Make you perfect in every good work.' Now, I need only observe here, in regard to the language of the petition, that the word translated make perfect' is not the ordinary one employed for that idea, but a somewhat remarkable one, with a very rich and pregnant variety of significance. For instance, it is employed to describe the action of the fisherman apostles in mending their nets. It is employed to describe the divine action which by faith we understand' when He made the worlds.' It is employed to describe the action which the Apostle commends to one of his churches when he bids them restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.' It is the condition which he described when he desired another of his churches to be perfectly joined together, in one mind and in one judgment.' It is still again the expression employed when he speaks of filling up; or perfecting that which is lacking in their faith.' The general idea of the word, then, is to make sound, or fit, or complete, by restoring, by mending, by filling up what is lacking, and by adapting all together in harmonious cooperation. And so this is what Christians ought to look for, and todesire as being the will of God concerning them. The writer goes on to still further deepen the idea when he says, make you perfect in every good work':where the word work is a supplement, and unnecessarily limits the idea of the text. For that applies much rather to character than to work, and the make you perfect in every good' refers rather to an inward process than to any outward manifestation. And this character, thus harmonised, corrected, restored, filled up where it is lacking, and that in regard of all manner of good--whatsoever things are fair, and lovely, and of good report'--that character is well-pleasing to God.'
So, brethren, you see the width of the hopes--ay! of the confidence--that you and I ought to cherish. We should expect that all the discord of our nature shall be changed into a harmonious co-operation of all its parts towards one great end. We bear about within us a warning anarchy and tumultuous chaos, where solid and fluid, warm and cold, light and dark, calm and storm, contend. Is there any power that can harmonise this divided nature of ours, where lusts and passions, and inclinations of all sorts, drag one away, and duty draws another, so as that a man is torn apart as it were by wild horses? There is one. The worlds' were harmonised, adapted, and framed together, and chaos turned into order and beauty, and the God of Peace will come and do that for us, if we will let Him, so that the long schism which affects our natures, and makes us say sometimes, I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind.' Oh! wretched man that I am; who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' may be changed into perfect harmony, and the bear shall eat straw like the ox, and the lion shall lie down with the lamb; and a little child shall lead them'--the meekness of a patient love bridling all their ravening passions. It is possible that our hearts may be united to fear His name; and that one unbroken temper of whole-spirited submission may be ours.
Again, we should expect, and desire, and strive towards the correction of all that is wrong, the mending of the nets, the restoring of the havoc wrought in legitimate occupations and by any other cause. Again, we may strive with hope and confidence towards the supply of all that is lacking. In every good'--an all-round completeness of excellence ought to be the hope, and the aim, as well as the prayer, of every Christian. Of course our various perfectings will be various. Star differeth from star in glory,' and the new man in many respects follows the lines of the old man, and temperament is permanent. But still, whilst all that is true, and while each shall ray back the divine light and radiance at a different angle, and so with a different hue from that which his neighbour, standing beside him, may catch and reflect, on the other hand the gospel is given to us to correct temperament, and to make the most uncongenial types of grace and excellence ours. It is meant to make it possible that men should gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles'; and to correct and fill up what is wrong and what is defective in our natural dispositions, so as that the passionate man may be made meek, and the hesitating man may be made prompt, and the animal man may be sublimed into spirit, and all that is proper to my peculiar constitution and character may be curbed and limited, and much that is not congenial to it may be appropriated and made mine. We are all apt to grow one-sided Christians, and it is our business to try to make ours the things that are lacking in our faith, and to supplement, by the grace of God working in our hearts, the defects of our qualities and the failures of our disposition and temperament. Do not grow like a tree stuck in the middle of a shrubbery. which has only space to put forth branches on one side, and is all lop-sided and awry; but like some symmet rical growth out in the open, equal all round the strong bole, and rising in perfect completeness of harmonious beauty to the topmost twig that looks up to the sky. God means to make us perfect in every good'; to harmonise, to correct, to restore, to perfect us, that we, having all grace, may abound in all good to His glory.
Such is His purpose. Ah, brethren! has not the recognition of that as His purpose alarmingly died out of our minds; and do we live up to the height of this prayer? I would that we should all remember more, as defining our aims, and animating our courage, and directing our hopes, that this is the will of God, even our sanctification'; and that, when faith is dim, and effort burns low, and we are ready to put all such hopes away as a fair dream, we might be stirred to more lofty expectations, and to open our mouths wider by the thought of the' God of peace that brought again from the dead the Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant'; and ask ourselves what result on us will correspond to that mighty name of the Lord.
