06.07. Agonizing to Perfection

Chapter 7 Agonizing to Perfection

THEY are marvelous words that the apostle says of himself. In our own version they are sufficiently startling: "Christ in you, the Hope 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, that worketh in me mightily" (Colossians 1:28-29). But in the language he wrote the word striving is agonizing. It is the word used of a racer or wrestler, of a man straining every nerve and muscle for the prize. Similarly, the words rendered working and worketh are really energizing and energizeth. The words gain vividness and intensity while we read them thus: "Whereunto I labor also, agonizing according to His energizing, that energizeth in me mightily." In the spring, when the first flowers herald the advent of the boundless wealth of natural life, we become keenly sensible of the putting forth of God’s energy. It throbs in every flower and tree, in orchard and hedge-row. So it is in the heart and life of each regenerate man. God is in him, and energizes in him; and it is for him to agonize, according to the in working of the Divine Spirit of life. But what was the goal of the apostle’s agony? What object was that toward which the divine energy bore him? Why that straining nerve, that eager strife? To the superficial glance it seems as if he sought nothing else than that each of his converts should be presented perfect in Christ; but the word also conveys an added thought, a touch of deeper meaning. It is doubtless true that the apostle was eager to see each spiritual child stand complete in all the will of God, but it is equally true that he sought it with equal earnestness for himself. And what of this perfection which he so strenuously sought? The thought at the root of the Greek word is end, or fulfilment. The perfect thing is that which fulfils to its utmost limit its ideal. Everything has an ideal, toward the fulfilment of which it strives. There is an ideal for the waterfall dropping from the uplands where the snows are melting; an ideal for the Alp that rears itself in splintered glory against the deep blue of the sky; an ideal for the tree that spreads itself in the parkland, and for the flower that unfurls its secret loveliness in the glade. The ideal is possibly never realized. It exists in the mind of God alone. It combines in perfect and finished beauty, too fair for earth, all the essential properties of grace, beauty, and usefulness, peculiar to the order of which it is the norm or type. But every member of the family of which it is the ideal is impelled by an inward impulse to strive toward its attainment. Though it has never been realized and never can be realized, in texture however delicate, in hue however exquisite, in form however shapely; though ages have striven for it, and failed; yet it is the supreme goal for which each member of the family makes. So there is an ideal man. In nature the ideal exists only in the mind of God, and has never been perfectly realized, because sin has blighted creation, and the creature is made subject to vanity. But the ideal Man has been manifested. Human hands have touched Him, human eyes beheld Him, weary heads have rested near His heart. And each regenerate soul must strive even to agony to realize that ideal, and to be conformed to the image of the Son, that He may be the first-born among many brethren. This is perfection, the fulfilment of the divine ideal, the realization of the divine type.

We must agonize for this. All around us there are indications of such agony. See how the forest trees strive to realize their ideal growth, though they are pent in on all sides by their competitors. Mark how the bird will persevere against every discouragement and difficulty to fashion the ideal nest. Consider the ingenuity by which nature tries to gain her end, even when there is malformation and disease, as though she would not be thwarted in her purpose or defeated in her design. Would that such agony were ours! In spite of difficulties, discouragement, natural drawbacks, let us agonize to fulfil so far as possible the divine ideal presented in Jesus Christ our Lord. But the parallel between natural and spiritual growth holds still farther. We have within us the germ of the perfected manhood of Christ. His seed remaineth in us. We have been made partakers of the divine nature. What is that incorruptible seed of which we are begotten again, except it be the germ of the Christ-life? And as the seed of flower or tree, as the young life of bird or beast, aspires to realize their perfect ideal, so that holy thing which has been born into our hearts by the Holy Ghost can do no other than aspire toward an even closer approximation to the likeness of the Lord Jesus.

It may not be possible that we should ever perfectly attain unto it. "Not as though I had already attained" must be our perpetual confession--"I follow after." There will be some curl in the leaf, some stain or freckle in the flower, some defect or excrescence. The limitations of our mortality, the taint of our nature, the conditions of the atmosphere, all militate against the perfect attainment of our quest; and those who are nearest it will think themselves farthest away. Still we must agonize toward it, prompted by the inherent nature of that which was begotten in us by the regenerating Spirit.

Then, to put the same thought in another form, we are joined by faith to the perfect Man Himself. As the vine-root, hidden far away in the earth, tries to repeat itself in every green frond that waves in the balmy air, and every reddening grape, so does the Christ-life, pouring into our nature from the heart of our Lord, yearn to repeat itself more fully and perfectly within us. Every time we loathe ourselves and repent; every time we catch a new vision of our ideal, and long to transfer it to ourselves; every time we feel within ourselves a kindredship with great and holy souls, we are receiving another pulse of the life of Jesus seeking to express and realize itself. At whatever cost, we must then agonize to answer and realize the divine promptings, "not disobedient to the heavenly vision."

Directly we touch Christ, though the touch be slight as that of the woman on His robe, a relationship is established between Him and us, and from that moment His perfect manhood begins to flow into our innermost being, molding it after the fashion of His own.

But, to put the truth in yet another form, we have within the same Holy Spirit that fashioned and energized within the human nature of Christ. Through Him He was conceived and anointed; and by Him He offered Himself without spot to God, and was raised from the dead. This blessed Spirit is actually within us, and is striving to conform us to the image of our Lord. In some He has been so often grieved and thwarted that His energizing is reduced to a minimum. But in others He energizes mightily. Probably the more we yield to them, the more mighty do those energizings become. This is where our agonizings must begin. Not to be saved, but to gather up with miserly care and to translate into immediate action those blessed yearnings and energizings. Agonizing that nothing be lost--agonizing to work out in each detail what He works in.

Deliverance from the power of sin is not the supreme attainment of the Christian life. It is incidental, though necessary to it. The mother longs to see her child delivered from the disease that scars its skin, or the fever that is burning up its life, but she would not be content for the child merely to be delivered. She longs to see it grow to perfect maturity. So deliverance from sin is but the stepping-stone, the vestibule and threshold of the real life.

God’s energies are generally slight and gentle at the beginning. Do not miss them by expecting something overmastering and awful. Follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. But the silver thread will become a stream, the stream a river, the river pulsating with the throb and beat of the ocean tide; launch on the rill, and you will presently feel the tidal currents. Then agonize to get from them all they have to give.