This is a passage often thrown my direction in response to my anti spank position.
Hebrews 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 Now 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.
Necessary Definitions for this study:
These definitions are from Strong's Greek Lexicon.
Chastening: tutorage, education, training, disciplinary correction, instruct, learn, teach, nurture
Rebuke: admonish, convict, convince, tell a fault, reprove
Scourgeth: Literally to flog, Figuratively to inflict with a disease, plague
Corrected: trainer, discipliner which corrected, instructor
Those of the pro spanking stance will use this Scripture to point out that God scourges His children, so there is no problem with earthly parents scourging their own children. Does God come down from Heaven and get a whip and beat us into submission? We all know the answer to that question is a loud and resounding "NO"!
God uses several methods and principles to get the attention of His children. Let us take a look at a few of them.
1. Reaping and Sowing (Job 4:8, Psalm 126:5, Hosea 10:12, 2 Corinthians 9:6, Galatians 6:7-8)
2. Conviction from the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9-13, Galatians 5:16-18)
3. Instruction from His Word (Psalm 119, 2 Timothy 3:16)
4. Guidance through prayer and study (Romans 8:26, 2 Timothy 2:15)
5. The "foolishness" of preaching (I Corinthians 1:21)
6. The Counsel of Godly mentors (Psalm 1:1, Proverbs 11:14, Titus 2:4)
7. Allowing certain experiences in our lives (Job 1:8-12, Luke 22:31, James 1:2)
8. Loving reproval from a brother (Galatians 6:1, 2 Timothy 4:2, Luke 17:3)
9. "Wounds" of a friend (Proverbs 27:6)
10. The example of Jesus Christ and fellow believers (1 Timothy 4:12, Hebrews 4:15)
Have you ever heard of someone being so far down, the only way they could look was up? Sometimes the consequences of our lifestyle becomes so burdensome, that we have no where else to turn but God. This is His loving discipline at work in the life of His child. When this happens, it is worse than any physical scourging. The stripes of man are much less severe than the righteous judgement of God in our lives. It is interesting to note one of the definitions of scourge as being to inflict with a disease. God can allow disease in our lives to teach us and bring us back to Him.
This passage says GOD chastises and scourges, however, man only chastises and corrects his children. Then this passage states that parents only do this after their own pleasure, not with anywhere near the same degree of righteous judgement as God. This passage does not condone, promote, or encourage the use of physical discipline on children. What it does say is that parents (including our Heavenly Father) who love their children, discipline them. There are no instructions for taking them aside privately, heaping false guilt on them, demanding "true" repentance, assuming what is in their heart and then spanking them, but making it all better with prayer and a cozy hug afterwards! Parents need to disciple, educate, instruct, teach and correct, but they need to leave the scourging up to God.
The truth always hurts, but we serve a truthful God who knows our hearts far better than any man ever could. Only He can bring us to genuine conviction, unfiegned repentance, and know what is truly at the root of a behavior. He says he will discipline his children and he uses many tools to do this. Traditionally, some Christians are twisting this Scripture around to justify their physical assault on their children.
Please read The Biblical Rod and Hitting and Spanking Are The Same Thing for more on this topic.