It is a father’s duty to enforce discipline for the benefit of his children. Boys growing up without a biological father in the home suffer especially from a lack of boundaries. ‘For what son is there whom the father does not correct?’ St Paul writes (Hebrews 12.7). And he adds that we must ‘Persevere, therefore, under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons.’
So how does God deal with his sons? ‘Whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth, and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth’ (Heb. xii. 6). As St. Paul explains,
‘All chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield to them that are exercised by it the most peaceful fruit of justice.’
God punishes us, then, because He loves us and wants to make us perfect. Although it means suffering in the moment, punishment leads to our happiness in the end. Thus God the Father — ‘of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named’ (Ephesians 3:15) — is the model for human fathers.
So the weak father who fails to keep his children walking on the road of righteousness fails them. If mild words don’t work and the father is too soft to wield the rod, he abandons his child to disorder, leading to far worse suffering in the end than what the father should in justice have inflicted.