“This we also pray for, even your perfecting. . . . Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfected, be comforted, be of the same mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” 2 Cor. 13: 9, 11.

The word here translated “perfect” means to bring a thing into its right condition, so that it is as it should be. It is used of mending nets, restoring them to their right state, or of equipping a ship: fitting it out with all it should have. It implies thus two things: the removal of all that is still wrong; the supply of all that is still lacking.

Within two verses Paul uses the word twice. First, as the expression of the one thing which he asks of God for them, the summary of all grace and blessing: “This we pray for, even your perfecting.” That you be perfectly free from all that is wrong and carnal, and that you should perfectly possess and exhibit all that God would have you be: we pray for your perfecting. Next as the summing up in a farewell word of what He would have them aim at. “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfected.” And then follow three other verbs, which show how this one, which takes the lead, has reference to the Christian’s daily life, and is meant to point to what is to be his daily aim and experience. “Be perfected, be comforted, be of the same mind, live in peace.” Just as the comfort of the Spirit, and the unity of love, and the life of peace are, if the God of love and peace is to be with us, our duty and our privilege every hour, so, too, the being perfected. The close of the two Epistles gathers up all its teaching in this one injunction — Farewell — Be Perfected.

The two texts together show us what the prayer and the preaching of every minister of the gospel ought to be; what his heart, above everything, ought to be set on. We justly look upon Paul as a model whom every minister ought to copy — let every Gospel minister copy him in this, so that his people may know as he goes in and out among them that his heart breathes heavenward for them this one wish: Your perfecting! and may feel that all his teaching has this one aim: Be perfected!

If ministers are to seek this above everything in their charge of the Church of God, they need themselves to feel deeply and to expose faithfully the low standard that prevails in the Church. Some have said that they have seen Perfectionism slay its thousands. All must admit that Imperfectionism has slain its tens of thousands. Multitudes are soothing themselves in a life of worldliness and sin with the thought that as no one is perfect, imperfection cannot be so dangerous. Numbers of true Christians are making no progress because they have never known that we can serve God with a perfect heart, that the perfect heart is the secret of a perfect way, of a work going on unto perfection. God’s call to us to be perfect, to perfect holiness in His fear, to live perfect in Christ Jesus, to stand perfect in all the will of God, must be preached, until the faith begins to live again in the Church that all teaching is to be summed up in the words, and each day of our life to be spent under their inspiration: Be Perfected!

When once ministers know themselves and are known as the messengers of this God-willed perfection, they will feel the need of nothing less than the teaching of the Holy Spirit to guide men in this path. They will see and preach that religion must indeed be a surrender of all to God. Becoming as conformed to His will, living as entirely to His glory, being as perfectly devoted to His service, as grace can enable us to be, and no less, will be the only rule of duty and measure of expectation. The message, Be Perfected! will demand the whole heart, the whole life, the whole strength. As the soul learns each day to say, “Father! I desire to be perfect in heart with You today, I desire to walk before You and be perfect,” the need and the meaning of abiding in Christ will be better understood, Christ Himself with His power and love will have new preciousness, and God will prove what He can do for souls, for a Church wholly given up to Him.

O you ministers of Christ, you messengers of His salvation, say to the Churches over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers: This also we pray for — even your perfecting! Finally, brethren, Be perfected!

“Not that I have already obtained, or am already perfected; but I press on. . . . One thing I do, I press on towards the goal. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” Phil.3: 12-15.

In perfection there are degrees. We have perfect, more perfect, most perfect. We have perfect, waiting to be perfected. So it was with our Lord Jesus. In Hebrews we read thrice of Him that He was perfected or made perfect. Of sinful imperfection there was not the faintest shadow in Him. At each moment of His life He was perfect — just what He should be. And yet He needed, and it became God to perfect Him through suffering and the obedience He learned in it. As He conquered temptation, and maintained His allegiance to God, and amid strong crying and tears gave up His will to God’s will, His human nature was perfected, and He became High Priest, “the Son perfected forevermore.” Jesus during His life on earth was perfect, but not yet perfected.

The perfected disciple shall be as his Master. What is true of Him is true, in our measure, of us too. Paul wrote to the Corinthians of speaking wisdom among the perfect, a wisdom carnal Christians could not understand. Here in our text he classes himself with the perfect, and expects and enjoins them to be of the same mind with himself. He sees no difficulty either in speaking of himself and others as perfect, or in regarding the perfect as needing to be yet further and fully perfected.

And what is now this perfection which has yet to be perfected? And who are these perfect ones? The man who has made the highest perfection his choice, and who has given his whole heart and life to attain to it, is counted by God a perfect man. “The kingdom of heaven is like a seed.” Where God sees in the heart the single purpose to be all that God wills, He sees the divine seed of all perfection. And as He counts faith for righteousness, so He counts this wholehearted purpose to be perfect as incipient perfection. The man with a perfect heart is accepted by God, amid all imperfection of attainment, as a perfect man. Paul could look upon the Church and unhesitatingly say, “As many of us as be perfect, let us be thus minded.”

We know how among the Corinthians he describes two classes. The one, the large majority, carnal and content to live in strife; the other, the spiritual, the perfect. In the Church of our day it is to be feared that the great majority of believers have no conception of their calling to be perfect. They have not the slightest idea that it is their duty not only to be religious, but to be as eminently religious, as full of grace and holiness, as it is possible for God to make them. Even where there is some measure of earnest purpose in the pursuit of holiness, there is such a want of faith in the earnestness of God’s purpose when He speaks: “Be perfect,” and in the sufficiency of His grace to meet the demand, that the appeal meets with no response. In no real sense do they understand or accept Paul’s invitation: “Let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.”

But, thank God! it is not so with all. There is an ever-increasing number who cannot forget that God means what He says when He speaks: “Be perfect,” and who regard themselves as under the most solemn obligation to obey the command. The words of Christ: “Be perfect,” are to them a revelation of what Christ is come to give and to work, a promise of the blessing to which His teaching and leading will bring them. They have joined the band of like-minded ones whom Paul would associate with himself; they seek God with their whole heart; they serve Him with a perfect heart; their one aim in life is to be made perfect, even as the Master.

My reader! as in the presence of God, who has said to you: “Be perfect!” and of Christ Jesus, who gave Himself that you might obey this command of your God, I charge you that you do not refuse the call of God’s servant, but enrol yourself among those who accept it: “Let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” Fear not to take your place before God with Paul among the perfect in heart. So far will it be from causing self-complacency, that you will learn from him how the perfect has yet to be perfected, and how the one mark of the perfect is that he counts all things loss as he presses on unto the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we proclaim, admonishing every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ: whereunto I labor also, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.” Col. 1: 27-29.

Perfect in Christ: in our inquiry into the teaching of the Word as to perfection, we have here a new word opening up to us the hope, giving us the assurance, of what we have seen to be our duty. It links all that we have seen of God’s call and claim, with all that we know of Christ in His grace and power. Perfect in Christ: here is the open gateway into the perfect life. He to whom it is given to see fully what it means, finds through it an abundant entrance into the life of Christian perfectness.

There are three aspects in which we need to look at the truth of our being perfect in Christ. There is, first, our perfectness in Christ, as it is prepared for us in Him, our Head. As the second Adam, Christ came and wrought out a new nature for all the members of His body. This nature is His own life, perfected through suffering and obedience. In thus being perfected Himself, He perfected forever them that are sanctified. His perfection, His perfect life, is ours. And that not only judicially, or by imputation, but as an actual spiritual reality, in virtue of our real and living union with Him. Paul says in the same Epistle, “You are complete, made full in Him”; all that you are to be is already fulfilled, and so you are fulfilled in Him: circumcised in Him, buried with Him, raised with Him, quickened together with Him. All Christ’s members are in Him, fulfilled in Him.

Then there is our perfection in Christ, as imparted to us by the Holy Spirit in uniting us to Him. The life which is implanted in us at the new birth, planted into the midst of a mass of sin and flesh, is a perfect life. As the seed contains in itself the whole life of the tree, so the seed of God within us is the perfect life of Christ, with its power to grow, and fill our life, and bring forth fruit to perfection.

And then there is also our perfection in Christ, as wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, appropriated by us in the obedience of faith, and made manifest in our life and conduct. As our faith grasps and feeds upon the truth in the two former aspects, and yields itself to God to have that perfect life master and pervade the whole of our daily life in its ordinary actions; perfect in Christ will become each moment a present practical reality and experience. All that the Word has taught of the perfect heart, and the perfect way, of being perfect as the Father, and perfect as the Master, shines with new meaning and with the light of a new life. Christ, the living Christ, is our Perfection; He, Himself, lives each day and hour to impart it. The measureless love of Jesus, and the power of the endless life in which His life works, become the measure of our expectation. In the life in which we now live in the flesh, with its daily duties in relationship with men and money, with care and temptation, we are to give the proof that Perfect in Christ is no mere ideal, but in the power of Almighty God, simple and literal truth.

It is in the last of these three aspects that Paul has used the expression in our text. He speaks of admonishing every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, that he may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. It is to the perfectness in daily life and walk that the admonishing and teaching have reference. In principle, Christians were perfect in Christ: in practice they were to become perfect. The aim of the Gospel Ministry among believers was to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, to teach men how they might put on the Lord Jesus, have His life cover them and have His life in them.

What a task! What a hopeless task to the minister, as he looks upon the state of the Church! What a task of infinite hopefulness, if he does his work as Paul did, “Whereunto,” nothing less than presenting every man perfect in Christ: “Whereunto I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.” The aim is high, but the power is Divine. Let the minister, in full purpose of heart, make Paul’s aim his own: to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. He may count upon Paul’s strength: “His working which works in me mightily.”

“Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Jesus Christ, salutes you, always striving for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.” Col. 4: 12.

In this, as in some of the other Epistles, there is set before us the life of the believer as he lives it in heaven in Christ, and then as he lives it here on earth with men. The teaching of Scripture is intensely spiritual and supernatural, but, at the same time, intensely human and practical. This comes out very beautifully in the two expressions of our Epistle. Paul had told the Colossians what he labored for; he now tells them what another minister, Epaphras, prayed on their behalf. Paul’s striving was in his labor that they might be perfect in Christ Jesus. The striving of Epaphras was in the prayer that they might be perfect in all the will of God.

First we have “Perfect in Christ Jesus.” The thought is so unearthly and Divine, that its full meaning eludes our grasp. It lifts up to life in Christ and heaven. Then we have “Perfect in all the will of God.” This word brings us down to earth and daily life, placing all under the rule of God’s will, and calling us in every action and disposition to live in the will of God.

“That you may stand perfect in all the will of God.” “The perfection of the creature consists in nothing but willing the will of the Creator.” The will of God is the expression of the Divine perfection. Nature has its beauty and glory in being the expression of the Divine will. The angels have their place and bliss in heaven in doing God’s will. The Son of God was perfected in learning obedience, in giving Himself up unto the will of God. His redemption has but one object, to bring man into that only place of rest and blessedness — the will of God. The prayer of Epaphras shows how truly he had entered into the spirit of his Master. He prays for his people, that they may stand in the will of God; and that in all the will of God — nothing in their life excepted, in which they were not in God’s will. And that again, perfect in all the will of God; at each moment, with a perfect heart walking in a perfect way. Perfect in all the will of God, is ever his one thought of what ought to be asked and could be found in prayer.

Paul prayed for the Colossians, “that they might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” These two servants of God were of one mind, that young converts must be reminded that their knowledge of God’s will is very defective, that they need to pray for a Divine teaching to know that Will, and that their one aim should be to stand perfect in all that will.

Let all seekers after perfection, let all who would be like-minded with Paul, note well the lesson. In the joy of a consecration sealed by the Holy Spirit, in the consciousness of a wholehearted purpose, and of serving God with a perfectheart, the believer is often tempted to forget how much there may be in which he does not yet see God’s will. There may be grave defects in his character, serious shortcomings from the law of perfect love in his conduct, which others can observe. The consciousness of acting up to the full light of what we know to be right is a most blessed thing, one of the marks of the perfect heart. But it must ever be accompanied with the remembrance of how much there may be that has not yet been revealed to us. This sense of ignorance as to much of God’s will, this conviction that there is still much in us that needs to be changed, and sanctified, and perfected, will make us very humble and tender, very watchful and hopeful in prayer. So far from interfering with our consciousness that we serve God with a perfect heart, it will give it new strength, while it cultivates that humility which is the greatest beauty of perfection. Without it, the appeal to the consciousness of our uprightness becomes superficial and dangerous, and the doctrine of perfection a stumbling-block and a snare.

Perfect in all the will of God. Let this be our unceasing aim and prayer. Striking its roots deep in the humility which comes from the conviction of how much there is yet to be revealed to us; strengthened by the consciousness that we have given ourselves to serve Him with a perfect heart; full of the glad purpose to be content with nothing less than standing perfect in all the will of God; rejoicing in the confidence of what God will do for those who are before Him perfect in Christ Jesus: let our faith claim the full blessing. God will reveal to us how perfect in Christ Jesus, and perfect in all the will of God, are one in His thought, and may be so in our experience.

Paul prayed for the Colossians “without ceasing,” that they might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Epaphras was “always striving in his prayers” for them, that they might stand perfect in all the will of God. It is by prayer, by unceasing striving in prayer, that this grace must be sought for the Church. It is before the throne, it is in the presence of God, that the life of perfection must be found and lived. It is by the operation of the mighty quickening power of God Himself, waited for and received in prayer, that believers can indeed stand perfect in all the will of God. God give us grace so to seek and so to find it.

“It became Him to make the Leader of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Heb. 2: 10. “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been perfected, He became, for all them that obey Him, the Author of eternal salvation.” Heb. 5: 8, 9. “But the word of the oath appointeth a Son, perfected forevermore.” Heb. 7: 28.

We have here three passages in which we are taught that Jesus Christ Himself, though He was the Son of God, had to be perfected. The first tells us that it was as the Leader of our salvation that He was perfected; that it was God’s work to perfect Him; that there was a need-be for it; “it became God” to do it; and that it was through suffering the work was accomplished. The second, what the power of suffering to perfect was, that in it He learned obedience to God’s will; and that, being thus perfected, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. The third, that it is as the Son perfected for evermore that He is appointed High Priest in the heavens.

The words open to us the inmost secret of Christian perfection. The Christian has no other perfection than the perfection of Christ. The deeper his insight into the character of his Lord, as having been made perfect by being brought into perfect union with God’s will through suffering and obedience, the more clearly will he apprehend wherein that redemption which Christ came to bring really consists, and what the path is to its full enjoyment.

In Christ there was nothing of sinful defect or shortcoming. He was from His birth the perfect One. And yet He needed to be perfected. There was something in His human nature which needed to grow, to be strengthened and developed, and which could only thus be perfected. He had to follow on, as, step by step, the will of God opened up to Him, and in the midst of temptation and suffering to learn and prove what it was at any cost to do that will alone. It is this Christ who is our Leader and Forerunner, our High Priest and Redeemer.

And it is as this perfection of His, this being made perfect through obedience to God’s will, is revealed to us, that we will know fully what the redemption is that He brings.

We learn to take Him as our example. Like Him we say, “I am come, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” We accept the will of God as the one thing we have to live for and to live in. In every circumstance and trial we see and bow to the will of God. We meet every providential appointment, in every ordinary duty of daily life, as God’s will. We pray to be filled with the knowledge of His will, that we may enter into it in its fulness, that we may stand complete in all the will of God. Whether we suffer or obey God’s will, we seek to be perfected as the Master was.

We not only take Christ as our example and law in the path of perfection, but as the promise and pledge of what we are to be. All that Christ was and did as Substitute, Representative, Head and Savior, is for us. All He does is in the power of the endless life. This perfection of His is the perfection of His life, His way of living; this life of His, perfected in obedience, is now ours. He gives us His own Spirit to breathe, to work it in us. He is the Vine; we are the branches; the very mind and disposition that was in Him on earth is communicated to us.

Yes, more; it is not only Christ in heaven who imparts to us somewhat of His Spirit; Christ Himself comes to dwell in our heart: the Christ who was made perfect through learning obedience. It is in this character that He reigns in heaven: “He became obedient unto death; therefore God highly exalted Him.” It is in this character that He dwells and rules in the heart. The real character, the essential attribute of the life Christ lived on earth, and which He maintains in us, is this: a will perfect with God, and ready at any cost to be perfected in all His will. It is this character He imparts to His own: the perfection with which He was perfected in learning obedience. As those who are perfect in Christ, who are perfect of heart towards God, and are pressing on to be made perfect, let us live in the will of God, our one desire to be even as He was, to do God’s will, to stand perfect in all the will of God.

“But solid food is for the perfect, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern goad and evil. For this reason, let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ, and press on unto perfection.” Heb. 5: 14; 6: 1.

The writer had criticized the Hebrews for being dull of hearing; for having made no progress in the Christian life; for still being as little children who needed milk. They could not bear solid food, the deeper and more spiritual teaching in regard to the heavenly state of life into which Christ had entered, and into which He gives admission to those who are ready for it. Such our writer calls the perfect, mature or full-grown men of the house of God. We must not connect the idea of mature or full-grown with time. In the Christian life it is not as in nature: a believer of three years old may be counted among the mature or perfect, while one of twenty years’ standing may be but a babe, unskilled in the word of righteousness. Nor must we connect it with power of intellect or maturity of judgment. These may be found without that insight into spiritual truth, and that longing after the highest attainable perfection in character and fellowship with God, of which the writer is speaking.

We are told what the distinguishing characteristic of the perfect is: “even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil”‘ It is the desire after holiness, the tender conscience that longs above everything to discern good and evil, the heart that seeks only, and always, and fully to know and do the will of God, that marks the perfect. The man who has set his heart upon being holy, and in the pursuit after the highest moral and spiritual perfection exercises his senses in everything to discern good and evil, is counted the perfect man.

The Epistle has spoken of the two stages of the Christian life. It now calls upon the Hebrews to be no longer babes, no longer to remain content with the first principles, the mere elements of the doctrine of Christ. With the exhortation, “Let us press on to perfection”; it invites them to come and learn how Jesus is a Priest in the power of an endless life, who can save completely; how He is the Mediator of a better covenant, lifting us into a better life by writing the law in our heart; how the Holiest of all has been set open for us to enter in, and there to serve the living God. “Let us go on to perfection” is the landmark pointing all to that heavenly life in God’s presence which can be lived even here on earth, to which the full knowledge of Jesus as our heavenly High Priest leads us.

“Let us press on to Perfection.” It is not the first time we have the word in the Epistle. We read of God’s perfecting Christ through suffering. Perfection is that perfect union with God’s will, that blessed meekness and surrender to God’s will, which the Father wrought in Christ through His suffering. We read of Christ’s learning obedience, and so being made perfect. This is the true maturity or perfection, the true wisdom among the perfect, the knowing and doing God’s will. We read of strong food for the perfect, who by reason of practice, have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. Here again perfection is, even as with Christ, the disposition, the character that is formed when a man makes conformity to God’s will, fellowship with God in His holiness, the one aim of His life, to which everything else, even life itself, is to be sacrificed.

It is to this that Jesus, our High Priest, and the further teaching of the Epistle, would lead us on. The knowledge of the mysteries of God, of the highest spiritual truth, cannot profit us, because we have no inward capacity for receiving them, unless our inmost life is given up to receive as ours the perfection with which Jesus was perfected. When this disposition is found, the Holy Spirit will reveal to us how Christ has perfected forever, in the power of an endless life, those who are sanctified. He has prepared a life, a disposition, with which He clothes them. And we will understand that, “Let us go on to perfection,” just means this, “Let us go on to know Christ perfectly, to live entirely by His heavenly life now that He is perfected, to follow wholly His earthly life, and the path in which He reached perfection.” Union with Christ in heaven will mean likeness to Christ on earth in that lamb-like meekness and humility in which He suffered, in that Son-like obedience through which He entered into glory.

Brethren, leaving the first principles, let us go on to Perfection.

“Now, if there was perfection through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people had received the law), what further need that another priest should arise after the order of Melchisedek? . . . who has been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life . . . . For there is a disannulling of a former commandment, because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect.” Heb. 7: 11-19. Gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot, as touching the conscience, make the worshiper perfect.” Heb. 9: 9. “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, can never make perfect them that draw nigh.” Heb. 10: 1. “That apart from us they should not be made perfect.” Heb. 11: 40.

Of the Epistles of the New Testament there is none in which the word “Perfect” is used so often as that to the Hebrews. There is none that will help us more to see what Christian perfection is, and the way to its attainment. The word is used thrice of our Lord Jesus, and His being made perfect Himself. Twice of our subjective perfection. Five times of the perfection of which the law was the shadow, but which could not be until Jesus came. Thrice of Christ’s work in perfecting us. And once of the work of God in perfecting us. These five thoughts will each give us a subject of meditation. Of the first two we have spoken already.

A careful perusal of the verses placed above, will show that the writer thought it of great importance to make it clear that the law could perfect no person or thing. It was all the more of consequence to press this, both because of the close connection in which the law stood to the true perfection, as its promise and preparation, and of the natural tendency of the human heart to seek perfection by the law. It was not only the Hebrews who greatly needed this teaching: among Christians in our days the greatest hindrance in accepting the perfection the gospel asks and offers, is that they make the law its standard, and then our impotence to fulfil the law, the excuse for not attaining, for not even seeking it. They have never understood that the law is but a preparation for something better; and that when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part is done away.

The Law demands; the Law calls to effort; the Law means self. It puts self upon doing its utmost. But it makes nothing perfect, neither the conscience nor the worshiper. This is what Christ came to bring. The very perfection which the law could not give He does give. The Epistle tells us that He was made a Priest, not as Aaron, after the law and in connection with the service of a carnal commandment, which had to be disannulled because of its weakness and unprofitableness, but after the power of an endless life. What Christ, as Priest, has wrought and now works, is all in the power of an inward birth, of a new life, of the eternal life. What is born into me, what is as a spirit and life within me, has its own power of growth and action. Christ’s being made perfect Himself through suffering and obedience; His having perfected us by that sacrifice by which He was perfected Himself; and His communication of that perfection to us, is all in the power of an endless life. It works in us as a life power; in no other way could we become partakers of it.

Perfection is not through the law; let us listen to the blessed lesson. Let us take the warning. The law is so closely connected with perfection, was so long its only representative and forerunner, that we can hardly realize: the law makes nothing perfect. Let us take the encouragement: What the law could not do, God, sending His Son, has done. The Son, perfected for evermore, has perfected us for ever. It is in Jesus we have our perfection. It is in living union with Him, it is when He is within us, not only as a seed or a little child, but formed within us, dwelling within us, that we shall know how far He can make us perfect. It is faith that leads us in the path of perfection. It is the faith that sees, that receives, that lives in Jesus the Perfect One, that will bear us on to the perfection God would have.

“But Christ, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, through His own blood, entered once for all into the holy place.” Heb. 9: 11, 12.

“By one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.” Heb. 10: 14.

In Christ’s work, as set before us in the Epistle to the Hebrews, there are two parts. In contrast with the worldly sanctuary, He is the minister of the true tabernacle. The Holiest of all is now open to us: Christ has opened the way through a more perfect tabernacle into the presence of God. He has prepared and opened up for us a place of perfect fellowship with God, of access, in a life of faith, which means a life in full union with Christ, into God’s immediate presence.

There must be harmony between the place of worship and the worshiper. As He has prepared the perfect sanctuary, the Holiest of all, for us, He has prepared us for it too. “By one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.” For the sanctuary the sanctified ones; for the Holiest of all a holy priesthood; for the perfect tabernacle the perfected worshiper.

“By one sacrifice He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.” The word perfected cannot mean here anything different from what it meant in the three passages where it has been previously used of Him (Heb. 2: 11, 5: 9, 7: 28). They all point to that which constituted the real value, the innermost nature, of His sacrifice. He was Himself perfected for our sakes, so that He might perfect us with the same perfection with which God had perfected Him. What is this perfection with which God perfected Him through suffering, in which He was perfected through obedience, in which as the Son, perfected forevermore, He was made our High Priest?

The answer is to be found in what the object was of Christ’s redeeming work. The perfection of man as created consisted in this, that he had a will with power to will as God willed, and so to enter into inner union with the Divine life and holiness and glory. His fall was a turning from the will of God to do the will of self. And so this self and self-will became the source and the curse of sin. The work of Christ was to bring man back to that will of God in which alone is life and blessedness. Therefore it became God, it was proper and needful if He was to be the Leader of our salvation, that God should make Him perfect through suffering. In His own person He was to conquer sin, to develop and bring to perfection a real human life, sacrificing everything that men hold dear, willing to give up even life itself, in surrender to God’s will; proving that it is the meat, the very life of man’s spirit, to do God’s will. This was the perfection with which Christ was perfected as our High Priest, who brings us back to God. This was the meaning and the value of His sacrifice, that “one sacrifice”‘ by which “He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.” In the same sacrifice in which He was perfected, He perfected us. As the second Adam, He made us partakers of His own perfection. Just as Adam in his death corrupted us and our nature forevermore, so Christ, in His death, in which He, Himself, was perfected, perfected us and our nature for evermore. He has created for us a new perfect nature, a new life. With Him we died to sin; in Him we live for God.

And how do we become partakers of this perfection with which Christ has perfected us? First of all the conscience is perfected so that we have no more conscience of sin, and enter boldly into the Holiest, the Presence of God. The consciousness of a perfect redemption possesses and fills the soul. And then, as we abide in this, God Himself perfects us in every good thing, to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ. Through Christ, the High Priest in the power of the endless life, there comes to us in a constant stream from on high, the power of the heavenly life. So that day by day we may present ourselves perfect in Christ Jesus.

A soul that seeks to dwell in the Divine perfection of which the Epistle speaks; that holds fellowship with Him who in such intense human reality was perfected through suffering and obedience; that in faith turns to Him who has perfected us, and now holds our perfection in Himself to be communicated as a life in us day by day, for us to practice and put it into exercise in walking in His footsteps; may count most surely that He Himself will lead it into the promised inheritance.

“Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Heb. 13: 20, 21.

These two verses contain a summary of the whole Epistle in the form of a prayer. In the former of the two we have the substance of what was taught in the first or doctrinal half — what God has done for us in the redemption in Christ Jesus. In the second of the two verses we have a revelation and a promise of what this God of redemption will do for us; we see how God’s one aim and desire is to make us perfect. We have said before, the word “perfect” here implies the removal of all that is wrong, and the supply of all that is lacking. This is what God waits to do in us. “God make you perfect in every good thing.”

We need a large faith to claim this promise. So that our faith may be full and strong, we are reminded of what God has done for us; this is the assurance of what He will yet do in us. Let us look to Him as the God of peace, who has made peace in the entire putting away of sin; who now proclaims peace; who gives perfect peace. Let us look to Jesus Christ, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, our High Priest and King, who loves to care for and keep us. Let us remember the blood of the eternal covenant, in the power of which God raised Him and He entered heaven; that blood is God’s pledge that the covenant with its promises will be fulfilled in our hearts. Let us think of God’s bringing Him again from the dead, that our faith and hope might be in God; the power that raised Jesus is the power that works in us. Yes, let us look, and worship, and adore this God of peace, who has done it all, who raised Christ through the blood of the covenant, that we might know and trust Him.

And let us believe the message that tells us: This God of peace, He will perfect you in every good thing. The God who perfected Christ will perfect you too. The God who has worked out such a perfect salvation for us, will perfect it in us. The more we gaze upon Him who has done such wondrous things for us, will we trust Him for this wondrous thing He promises to do in us, to perfect us in every good thing. What God did in Christ is the measure of what He will do in us to make us perfect. The same Omnipotence that worked in Christ to perfect Him, waits for our faith to trust its working in us day by day to perfect us in the doing of God’s will. And on our part, the surrender to be made perfect will be the measure of our capacity to experience what God has done in Christ.

And now hear what this perfection is which this God promises to work in us. It is truly Divine, as Divine as the work of redemption: the God of peace, who brought again Christ from the dead, perfect you. It is intensely practical: in every good thing, to do His will. It is universal, with nothing excluded from its operation: in every good thing. It is truly human and personal: God perfects us, so that we do His will. It is inward: God working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. And it is most blessed, giving us the consciousness that our life pleases Him, because it is His own work: He works in us that which is pleasing in His sight.

“God perfect you to do His will:” this is the conclusion of the whole Epistle. “To do His will:” this is the blessedness of the angels in heaven. For this the Son became man: by this He was perfected: in this, — “in the which will,” as done by Him, “we are sanctified.” It is “TO DO His WILL” that God perfects us; that God works in us that which is pleasing in His sight.

Believer, let God’s aim be your aim also. Say to God that you do desire this above everything. Give yourself, at once, entirely, absolutely, to this, and say with the Son, “I come to do Your will, O my God.” This will give you an insight into the meaning, and the need, and the preciousness of the promise, “God perfect you to do His will.” This will fix your heart upon God in the wondrous light of the truth: He who perfected Christ is perfecting me too. This will give you confidence, in the fulness of faith, to claim this God as your God, the God who perfects in every good thing.

The perfecting of the believer by God, restoring him to his right condition to fit him for doing His will, may be instantaneous. A valuable piece of machinery may be out of order. The owner has spent time and trouble in vain to put it right. The maker comes: it costs him but a moment to see and remove the hindrance. And so the soul that has for years wearied itself in the effort to do God’s will, may often in one moment be delivered from some misapprehension as to what God demands or promises, and find itself restored, perfected for every good thing. And what was done in a moment becomes the secret of the continuous life, as faith each day claims the God that perfects, to do that which is well pleasing in His sight.

Yes, the soul that dares say to God that it yields itself in everything to do His will, and through all the humiliation which comes from the sense of emptiness and impotence, abides by its vow in simple trust, will be made strong to rise and to appropriate and experience in full measure what God has offered in this precious word: “The God of peace perfect you, in every good thing, to do His will, working in you that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ.”

And it will sing with new meaning, and in fulness of joy, the song of adoring love: “To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”