Hebrews 12:1-13
When we look at Jesus as a Man in glory, we see one who has arrived at the end of the course. He has run the whole course of faith, gone through every trial of it; He has begun and finished it. You never can find yourself in any place of trial, where a believer can be found, that Christ has not been in it. He has trod the whole path and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. There is where the road leads, so do not give up the cross. Jesus has borne it and has sat down there — it is worth running for. He came in divine love, but He walked in the path in which we have to walk with all the motives which sustain and cheer us. He had before Him the joy of being before God in that blessed place. What comfort in the path of difficulty and trial, to see that He has trodden it all and was sustained in it all in the very way we are!
Suffering and Chastening
All along the way as we pass towards the rest in glory, God is exercising our hearts to make us partakers of His holiness. These exercises have a double character: “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Heb. 12:4). Here we have two principles which only the Spirit of God could connect: first, resisting unto blood, in which would be suffering for Christ; second, at the same time suffering in conflict against sin, and by which it is practically judged in us. God connects our striving against sin with suffering for Christ; resisting unto blood is dying for Christ, but as this is in the conflict with sin, it cannot be truly carried on when the principle of sin and our own will is active in us. Hence this same suffering serves as discipline, and so in the next verse it is added, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.” Who would think of God’s chastening us at the very time we were suffering for Christ? But so it is, for self is so subtle; it mixes itself up even with suffering for Christ and hinders our service, and we may fear even to dishonor rather than to serve Him. We are apt to get discouraged when we have to judge ourselves in the midst of conflict, and even may be tempted to sit down and do nothing at all. The judgment of self is right, but not the discouragement. Suppose I am serving Christ and that I get discouraged in the warfare. Why is this? Confidence in my own misuse of power — lack of faith in God’s doing His work. Now what is God doing? God is using discouragement to exercise me to judge self. There is not a step of our lives that is not part of the process in which God is dealing with us. It is a process to break down flesh so as to make me depend on the salvation of God. After this deliverance, it is a system of experiences to exercise me to walk with God. The question of deliverance never arises again, but there is a quantity of things to be judged that I may enjoy communion with God.
Moses
In Moses we have an example of these two things; he was suffering for Christ and suffering for his flesh too, at the same time. The Spirit of God tells us of the bright path of faith in which he was walking when he came among the children of Israel (Heb. 11:24-26), yet the flesh accompanies him, and with a mixture of human energy, nourished by the position he had been in, he slays the Egyptian. God surely allowed this that the breach might be complete, but Moses then fears the wrath of the king. In his actions he looks this way and that way, and when it is known, he flees. He was, in the main, suffering for Christ — bearing the reproach of Christ most blessedly, but much had to be purged out and subdued in him, and if he had to flee because he had identified himself with the people of God, he had to go through that forty years’ discipline to wean him from all confidence in human strength. When that is gone, we see how little courage flesh can have in the presence of difficulty. Now, though flesh had indeed shown its weakness, he can be a god unto Pharaoh.
Paul
In Paul, too, we see the same thing. A thorn in the flesh is given him, lest he should be exalted above measure. We see in him the action of devotedness in the divine life, and the action of the flesh kept down by that which would make him despicable in his preaching. (See Galatians 4:13-14.) When the Apostle thus suffered, felt the thorn, he was really suffering for Christ, yet it was needful for keeping down the flesh. This is the effect of that wondrous grace which employs those who have yet to learn for themselves, as vessels of divine glory and truth to teach others. The vessel must be dealt with, as well as employed. God, in a certain sense, having given occasion to Paul’s danger of self-exaltation by the abundance of revelation granted to him, secures him from the danger.
How precious is this constant care of God! He is always looking after us. The Hebrews were getting worldly, and persecution comes. It is suffering for Christ, and yet for sin. And the hand of God is there to give through it all senses exercised to discern good and evil. The work is going on, though I do not know all that is going on until afterwards. When the work is done, I become more spiritual and am then able to see what God was doing all the while. His own work He will carry on for His own glory. The chastening is not always for transgression, but if not, it is for the principle that produces transgression or that could produce it.
Girdle of Truth, 3:393, adapted