Albert Barnes Commentary Hebrews 12:10

"For they indeed for a few days chastened [us] as seemed good to them; but he for [our] profit, that [we] may be partakers of his holiness." — Hebrews 12:10 (ASV)

For they verily for a few days. That is, with reference to a few days (proverbially speaking), or it was a chastisement that mainly concerned this short life. The apostle seems to introduce this circumstance to contrast the dealings of earthly parents with those of God.

One of the circumstances is that the corrections of earthly parents had a much less important object than those of God. They related to this life—a life so brief that it may be said to continue but "a few days." Yet, to secure the benefit derived from fatherly correction for so short a period, we submitted without murmuring.

Much more cheerfully should we submit to that discipline from the hand of our heavenly Father, which is designed to extend its benefits throughout eternity. This interpretation seems to me to offer a better sense than that adopted by Professor Stuart and others—that it means "during our childhood or minority"—or than that proposed by Doddridge, that it refers to both our earthly parents and our heavenly Father.

After their own pleasure. The marginal note reads, "as seemed good, or meet, to them." This means that it was sometimes done arbitrarily, or from caprice, or under the influence of passion. This is an additional reason why we should submit to God: we submitted to our earthly parents, though their correction was sometimes passionate and was designed to gratify their own pleasure rather than to promote our good. There is much of this kind of punishment in families, but there is none of it under the administration of God.

But he for our profit. This is never from passion, caprice, or the love of power or superiority, but always for our good. We may not always be able to understand the exact benefit he intends to produce, but we may be assured that no other cause influences him than a desire to promote our real welfare. And since he can never be mistaken about the proper means to secure that, we may be assured that our trials are always adapted to that end.

That we might be partakers of his holiness. This means to become so holy that it may be said that we are partakers of the very holiness of God. (Compare 2 Peter 1:4). This is the elevated object at which God aims through our trials. It is not that he delights to produce pain; not that he envies us and would rob us of our little comforts; not that he needs what we prize to increase his own enjoyment, and therefore rudely takes it away; and not that he acts from caprice—now conferring a blessing and then withdrawing it without any reason. It is that he may make us more pure and holy, and thus promote our own best interest.

To be holy as God is holy—to be so holy that it may be said that we "are partakers of his holiness"—is a richer blessing than health, property, and friends without it. And when through the exchange of the one we acquire the other, we have secured infinitely more than we have lost.

To obtain the greater good, we should be willing to part with the lesser. To secure the everlasting friendship and favor of God, we should be willing, if necessary, to surrender the very last of our property, the last friend we have left, and the last feeble and fluttering pulsation of life in our veins.