The Lord's Chastening
Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.’’ — HEB. xii. 6.
‘* LOVETH chasteneth.”” The association of the two words is everything. Unite them and there is light and hope; divorce them and there is darkness and death. To bring them together is to relate the vinedresser’s knife to the purple grapes; it lays the sharp-toothed harrow side by side with the blowing corn. To wed love to chastening is to put purpose into pain and to give direction to seemingly aimless grief. It sets a very tender and holy light upon the horizon, and the light throws its cheering beams far down the most desolate way. We are told much of what we want to know when it is said that chastening is not in the careless hands of brutal chance, but in the firm hands of the Lover who is revealed to us in Christ.
Well, then, there are some seemingly hard things in life which do not come from any hardness in God. There is a flame which is not kindled by anger but by love. It was the want of this assurance which burdened so many pilgrims who are seen on the Old Testament roads. They related the dark things in their experience to the displeasure of God. They interpreted their shadows as His frowns. Their sufferings were regarded as the strokes of divine revenge. Adversity was a proof of God’s ill-favour. They looked upon disappointment as a witness that He had forsaken them. Now and again a man caught a glimpse of the inner truth about things, and it was amazing how it transformed his world. Here is one of them singing — ‘‘ In the night His song shall be with me.” That man is looking at things as they really are. He has caught a glimpse of the Lover in the blighted garden, and he is not afraid.
The purpose of God’s chastening is not punitive but creative. He chastens “that we might be partakers of His holiness.” The phrase ‘that we might be” has direction in it, and the direction points towards a purified and beautified life. The fire which is kindled is not a bonfire, blazing heedlessly and unguardedly, and consuming precious things; it is a refiner’s fire, and the Refiner sits by it, and He is firmly and patiently and gently bringing holiness out of carelessness and stability out of weakness. God is always creating even when He is using the darker means of grace. He is producing the fruits and flowers of the spirit. His love is always in quest of lovely things.
Out of all this we may draw a very comforting conclusion; the absence of joy does not mean the absence of God. ‘“* No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.” And yet there are many believers who, when the emotion of joy is not beating in the heart, interpret it as a sign of spiritual lapse and alienation. It is regarded as a severance of the fellowship of God. But the pruned vine does not suggest an absent vine-dresser, and even if the vine be bleeding it does not mean that he has gone away. And my emotions may change from sorrow to grief, but God remains faithful. My fickle moods do not mean a capricious Friend. Joy will be mine again, and it will be all the richer and the deeper because of God’s chastening. His chastenings are just His ministries for the deepening of the soul, for the increase of its receptiveness; He is seeking the enlargement of its capacity for the apprehension of Himself. The April showers bring the May flowers.