DISCIPLINE
[p. 207] DISCIPLINE
The chapter shows that discipline is the order of the day. God’s way is that we should all go through discipline. It is the feature of the testimony. The apostle was going through things, and he wished they might be comforted as he was. We are brought together on the ground of mutual acceptance of discipline. The apostle did not escape discipline; he was brought low to death, and he recounts it all; he is not writing from a pinnacle, but from the lowest point, like Jonah; he is writing from the depths, and recounts the comfort and mercies of God. The soul of the apostle is full of the sense of mercy. No one is effective who has not been down. The Lord Jesus first descended.
The apostle links the saints with himself in what he was passing through. In christendom the clergy are above the laity, but the Leader of our salvation is made perfect through sufferings. He descended first. He takes the lead in suffering, “As the sufferings of the Christ abound towards us”, the apostle says. The thing is to accept discipline, and to see how blessing comes in by going down. The apostle despaired even of life. Discipline is preservative and formative. In bereavement or sorrow, we may go down to the gates of death; we may even be brought down to that ourselves. Hezekiah is an instance, but he comes up with a sense of the love of God. So the apostle goes down and this characterises his letter. In the ways of God the apostle has to go through this. Reduction has to be effected, and we are all drawn together in our spirits by the discipline of God.
Take Jacob: discipline was the feature of his life, but at the end he speaks of “The Angel that redeemed me from all evil”. He sees things aright and worships, and he blessed the sons of Joseph. The sun goes down, but we know that it will rise again. So in the end of Genesis, Jacob and Joseph both die, but they have resurrection in view; and Jacob calls upon all his sons and says to them: “I will tell you what will befall you at the end of days”; he knew the end. He knows the God of resurrection, and that God is faithful. In the discipline, God brings into evidence His faithfulness.