Absolute Perfection

Has the Christian reader ever seriously considered i Cor. i:30, and pondered over it? – pondered and pondered until, as with a picture long gazed upon, it seems to be alive, its beauties-and perfections captivating the mind?

Philosophers were busy after the wisdom which would satisfy the longings of the human mind. One had offered self-indulgence – the gratification of every lust. Another recommended self-abnegation as the road to happiness. All had failed. Then God stepped in and said, Here is the true wisdom, the wisdom which satisfies to the full. It is christ.

Yes, but what is there in Christ thus to satisfy us ? Three things are of paramount importance in our relations with God.

(1) God is essentially and absolutely righteous. Righteousness is the very foundation of His throne. Gracious, loving, kind, and patient as He is, He could never allow even the weight of a feather to disturb the evenness of His balances, when the question of sin came up, even his only and beloved Son, who had been charged with the work of saving sinful men, could not escape the awful hours of darkness when in soul-agony He cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" It is there the righteousness of God appears in its appalling solemnity. Who is he, of the sons of Adam, who, at such a sight, dares to hope of being accepted because of his righteous life ? No, in the light of the cross "there is none righteous, no, not one" (Rom. 3:10). But Christ, according to God's wisdom, is the righteousness of every one who bows his knees to Him. Who will find a flaw in that righteousness ? Is not Christ now seated on God's throne ? Could any imperfection be allowed there? And Christ up there, in that bright glory, is declared of God to be our righteousness. The believer then cannot be impugned. To question his acceptability before God would be to question Christ's, and as we have said before, Christ is already there, the very center in God's glory.

Again (2) God is essentially and absolutely holy; nothing unclean can abide before Him. But are we not unclean – every one of us ? Have we not been born in sin ? Have we not been defiled by unholy, unclean thoughts? To ask these questions is but to answer them – at least with all honest consciences. What then ? To all who believe on Christ, He is, in God's wisdom, their sanctification, By Him, on the cross, sin (not only sins, but sin itself-the very nature which produces sins) was borne by Him and put away; and there He is in the presence of God clear of everything. So are we, for He is our sanctification.

Once more (3), Sin had put us far away .from God, Adam could not stay in the garden. He was banished. How could we, born in the distance, be redeemed, that is, brought back to God, in nearness and happy communion ? Christ measured all that distance. When on the cross, as the sin-bearer, He was judicially as far from God as any of us could be in our sin and sins. Where is He now ? As we have seen before, He has answered all the claims of righteousness and holiness, and He is now as near to the Father as ever He had been. And He is, in the wisdom of God, made to us redemption.
That is, we are by Him brought as near to God as He is.
This, fellow believer, is what this wonderful bit of God's word conveys to us. Is it any wonder if it stands-between verse 29, "That no flesh should glory in His presence," and verse 31, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord ? " for this perfection is far beyond the reach of all human effort as also far beyond all practical Christian attainment. It is of God's bounty to us in Christ. Nor do we climb up into it by degrees. It belongs to every believer alike though all may not apprehend it alike. We have sometimes to be let down into deep depths of soul distress before we can give ear to the riches of God's grace.