NOTES for Heb 12:7-8
The words of the author of the letter about punishment sound strange to the modern ear. This is no surprise: the perception of the world and the human person based on the postulates of humanism really does, to a significant degree, deprive the concept of punishment in its traditional understanding of meaning. Humanism is based on the idea that a person is originally either good or neutral, and if he is brought up correctly, then it may be entirely possible simply to give up punishments altogether: then the child, growing up, will understand and perceive everything correctly even without punishments, appropriately and adequately according to how he is raised.
Simply put, if a child is not spoiled by wrong upbringing and a bad environment, then there will be no need to punish him because he will "grow up good." The Bible, however, sees the human person quite differently. On the one hand, we are all created in the image and likeness of God; on the other, we are fallen people, and the fall has left its seal on each of us. People are by no means born good - this is the problem that humanism does not notice or does not want to notice.
Every formation of a person, and especially his spiritual formation, is in essence a process of continuous, sometimes quite severe, correction. And God has to correct the person He leads after Himself more than any earthly educator does. And if earthly parents, as a rule, are ready to do everything so that their child grows up a normal person, even if for this they have to resort to punishment, then all the more will God do everything for those who have trusted Him.
Of course, freedom is involved here: no trust, no path, and no punishment either. But then there are no normal, full relationships with God - not because God loves to punish, but because for normal relationships with Him one must become a normal human being. Ideally, a human being free from sin and living the life of the Kingdom. In order to make a fallen person such a human being, God sometimes has to work with him with utmost severity. A person's consent to such work is a necessary element of the spiritual path in general and of the Christian path in particular, as the author of the letter reminds his readers.