But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.
You have striven against sin, but not unto blood; you have not yet suffered as martyrs have. Christ gently trains His people with lesser sufferings first, not casting weak vessels into the hardest trials at once. Take notice of His kindness in measuring your afflictions to your strength.
AI summary
Commenting on Hebrews 12:4-17
Verse 8. But if ye be without chastisement. If you never meet with anything that is adapted to correct your faults, to subdue your temper, to chide your wanderings, it would prove that you were in the condition of illegitimate children--cast off and disregarded by their father. Whereof all are partakers. All who are the true children of God. Then are ye bastards, and not sons.
But if ye be without chastisement,.... Or have no affliction: whereof all are partakers; that is, all the children of God; they are all alike children; they are all in a state of imperfection, and prone to sin; God has an impartial respect unto them: and though they are not all alike chastened, nor chastened at all times, yet none are exempted from chastisement, but...