Strong Discipline

Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” Then Nathan went to his house. –II Samuel 12:14

Drastic action is needed to reverse the effects of sin. David had repented, but he still needed to be disciplined to be right before God. David’s sin changed his heart. He had gone from being the man after God’s own heart, to being God’s enemy. David had made God the object contempt, loathing, and disgust. And, while David was forgiven all of this by God, his heart needed serious spiritual surgery if it was to be restored to what it once was.

Sadly this surgery would take the form of the death of his son by Bathsheba. The child’s death was not sacrificial, nor was it purely a punitive punishment; it was constructive, and served a necessary purpose in the restoration of the boy’s father. Discipline is always done for the purpose of the restoration of the wayward. The further one is away from God the more dramatic discipline needs to be.

We may wonder how this was fair to the child. While we do not know the boys fate, what it received was fair; all men are guilty of Adam’s sin and deserve death. And, while we do not know the eternal standing of the child, there are some good reasons to believe the children of believers who die in infancy are elect; in which case the babe was soon to be much better off than his father.

There is little value in spending time contemplating the fate of David’s son, however much is to be gained in contemplating the end of his father. Would David have been left as he was, he would have sinned again. Saul repented of his sin more than once, but his repentance was never accompanied by change. David needed to be changed. Most of us expect spiritual change to occur like magic. And, while there is a mystical element to our spiritual transformation, God uses real events in this world as instruments to make us pliable to the Spirit’s work. This is why discipline will continue for a period after confession has been made – the sin ravaged heart cannot be left alone. Being transformed to the image of Christ takes time and work.

Make no mistake, not every tragedy in life is the result of a specific sin (although every tragedy is the result of living in a sin fallen world). But where gross sin has been committed, the sinner will have to labor hard in the Word, prayer, and with his family and Church to be purged of his evil. Forgiveness is instantaneous, but sanctification takes a lifetime. The Holy Spirit works through trials to bring us to closer to God. Trials are never easy, but they are often the means of turning a hell-bound heart heavenward.