Flogging God's Sons

O.K. I am running into a problem here. I just got done going over Romans 12:2 that says I should not be squeezed into the world's mold and now I read in Hebrews 12:6 that God whips His legitimate sons as part of their training. That sure sounds like the use of force to me when I have come to firmly believe that God does not use force to get His way. What is going on here? This is another good case of asking God to explain Himself.

I do notice that the word for whipping or flogging only occurs once in this passage and all the other references to discipline have much more to do with training than with imposition of punishment. That is some consolation but it still leaves a big question in my mind.

Whatever all this means it is obvious in later verses that its full intention is so that we may share in His holiness and it produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness. This is the context in which this issue must be resolved.

But is flogging ever an effective means of bringing a person into a state of sharing God's holiness? I can't accept that this condones all the legalistic, sadistic religious abuse and distorted notions about God perpetrated for centuries by advocates of force and false systems of authority. But it certainly makes it too easy to do just that. What is going on here?

There is another option that seems to make more sense. It is the same issue as our struggle to understand the God of the Old Testament and all the apparent contradictions we think are there in our picture of God. Much is attributed to God that is in fact a natural result of consequences that we bring onto ourselves by throwing off the protection of God. If these floggings come under the same category as the apparent punishments of the Old Testament then this would make a lot more sense.