Hebrews 12:8

8. if ye be without--excluded from participation in chastisement, and wishing to be so. all--all sons: all the worthies enumerated in the eleventh chapter: all the witnesses (He 12:1). are--Greek, "have been made." then are ye bastards--of whom their fathers take no care whether they are educated or not; whereas every right-minded father is concerned for the moral well-being of his legitimate son. "Since then not to be chastised is a mark of bastardy, we ought [not to refuse, but] rejoice in chastisement, as a mark of our genuine sonship" [Chrysostom].

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Verse 8. But if ye be without chastisement. If you never meet with anything that is adapted to correct your faults, to subdue your temper, to chide your wanderings, it would prove that you were in the condition of illegitimate children--cast off and disregarded by their father.

Whereof all are partakers. All who are the true children of God.

Then are ye bastards, and not sons. The reference here is to the neglect with which such children are treated, and to the general want of care and discipline over them:--

"Lost in the world's wide range; enjoined no aim, Prescribed no duty. and assigned no name."
Savage.

In the English law, a bastard is termed nullius filiua,. Illegitimate children are usually abandoned by their father. The care of them is left to the mother, and the father endeavours to avoid all responsibility, and usually to be concealed and unknown. His own child he does not wish to recognize; he neither provides for him, nor instructs him, nor governs him, nor disciplines him. A father who is worthy of the name, will do all these things. So Paul says it is with Christians. God has not cast them off. In every way he evinces towards them the character of a father. And if it should be that they passed along through life without any occurrence that would indicate the paternal care and attention designed to correct their faults, it would show that they never had been his children, but were cast off and wholly disregarded. This is a beautiful argument; and we should receive every affliction as full proof that we are not forgotten by the High and Holy One who condescends to sustain the character, and to evince towards us, in our wanderings, the watchful care of a Father.

Albert Barnes, 1834 · public domain

Verse 8 Then are ye bastards - This proceeds on the general fact, that bastards are neglected in their manners and education; the fathers of such, feeling little affection for, or obligation to regard, their spurious issue. But all that are legitimate children are partakers of chastisement or discipline; for the original word παιδεια does not imply stripes and punishments, but the whole discipline of a child, both at home and at school.

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain