (Vulg. reveredbamur) is found in Luke xviii. 2, 4; xx. 13 (and parallels).

τοὺς τ. σ. i. πατ... τῷ war. τ. wy,] The fathers of our earthly, corporeal,

are contrasted with the Father of spirits, the Author not only of our spiritual being but of all spiritual beings (τῶν πνευμ. not τοῦ wv. ἡμῶν).

THE EPISTLE ΤῸ THE HEBREWS.

Tho later Latin Fathers speak more decidedly: Pater spirituum, id est creator animarum, Deus omnipotens eat, qui bona creavit, primum ex nihilo, deinde vero ex elomentis, corpora hominum aliorumque animalium. Animam vero hominis ex nihilo creavit et croat adhuc; non cet onim probandum quod anima pars doitutis ait; quoniam deitas iucreata eat, anima autem creatura est. Idcirco autem omnipotentem Deum creatorem animarum appellat, non corporum, cum omnium creator sit quia...anima . semper ἃ Doo ex nihilo croatur (Primas.).

10. The method of human discipline is as inferior to the method of

note. ὕστερον 82...dexar.] yet, afterward tt yieldeth, as ita proper return (dwodi26—2

(8) Practical conclusion for the Hebrews in their trial (12, 13).

i Wherefore set right the hands that hang down and the palsied knees ; and make straight paths for your Soet, that the limb which is fame be not put out of joint, but rather be healed

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901), The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) and The Epistles of St John (1883) — public domain (pre-1929). Text recovered from Internet Archive / Google Books OCR scans. Westcott’s Gospel of John commentary is not included (its OCR lost the chapter running-heads required for reliable verse-keying). Some Greek quoted in the Hebrews volume is imperfectly rendered by the OCR.