CHASTENING AND THE WORD

Earlier in this series, we considered the fact of affliction in the lives of God’s people, and recognized that sometimes this comes from God’s hand in chastening. We now look a little closer at this. There is a very close link between chastening and the teaching of God’s Word, v. 12; the writer proclaims the one who is chastened and taught to be “blessed”. Matthew Henry writes, “When we are chastened we must pray to be taught, and look into the law as the best expositor of providence. It is not the chastening itself that does good, but the teaching that goes along with it and is the exposition of it”.

In the psalm, the background is the cruelty and hardness of the wicked, but “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man”, v. 11, so verse 23 speaks of His judgment. In verse 12, however, God is looking at His child when something has gone wrong, yet His thoughts are not thoughts of judgment but of chastening, that is, training or instructing. God loves His children so much that He will not let them go in spite of their waywardness.

In Luke 22. 31-34, we read of the pride and self-confidence of Peter as he rejected the thought that he could fail his Lord, and we notice the Lord’s warning. In verses 54-62, we have the sad fulfilment of the Lord’s prediction, the result being, “Peter remembered the word of the Lord … And Peter … wept bitterly”, vv. 61, 62. The spoken word was used in restoration, leading to a courageous Peter after Pentecost.

Commenting on verse 12, C. H. Spurgeon says, “The psalmist calls the chastened one a ‘man’ in the best sense, using the Hebrew word which implies strength. He is a man indeed who is under the teaching and training of the law”. Let us pray that, as in the ministry of God’s Word, so also in the ministry of His works and chastenings, we may be taught of God. Psalm 119. 67 tells us of the experience of another child of God, “before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word” the chastening was effective. Hebrews 12. 5-11 makes much of the beneficial effects of chastening, and stresses that it is an evidence of the love of the Father to His child: “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. 11.