Revelation 3:19

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19 As many as [hosos] [ean] I love, [phileo] I [ego] rebuke [elegcho] and [kai] chasten: [paideuo] be zealous [zeloo] therefore, [oun] and [kai] repent. [metanoeo]    KJV-Interlinear

19 'Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent.    NASB

Verses 18, 19, 20, and 21 all come together to form a picture of the spiritual life.Verse 18 shows the vast blessings that are available.  Verse 19 requires you to change your attitude.  Verse 20 calls for you to confess and live in a state of fellowship. And verse 21, calls for believers to overcome, or advance to spiritual maturity.

These calls are addressed to believers, and therefore are not calls for salvation.

This passage is referring to discipline.  In fact all of these messages to the seven churches have warning messages, but this one in particular addresses the believer who is negative and warns of pending discipline.

Discipline for unbelievers is a call for them to believe in Christ.Discipline for believers is a call for them to get with a program of spiritual growth.

Christ reproves and disciplines His own.  You are in the family of God when you believed in Christ.By means of the regenerated human spirit, you were re-born, or as some put it, born again, but not into this world of flesh.

You were born into the spiritual world and into the family of God.Once born into a family, no matter what family that is, that birth cannot be undone.  It is permanent.  Birth cannot be reversed.  Ask any woman who has had children.  Do you think she would like to reverse the process?Actually if you value your life, you wouldn't ask that question.  Any mother would be well within her right to smack you up’ side’ the head for such a stupid question.

So now that you are in Gods family.  Now that you have believed in Christ, there are several issues to understand.First the issue of sin.Some have the misconception that once you believe in Christ, you won't sin again.  Or if you do, you are forgiven because Christ died on the Cross for your sins and they have been punished, therefore forgiven.That is nearly correct, except for the forgiven part.

Christ went to the Cross and paid the price for our sins certainly.They were judged and the penalty for sin was taken on by Christ in our place.  You cannot be judged for something that has already been judged.Law of double jeopardy.

There will be no further judgment for sin since it has already been judged on the Cross.  This does not give you the right to go out and do as you please, however.   You are still responsible and held accountable for your actions.Therefore forgiveness is an issue after salvation. 

As a part of salvation, during that single moment in time when you believed in Christ, many things happened to you.  See the blessings list in the special study library.One of those things is that your sins, from the moment of your birth until the moment of your faith in Christ, were forgiven.   You are immediately in fellowship with God, though you probably did not know it at the time.

When you committed you next sin, then of course, you are out of fellowship until you confess your sin or sins to God, which confession, gets you back into fellowship. 

If you remain out of fellowship, then Bible doctrine cannot influence your life.  Your sin nature does influence your life, and God issues discipline to you in whatever manner is appropriate, for the purpose of getting your attention first, and then next getting you to confess your sins and get back into fellowship, and then getting you to get back with a Bible study program to advance you in your spiritual life.

If you remain out of fellowship because of unconfessed sin in your life, then you are subject to warning discipline. 

Notice that not much is happening to you in this instance.Which leads us to the concept of discipline and its degree of intensity.  God has lots of arrows with which to administer discipline.To the believer who is out of fellowship occasionally there is always warning discipline.  Actually there is warning discipline for all who fall away from Bible doctrine.

But then when a person remains out of fellowship, the discipline begins to intensify more and more in degrees.  Think of it as a slap on the wrist, a spank on the behind, a lashing with the whip, a heavy board bashed between the eyes,and then sooner or later dying discipline where if you do not come around, you will die.  That of course is the maximum discipline anyone can suffer through in this life.

Once you have died, then your part in human history is over.You go on to heaven, absent from the body, face to face with the Lord.  No more sorrow, no more tears and so forth.  Your punishment here on earth is over and there is no continuation of punishment in heaven.  It is all over for you. 

But you do not have much to show for your life.Your soul is furnished with the production of the sin nature - wood, hay and stubble. 

If you ignore it (discipline), then the discipline will intensify to your disadvantage.

The objective of discipline is to get you to repent, change your mind, change your attitude, and get back on track in your spiritual life.

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