Discipline and Suffering
An Excerpt from “Blessed: A Study of Job for the Suffering Saint; Session 6: For Growth” by H. M. Coker
Being asked to observe Hebrews 12:5-13, a passage about God’s discipline, when doing a study about suffering, may have made you uncomfortable or even angry. You may have cried, “I didn’t cause this, I’m not being disciplined!” We equate the two as one in the same. However, this cause-and-effect interpretation of Hebrews 12 is at the very least incomplete. Let me explain:
Job Repenting:
Job was a blameless and upright man, who feared God and turned away from evil (Job 1:8). God allowed Job to suffer and in Job forty-two we find Job repenting. My flesh wants to cry out against this. Job repenting feels like Job agreeing with his three friends, but it isn’t! Job 42:5-6 says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”As a result of his suffering, Job gained a deeper understanding of who God is, and therefore, a deeper understanding of who he (Job) was, which led to repentance. The testing fires of suffering brought impurities to the surface, which required Job’s repentance. God allowed Job to suffer, and God used Job’s suffering to refine him of sin (Job 42:1-6).
We Are Blameless In Christ:
As believers, we are blameless before God (Colossians 1:22; Philippians 2:15) because we have Christ’s righteousness (Ephesians 4:24, 2 Corinthians 5:21). We have been saved from the wrath of God and been justified by the blood of Christ (Romans 5:8-9). We no longer fear punishment because we have been perfected in his love (1 John 4:17-18). There is no longer any condemnation for us—we have been set free in Christ (Romans 8:1-2). “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
We Are Being Sanctified:
We are already blameless (Colossians 1:22), but not yet sinless (Philippians 3:12). Therefore, we are now in a state of sanctification. My mother taught me that “sanctification is first positional and an act of God (Acts 26:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 1:2). Then also progressive (John 17:17; Romans 6:19; 1 Thessalonians 4:3)” (S. Garrison, 2026, quoted and used with permission). We, with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). He works all things for our good, using even our suffering to conform us to the image of his Son (Romans 8:28-29). The fruit we now get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life (Romans 6:22).
Discipline is a Refining Tool:
God’s discipline is a refining tool to remove sin and make us more like Christ. Hebrews 12:10b says, “He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10b). The discipline we encounter is not the punishment of wrath and judgment. Discipline in Hebrews 12:5-12 is a refining process: identifying areas where we don’t line up with Christ, being trained, yielding the fruit of righteousness, that we will not be put out of joint but rather be healed. To apply Hebrews 12 to your season of suffering is to acknowledge that God is using your circumstances to train you because you still sin and God has promised that having begun a good work in you he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). We all rightly take comfort in the words, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”(Romans 8:28-29a). But how can we be made more like Christ without turning from the sins which make us unlike Christ? Therefore, why do we not take the same comfort in, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves” and “it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:6,11)? Both passages have the same message: You are Christ’s, so become like Christ. Discipline is not judgment for what you did or did not do. It is the transformative process making you into what you should be.
Discipline is Evidence of Salvation:
Moreover, experiencing discipline is evidence of your salvation. Hebrews 12:7 says, “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” Discipline should not be an experience of condemnation or shame, but of encouragement, because he is treating you as his child. Condemnation is from the enemy, the accuser of our brothers (Romans 8:1; Revelation 12:10), but who can condemn us? “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). Who is it that the Lord disciplines? The Lord disciplines one he loves (Hebrews 12:6a). He chastises every son whom he receives (Hebrews 12:6b). God is treating you as sons (Hebrews 12:7b). What if you never experienced the Lord’s discipline? Then you would be illegitimate children and not sons (Hebrews 12:8b).
One of my daughters struggled with learning to tie her shoes. Therefore, she just didn’t want to do it. It would have been easy to give her what she wanted, for me to tie her shoes and send her out to play, but because I love her that is not what I did. Because I love her, I sat with her and trained her to tie her shoes. It would have been natural, though inaccurate, for her to view this as a punishment. “Since I can’t tie my shoes, I have to sit on the front stoop and practice, while my sister is already playing.” It would have been accurate, though incomplete, to have said, “In consequence to the fact that I cannot tie my shoes, I am now having to practice it which is hard, it doesn’t feel good.” However the best perspective would have been this, “My Mommy loves me.” I love her so much I was willing to make her sit on that stoop with me and practice, no matter how painful at the time. I love her, and I know, if she is trained by my instruction, then she will be that much closer to becoming a well rounded adult. So, as God shows you your sin, repent and thank him. God’s discipline is evidence you are his. It is a mark of love.
To Those Who Have Been Trained by It:
To whom does discipline yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness? Hebrew 12:11 says, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” The word “train” means to “exercise”[1] It is the same Greek word used in Hebrews 5:14 which says, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” and 1 Timothy 4:7b-8 which says, “train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” When you make yourself run another mile, you aren’t punishing yourself; you are disciplining yourself so that you’re trained and ready for the big race. This is training, it is practice, it is hard work. It is those who are trained by discipline who will later yield the peaceful fruit. “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:12-13).
The Book of Job is for All Suffering Saints:
On the other hand, perhaps there is one among my readers whose heart is heavy, not because you feel Hebrews 12:5-13 does not apply to you, but because you feel the book of Job does not apply to you. Perhaps you can trace with your finger the root of your suffering to your own sinful choices. Dear Heart, Beloved of God, if the book of Job is not for you, then it can be for none of us. All sin can ultimately be traced back to the choice of man to sin. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We all are still sinful for none of us are yet made perfect (Philippians 3:12). But all those in Christ have been made blameless through Christ (Colossians 1:22; Philippians 2:15) “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:24-26).
The book of Job is for all Suffering Saints. For the Believer with lung cancer who smoked for forty years, and for the Believer with the same cancer who never smoked a day in her life. For the Believer whose son was murdered, and for the Believer in prison who murdered him. The book of Job applies to the lives of all believers. All of them. All of them who have the blamelessness of Christ (Colossians 1:22), and are being refined into his likeness (Romans 8:29). I must be so careful; I am not trying to claim all suffering is the same (1 Peter 2:18-20) or that we are free to sin. Peter urges Christians to put away sin (1 Peter 2:1-3). 1 Peter 4:15 says, “But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.” And Paul tells us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:14). “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2a). “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Christ, God does not count your trespasses against you (2 Corinthians 5:19). If you have sinned, then confess it to God. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Repent from your sin, turning from it to what is right. Then, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13b-14). Our trespasses are not counted against us (2 Corinthians 5:19). “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). We are free in Christ (Galatians 5:1) and we are being disciplined into Christ likeness (Hebrews 12:3-13). The book of Job applies to you, Saint, because you are blameless in Christ and God has promised to work all things for your good to make you more in the image of his Son (Romans 8:28-29). “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:12-13).
Did you enjoy this excerpt? Follow the link to begin the full study now! “Blessed: A Study of Job for the Suffering Saint”
[1] Daily Bible Apps. “KJV Bible with Strong’s.” Google Play Store, (2022). (accessed on 17 June 2026).
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*All Bible quotations are taken from the ESV unless otherwise stated.