What is the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11)?

Verse 11. "Now no chastening," etc. This is a truly precious verse. First, in the general statement that no chastening brings present joy, but rather sorrow to the sufferer, we have a kind of definition of God's chastisements. The sorrows, that is, which press upon the Christian in his way, may be generally referred to this principle (1 Peter 1:6). But the thorough sympathy of God accompanies these sorrows of His own infliction. He has made us sorry, for the more abundant increase of our after joy. Fretfulness, or indifference, or despondency are alike sin. Sorrow is not so. God expects that Christians should call bitter, bitter. If they do so, and, by faith, discerning at whose hand the grief is ministered, accept the trial as a token from the Father, then tribulation will work patience, and patience, leading to a deeper exercise of soul with God, will work more plenteous experience of Him and of His way. Conflict and painful searchings may be the immediate effect of active discipline. But to them that are exercised thereby its certain end is fruitful peace. Peace is the fruit of righteousness. The purpose of correction is to render the believer, not more righteous, really, than he was before. For Christ is his Righteousness and his Perfection before God. But he is induced, by trial, to investigate his ways. A multitude of unsuspected depredators have, perhaps, been sucking out the life-springs of his once devoted service. Habit, or other men's example, or the yielding compliance of a natural amiability, may have had more to do with his apparent diligence than he was once aware. To reduce him, by a personal experiment, to a sense of his own nothingness, would be to fit him for a deeper and far fuller appreciation of the righteousness of God. On the other hand, a Christian may be really such, and yet, through lack of use, his spiritual senses may have been so thoroughly benumbed, as to leave no outward token of the life within. In such a case, God's chastenings may be the bitter introduction to a happier experience. By quickening thus the active principle of conscience, the Husbandman who tends the living vine, and takes account of every shoot that draws its life from Jesus (John 15), enables the lethargic Christian to cast off the dead leaves of a meaningless profession, and in the fresher springing of a Christ revived within him, to speak again, as in the former days, of a blessedness which made him independent of the world's best goods. Sorrow and grief are quite compatible with unchanged confidence in God. The self-examinations of a thoughtful saint, who finds himself visited by some unlooked-for grief, are a certain prelude to the bolder song of gladness which will celebrate his emergence from the cloud of sorrow into a brightness never fitly known till then.

The clearest proof that chastening has been to profit, is a conscious augmentation of the sufferer's peace. But where God's dealings are not recognized by faith, this cannot be. Passive endurance, with no accompanying exercise of spirit, only hardens and debases the recipient of discipline. God knows the measure of His children's dispositions. He has means of managing the most refractory, while His joy is rather to guide, with no sensible restraint, the willing listeners to His word of grace (Ps. 32:8). Meanwhile, that He is jealous, is the safety of His children. He will not leave them to themselves. He is their sure Conductor, by the ways of faith and patience, to the glory which is their appointed rest.

The great thing is to be exercised by our troubles. Chastening means trouble, for we are plainly told that "no chastening for the present seems to be joyous but grievous." And exercise means that we turn our troubles into a sort of spiritual gymnasium; for the Greek word used here is the one from which we have derived our English word, gymnasium. Gymnastics for the body have in them some profit, as 1 Timothy 4:8 tells us. Gymnastics for our spirits have in them great spiritual profit in the direction of both holiness and righteousness. By them we become partakers of the very holiness of God Himself; and we are led into paths of righteousness. Righteousness itself bears fruit which is peaceable, even though the disciplinary process, through which we passed in order to reach it, was of a stormy nature.

While, however, this is true, God desires that we should have present blessing from His dealings with us, and for this we need present exercise. The blessings are that we may be partakers of His holiness and enjoy the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The holiness of which the Apostle speaks in verse 10 is the quality of holiness which leads us, not only to refrain from unholiness, but also to hate all unholiness, even as God does. The hatred of evil will lead to practical righteousness, which in turn brings forth the fruit of peace, in contrast with the restlessness of an unrighteous world through which we are passing.

The chastening of the Father, so necessary for us while here, is brought before us in Hebrews 12, and in verse 11 we read, “Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Here the fruit borne is the righteousness that is a feature of the divine life, our doing that which is right, and therefore pleasing, in the sight of God. We also learn here that this peaceable fruit results from our exercise in relation to the chastening of the Father. The Father does not wish us either to faint under His chastening, or to despise it, but to get the greatest gain from it for ourselves, and for Him.

Verse 11. God does not expect us to find these exercises of soul pleasant at the moment (they would not produce their effect if they were so): but afterwards, the will being broken they produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The pride of man is brought down when he is obliged to submit to that which is contrary to his will. God also takes a larger (ever precious) place in his thoughts and in his life.

And when we are disciplined it is not a joyous experience; it brings heart-searching, humiliation, confession, repentance and self-loathing, but afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which have been exercised in this way.

But the Spirit of God reminds us that the process will not be pleasant. "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." God would have us feel the chastening. Indeed, His desire is to produce in us self-judgment and humiliation before Him; hence the blessed result is connected with our being exercised thereby. If there be no exercises of soul produced by His hand upon us, there will be no blessing. Whenever therefore He begins to deal with us, our first thought should be, "There is a cause for it," and this should lead us into the presence of God, as it did David when the pressure of famine was upon the land, to enquire of the Lord. (See 2 Sam. 21) He will then reveal to us wherefore He has been compelled to use His rod, and thus humbling ourselves under His mighty hand, He will give us in due time the enjoyment of the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

"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? For they verily for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them (margin); but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." God has Himself designed this human relationship as a type of that which is much higher, and spiritual. Correction of a child is absolutely essential for the good of the child, though this depends on the attitude of the father: whatever seems suitable to him will govern his training of the child. However, God's training is perfection itself: its object is the pure profit of the child, and no detail of it can be a mistake. Blessed indeed to be in such a hand! Only thus we learn to conform to God's own character of holiness, to honestly love what is good, and to hate evil.

"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." The chastening, as we have seen, re­fers to those outward circumstances of sorrow, trial, persecution, every element that is allowed to give dis­tress or pain to the soul. These will grieve the heart rather than cause joy, though faith is able to triumph even while the trial is present, when the eye is simply upon Christ. Indeed, in the face of persecution we are told to "rejoice and be exceeding glad" (Matt. 5:11, 12). At least, where godly exercise has wrought its work in recognizing the hand of God in these things, the blessed result will be "the peaceable fruit of righteousness." The storm will give place to the quiet calm of solid, true blessing. God's hand must be recognized in the trial, and the soul be drawn to seek His mind concerning it, or we can expect no blessing as a result of it: we should be guilty of resisting God's goodness in designing such things in view of our greatest blessing.

Verse 11 closes this part of the subject with the effect of chastening in another form, which is still more nearly akin to John 15. Afterward chastening yields peaceful fruit of righteousness to those that have been exercised by it. God effects the profit in such as have submitted to the trial: it is lost so far as we slight the trial or doubt His love in sending it.

One of the objects of chastening is that we might endure. Endurance is learned in the trials of life, and this brings us out in the character of Christ in whom endurance was perfect in every way and in every circumstance in which He was found. Another object God’s chastening has in view is our being made partakers of His holiness. While under discipline there is not the same opportunity for the flesh to gratify itself, and God seeks to bring His children in their trials nearer to Himself that in occupation with Him they might be more like Him; and it is in this way we are made partakers of His holiness.

Where the heart turns to God in time of testing there will be regard to the future, a pondering on what God has in mind in passing us through the trial. And when the heart turns to God there will be spiritual exercise that will produce the fruits of righteousness, that which is so delightful to the Father’s heart, that which gives Him joy as He sees the traits of His own Son, the features of His own life, manifest in His children. These fruits of righteousness, borne in our sorrows here will be displayed in the day of Christ’s glory, even as Paul wrote to the saints of Philippi, “That ye may be sincere and without offence for Christ’s day; being complete as regards the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:10-11).