October 29 Daily Devotional

Go on to perfection!

Have you noticed the apparent contradiction in Philippians 3? Paul says, ‘Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect’, and then a few verses further on he says, ‘Let us therefore, as many as be perfect....’ Is it a contradiction of what he has just been saying? Not at all; you see the Christian is perfect, and yet he is to become perfect.... At this moment I am perfect in Christ, and yet I am being made perfect. ‘Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after.... I press toward the mark.’ Yes, he is addressing those who are Christians, those who are already perfect in this matter of understanding concerning the way of righteousness and justification. Yet his exhortation to them in a sense is, ‘let us therefore go on to perfection’.

I do not know what you feel about this, but to me it is fascinating. You see the Christian is one who at one and the same time is hungering and thirsting, and yet he is filled. And the more he is filled the more he hungers and thirsts. That is the blessedness of this Christian life. It goes on. You reach a certain stage in sanctification, but you do not rest upon that for the rest of your life. You go on changing from glory into glory ‘till in heaven we take our place’. ‘Of his fullness have we received and grace upon grace’, grace added to grace. It goes on and on; perfect, yet not perfect; hungering, thirsting, yet filled and satisfied, but longing for more, never having enough because it is so glorious and so wondrous; fully satisfied by Him and yet a supreme desire to ‘know him, and the power of his resurrection’.... Are you filled? are you blessed in this sense? are you hungering and thirsting? Those are the questions. This is the gracious, glorious promise of God to all such: ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after rightousness, for they shall be filled.’

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, p. 83