IS IT PERFECTION, OR 'THE BEST THING GOING'?

IS IT PERFECTION, OR ‘THE BEST THING GOING’?

The great evidence of the impotence and defectiveness of our nature is the inability to reach perfection in anything, and the attempt to gratify the desire for it only leads to the discovery of our inability, so that the desire, commendable in itself, grows when fostered into the worst of vices, either avarice or insatiable ambition. Nothing exposes more the imperfection of our nature than the simple fact that the more nature is ministered to, and the more that which is suited to it is superadded, the greater and deeper is its sense of the vanity of everything; as Solomon expresses it, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit”. This is the result of every fresh acquisition. There is, therefore, no reaching perfection in nature, and this fact gives colour to a very grievous mistake, into which saints in every age have fallen, namely, to be satisfied with imperfection in the things of God; not that they are regarded imperfect in themselves, but the idea is that, as we have not, we are not to reach the summit or perfection of any truth, though it be revealed, and though it be our calling.

The first and simple thing to admit is that every line of truth has its summit or perfection, and then any point below this must be imperfection. No one acquainted with Scripture can doubt this. Canaan was evidently the summit of the exodus from Egypt. The fatted calf in the father’s house is without doubt the summit or perfection of the reception accorded to the prodigal; paradise to the thief; glory to Stephen; the heavenly places in Christ Jesus to the saint now. The second thing is to aim at this, the summit of each line of truth, and to refuse to be satisfied with any point below it. If I admit that every line of truth has its proper summit, then, though I may be far away from it practically, yet I am upheld in my endeavours to reach it by the Spirit of God, who always works from the summit, because He is there; and I am thus preserved from adopting the qualifications and limitations of the truth which my fellows have accepted. The purpose to be satisfied with nothing imperfect, and the attempt to be content with ‘the best thing going’, are two very different things, and have a very different effect. In the former I honour God who has called me to perfection; and though I have not reached the perfection practically, I will accept nothing that qualifies it, and I look to Him to lead me on, knowing that I am already apprehended in Christ Jesus. With the latter I refuse the leading of God’s Spirit, and I hinder it by accepting that which limits the truth of God to a point below His mind.

^[p. 106] The constant excuse for defects individually or ecclesiastically is, We cannot expect perfection here; but this is an argument for putting up with imperfection, without any attempt to emerge from it. I admit there is imperfection, but the Spirit of God does not remain inactive or content in imperfection. No doubt He deals with us in the midst of imperfection; but where would He lead us? Surely to perfection, to the summit of every truth. The proof of apostasy in every age was the quiet way the people of God condescended to a limitation of His truth, and resigned themselves to it, as if it were a virtue; and afterwards, when there was a recovery of some of that which had been neglected — in other words, a reformation — it was regarded as an era par excellence. I am not disapproving of the revival, I commend and rejoice in it; but if souls are by it deluded from seeking perfection, then I must say it is a dangerous snare to them. If it is right to recover truth at all, surely it is more so to recover it perfectly. The argument for recovering it in part applies still more to the recovery of it wholly. I do not deny that there is imperfection everywhere, but the extent of imperfection ought never to reconcile me to it. If I am on God’s side, I refuse everything that is imperfect, though I be surrounded on all sides with imperfection; I do not resign myself to it, but through grace I turn aside from it, as it is manifested to me. It is not the question with me whether I shall ever reach perfection here; but I seek this and nothing less, and my purpose, God helping me, is neither to sanction nor to connive at any imperfection in doctrine or practice, but to expose and disallow it in word and deed; and the more faithful I am, the more will it be disclosed to me, and the more shall I be enabled to reach the mind of God. The history given in Psalm 106 is in principle the history of christendom. There Israel is reminded that no single line of blessing did God ever propose or mark out for them, that they did not limit or qualify. “They soon forgot his works;

^[p. 107] they waited not for his counsel ... they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word”.

In dealing with the things of God, we have too much forgotten that they are God’s and not ours. Man cannot obtain perfection in anything, and we must be content with imperfection as to human things. But God does obtain it in everything; and hence one of the worst moral symptoms in the present hour is the attempt of saints to go on with things which in the secret of their hearts they disapprove of and condemn; and all simply with this excuse, that they see nothing better — as if seeing nothing better were any reason for remaining connected or involved with that which is not truth, though it be a part of it. Really one has not the truth until one has in faith reached the summit of it. The summit of it is its crown; and until the soul has been led by God’s Spirit to see the point to which it reaches, one cannot speak of knowing it.

The mistake which many true men have made is in confining truth to the extent of the practical knowledge of it. To see by faith the summit of a truth, and to rest satisfied with this light or vision without seeking to reach it practically, would be saying, ‘I have plenty of corn and cattle, but I am starving’. Surely the abundance of food is nothing unless used; but it is quite another thing to place me spiritually — I am there naturally — in the state of ravens who have neither barn nor storehouse, or like an emigrant in a wild country, acquiring provision according to his own labour. The Spirit gives me faith to see the abundance God secured for me, but then I must rise and partake of it; and as I appropriate it, I understand and walk in the blessedness of it. What is the cause of the darkness in souls on any point of truth? It is not that they know nothing of it, but that they have not as yet laid hold by faith of its summit, its proper finish. Saints as a rule know something of every truth, but rarely, if ever, do they reach the summit of any. Truth in grace ^[p. 108] reaches down to man; but comes from God, and hence Christ Himself is the truth. I can touch the line of it, and even enter on it, without feeling the extent of its exaction on me; but as I proceed and see how it connects me with God, I am sensible that man in nature must retire, and this is the real check to the acceptance of truth’s summit. Let us take any truth generally accepted among saints in the present day, and thereby test the correctness of these statements. Take the parable about the father and the prodigal in Luke 15. Will any one say that the feeding on the fatted calf in the father’s house is aimed at by every one who knows that he is an accepted son, or that he is looking for it now as the proper and only completion of the truth he has tasted? If saints were feeding on those unequalled joys, the world and its things would be little thought of. Does every believer in Christ aim at possessing that “water that I shall give him”, of which it is said, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”? The commencement of this line must be touched by every believer, but how many see the summit or completion of it? Does every one who believes that the child of God is born of the Spirit, see and maintain that such an one is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that the church is the habitation of God through the Spirit? Does every believer in the death of Christ accept and insist on the crucifixion of the old man, and that if Christ be in us, the body is dead because of sin; that hence we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit? Does every one assured of being quickened with Christ know, or expect to know, that he is now seated with Him in heavenly places? Does every one who believes in the power and blessing of God’s Spirit assent, yield himself to the truth that the flesh profits nothing, and that no man understands the things of the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of God that is in him?

^[p. 109] All these truths are for the most part accepted and received by believers; but where, I ask, is any one of them enjoyed or taught among us, speaking generally? Where is it insisted on that the life of Christ is our life? Forgiveness is preached through the sacrifice of Christ, and perfect assurance of pardon before God; but where is it pressed as the summit of this truth, that it is His life which we now, as forgiven ones, possess, and should walk in here; “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”? (Galatians 2: 20). Where is it believed and enforced that man was ended judicially before God on the cross; and hence, every one believing in Christ must hate his own life, that for which his Saviour was judged? Is it not plain that if any of these truths were grasped to their summit — their perfection, from whence the Spirit of God propounds them — there would be a marked deliverance from the restlessness of spirit and worldliness of habit, which degrades the christian to the level of the man of the world? The fact is — sad, bitterly sad as it is to feel it — that the most, in many cases, that can be said of earnest men in this day is that which was said of the king of Judah; “he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart”; or as is said of another, “not like David his father”.