An End of All Perfection - Glenn Conjurske
An End of All Perfection
by Glenn Conjurske
“I have seen an end of all perfection.” (Psalm 119:96).
There is no perfection under the sun. In the nature of the case there cannot be. Those who expect to find it here are laboring under a delusion. They know nothing of the ways and purposes of God, as they are plainly revealed in the Bible.
“Plainly revealed,” I say, though we may not find them enunciated in explicit didactic statements. We learn them only by a grasp of the content of the whole book. From that book we learn that this world is a platform for the exhibition of the ways and principles of both good and evil. God does not nip evil in the bud—-where has he ever done so?—-but allows it to have its way, to run its course, and to bear its fruit. He puts in the sickle of judgement only when the vine of the earth is ripe. Till then he allows it to do its work. He lets the leaven alone till the whole lump is leavened. He exhorts us to purge it out, and will doubtless give us all the help we require to accomplish this, if we make an earnest effort to do so, but where man allows the evil to work, God does nothing to stop it. Alas, the best endeavors of the best of men are too often half-hearted and haphazard, ill-advised and ill-executed, and God works no farther than man does. Though many are reluctant to believe it—-indeed, determined not to believe it—-the affairs of this world and this life are actually committed into the hands of man, and actually dependent upon the wisdom and the labors of men for their outcome. All history testifies to this, and so does all Scripture.
This being the case, we will find no perfection under the sun. Those who seek a perfect church, or a perfect pastor, will never find one under the sun. Those who labor for the perfect unity of the church follow a pipe-dream. It will never be—-never can be—-while man is both a sinner and a free agent, and while God allows evil to run its course. Those who seek perfect understanding will never see it till they have put off this tabernacle. Those who think to attain to perfection in doctrine—-or think they have attained it—-are the merest children in understanding, and immeasurably inferior to those who have never dreamed of perfection. A thousand years would be much too short in which to attain perfection in doctrine, and most of us will never see a tenth of that. The cumulative wisdom of the church is of untold value here, but alas, instead of building on the wisdom of their forefathers, one generation commonly casts away what the preceding generation had acquired. Even the most careful economy of the cumulative wisdom of our fathers cannot gain our end, for one lifetime is too short in which to ingest it. The plain fact is, there is no perfection under the sun.
All the advocates of perfection in every sphere think to stand on the ground of faith. They all have one plea, and this of the most pious and spiritual sort. “God is able,” they say. And what if he is? God was able to keep Adam from falling, but he moved not a finger to do so. He could have bound Satan in the pit, but he let him run free in Paradise. He could have called aloud to Eve from heaven, to break the serpent’s spell, but he uttered not a word. Adam and Eve were responsible—-actually so—-and it is none of the business of God to over-ride the responsibility which he himself has established. It is none of his purpose to take into his own hands those things which he has solemnly committed into the hands of man. God is “able to keep you from falling also,” and he will do so also, but not infallibly, not miraculously, not without any diligence on your own part. “If ye do these things,” he tells you, “ye shall never fall.” (II Peter 1:10). It is thus he will keep you from falling, but not otherwise. God was able to keep Cain from slaying Abel, but he did nothing of the kind. Cain was responsible, and it was none of God’s business to set aside the responsibility which he had established himself. God could have taken the life of Cain in order to spare the life of Abel, but he failed to do so. He could have withered the outstretched arm of Cain, as he did that of Jeroboam, but he did no such thing. He allowed the evil to work, to run its course, and to bear its fruit. “One sinner destroyeth much good,” (Eccl. 9:18), and God will ordinarily stand by and see that much good destroyed, ere he will move a hand to destroy that one sinner. This is his way, as the whole Bible testifies. This has been his way, from the beginning of the world, and this will be his way till the day of judgement. This world is the platform upon which all the ways of good and evil are to run their course, and God declines to stand in their way.
Men ask a thousand questions as to why God allows the manifold evils of the world to run on unchecked. Why does God allow the wealthy and unprincipled publishers of pornography to corrupt the boys of the nation. Why does God allow filthy pimps and panderers to seduce innocent and unsuspecting girls? Why does God allow the peddlers of drink and drugs to debauch their thousands of victims. Why does God allow the world to perfect and polish its thousand glittering snares, to lead the whole race down the primrose path to perdition? The answer to these and a thousand other such questions is just this, that the responsibility of man is real. God has actually committed the affairs of this life into the hands of man, and there he leaves them. As Charles Wesley speaks,
”A charge to keep have I,
A God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.”
And this is a real charge, the outcome of which is actually dependent upon us. Neither is it an easy charge. The reward goes to none but those who overcome, and the snares of the world, the lusts of the flesh, and the wiles of the devil give us a myriad temptations of the most difficult sort, all of which must be overcome if we are to reach heaven and glory. Nor are we responsible for our own souls alone. We are our brother’s keeper. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, pastors, elders, rulers—-all these are responsible for the souls committed to them. They must give account of their charge, for that charge is real.
Nevertheless, this world is also the platform for the conflict of good and evil, and when good and evil do battle together in the persons of the responsible agents which God has placed here, God is of course on the side of good, and his grace is as much a reality as is our responsibility. He gives grace and power to those who earnestly strive to enter in at the strait gate. He answers the petitions of those who pray, “Lead me not into temptation.” He answers our prayers for others as well as for ourselves, though he does not answer them in such a way as to relieve us of our responsibility. The man who puts his white cat in the coal bin, and prays God to keep it white, will not be likely to get any answer from God. Nor will the mother who teaches her daughter to dance, while she prays that God will keep her pure, nor the father who puts his son in the public schools, and prays God to make him holy. Yet God answers prayer, and does so with mercy and grace also, giving us glorious deliverance even where we have most grievously failed—-yet always in such a manner as to maintain our responsibility intact.
I have affirmed above that God will ordinarily stand by and see much good destroyed, rather than destroy the one sinner who does it, but this is not always the case. When goodness and faithfulness and truth and righteousness are engaged in the conflict with pride and unbelief and unrighteousness—-when the principles of good do battle with the principles of evil—-God stands of course on the side of good, and he is ready to make bare his arm for the cause of truth, ready to answer prayer, ready to show himself strong for those who show themselves faithful. But then it is never to be forgotten that the cause of truth and righteousness is committed to man as a sacred trust, and it is presumption, not faith, to expect God to do all himself, when he has committed the business to us. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” This is our business, and though we may surely expect the arm of the Almighty to aid us, yet we may not expect him to act in our stead.
The whole sublunary scene is the sphere of man’s responsibility. That responsibility has been established by God himself, and it is hyperspiritual folly to expect him to disregard it, and do all himself. Every gift of God—-love, marriage, children, life, health, chastity, truth, unity, harmony, purity, the Bible, our mother tongue—-all of these are committed to man as sacred trusts. The responsibility to keep them necessarily implies the ability to corrupt them. To deny that ability is to deny that responsibility. To expect God to keep himself what he has entrusted to us is presumption, not faith. If he had any intention to do it without us, he would never have entrusted it to us—-though faith may expect the help of God in the fulfilling of the responsibilities which he has laid upon us.
Further, to expect God to restore what he has committed to us, and which our carelessness or perverseness has lost, is equal or greater presumption. God committed perfection to man once, in Paradise, but God neither kept that perfection for man, nor restored it when man had lost it. This is none of his purpose. The responsibility of man is real. It is established by God himself, and neither faith nor tears will move God to set it aside. The tears of Esau availed nothing. He could not regain what he had profanely cast away. Nor could Adam. Nor can we. God gave us a perfect Bible once, but the carelessness and the perverseness of man have corrupted it in a thousand ways. To expect God to have preserved it from corruption, or to expect him now to restore it to perfection, displays only the most inveterate ignorance of all the ways of God, from the beginning of the world to the day of doom. If men but understood this, the simplest, most elementary, and most prominent doctrine of the Bible, the King James Only movement would not exist. Man might have retained his purity in Paradise, and might surely have expected the sustaining grace of God in order to do so, but to expect that grace to do all, without the diligent watchfulness of man himself, is not faith, but only presumption. And any expectation that God will restore that purity in this life is vain. Man might have kept the text of Scripture pure also, had he been diligent and careful to do so, and might have expected the help of God in the matter also, but in this man failed. The text of the New Testament might have been preserved with comparative ease, had anyone taken effectual steps in that direction from the beginning, but no one thought of it till it was too late, and the text was hopelessly corrupted. No one thought of closing the gate till the horse was out—-or of securing the fish till they had all swum out to sea—-and it was none of God’s business to do the work of man for him. Those who expect this know nothing of the ways of God.
The Bible says, “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” (Romans 3:1-2). The word “committed” in this verse is the same word as is everywhere translated “believe” or “trust,” but here, being transitive, means to entrust. Thayer’s lexicon (by all means the best) gives the transitive sense as “to intrust a thing to one, i.e. to his fidelity.” This is exactly right. The Bible was entrusted to the fidelity of man, and God has not taken back that trust. The next verse (as it ought to be translated) says, “For what if some were unfaithful? shall their unfaithfulness make the faithfulness of God without effect?” So it is rendered in sense, though varying in expression, by Robert Young, Henry Alford, Samuel Lloyd, the Revised Version, and others, and I have no doubt that this is the true meaning. Mark, then, the word of God is committed as a trust to man. Though some have been unfaithful, the faithfulness of God remains. Yet the unfaithfulness of man is as real as the faithfulness of God, and its effects as real also. Man has actually marred and corrupted the sacred trust which was placed in his hands, and marred it beyond recovery, yet God is faithful to secure the essence and adequacy of it. And no otherwise than this will any of the promises of God be fulfilled in this life. Man has actually abused and misused the sacred deposit, yet God has been faithful to maintain his own cause in spite of all. This it is which the faithfulness of God secures in every sphere, and this is elementary doctrine, written plainly upon the face of Scripture from beginning to end. Let the advocates of perfection find one exception if they can.
It is confidently affirmed by all the advocates of perfection in every sphere, God has spoken. God has promised. Therefore we may confidently expect him to do as he has said. Yes, yes—-and who preaches faith in the promises of God more than I do?—-but what has God spoken? Where has God ever promised to take back into his own hands what he has once entrusted to man? John Newton’s reverie concerning his jewel may provide some basis for this, but where does the Bible? When has God ever promised to over-ride the responsibilities which he has laid upon man? Those responsibilities are the most patent and pervasive fact of man’s existence under the sun, filling the Bible in every part, from the garden of Eden to the great white throne, and every promise of God implies them. Every promise of God is made in the context of those responsibilities, and takes them for granted. To divorce the promises of God from the responsibilities of man is but one more manifestation of the shallow presumption of hyperspirituality.
“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” (Jeremiah 18:7-10).
All are quick to acknowledge the first half of this, but the second half is little believed. Nevertheless, the sword cuts both ways, and this scripture plainly establishes that both the threats and the promises of God always assume the real responsibility of man. We all wish it otherwise, of course. We all want an indulgent mother for our God, and not a firm father. We all want a God who makes it his business to shield us always from the consequences of our sins and our mistakes, and to assume himself the responsibilities which he has laid upon us, to do himself the work which he requires of us, but there is no such God in the Bible. A mother who entrusts a basket of eggs to the hands of her child may quickly take them back again when she sees the careless manner in which he treats them, but the God of the Bible will do no such thing. He may expostulate, he may warn, he may chasten, but he will leave the basket of eggs in our hands. Man’s entire history under the sun is the history of his probation and responsibility, and this is so woven into the very warp and woof of the Bible that the Book itself must stand or fall with it.
The Bible, however, is a much abused book, and men find many things there which exist only in their own imaginations. By means of a few proof texts—-and those usually misunderstood—-they think to set aside the tenor of the whole Book. I appeal therefore to my readers’ own experience. Can you take fire into your bosom and not be burned? Can you squander your substance, and yet have plenty? Can you have your cake, and eat it too? The universal experience of the whole human race declares otherwise, and the Bible speaks the same message.
But men think to enlist the grace of God, the power of God, the purpose of God, the promises of God, faith, hope, miracles, dreams, impressions, premonitions, anything, in order to set aside their own responsibilities—-corporate or individual—-to make void the universal testimony of Scripture and the universal experience of humanity, to brush aside the consequences of their sins and mistakes and follies, and to secure those good things without their own endeavors, which they have neglected to secure by them. But this will never be the case, though the grace of God stands ready to aid us whenever we repent, and change our ways. Yet there is a limit to what the grace and power of God will do. The mercy of God recovered the lost axe, but we dare affirm that God would not have done this a second time, had the man continued equally careless after his first deliverance. For God to act so would be to make moral midgets of us. It is presumptuous to expect God to do anything till we have repented of the follies which have put us where we are. Some things, once lost, can never be regained in this life. Others can be regained only in such a manner, or such a measure, as will declare to the world that God will not be mocked. Though God forgave David, and spared his life, he must yet say to him, “Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die,” and no faith, no tears, no fasting, and no prayer could reverse the sentence. Neither the grace nor the power of God will ever contribute one iota to dim the dazzling light of the eternal fact that God will not be mocked. Nothing is ever restored to any sinner except upon his repentance, and even then he must bear many of the consequences of his former evil. We speak, of course, of this life, which is the time of our probation and responsibility. We expect paradise enough in the life to come.
The penitent thief is usually brought forward to set aside the reality of man’s responsibility, but he is actually a powerful confirmation of our doctrine. It is true that he lived his whole life without God, in sin and wickedness, and was forgiven at the last moment, and taken directly to Paradise. All blessedly true, to the praise of the glory of the grace of God. Yet observe, he was forgiven nothing except upon his repentance, and doing such works meet for repentance as he then had time and opportunity for. It is absolutely unthinkable that he could have been forgiven while he continued to cast reproaches in the teeth of the Lord. There was a great transformation in all his character and conduct. He humbled himself, before the Lord and in the eyes of his fellow-thief. He rebuked him with whom he had so lately been partner, in mocking the Lord—-and doubtless endured the scorn of his erstwhile companion in sin for this. He became the humble supplicant of him whom he had so recently mocked. None of this was done glibly. And yet for all this he received no respite at all in this life. He was forgiven, and granted a place in Paradise, but in this life he must yet receive the due reward of his deeds. His soul was saved, but not his life.
And the same principles apply to our corporate responsibility, as to our individual. We must suffer not only for our own neglect and sin, but for that of our fathers as well. No man on earth has ever tasted of the tree of life, since the day that Adam sinned, while every man has groaned under the curse. There is no faith which can alter that. The promises and the purposes of God will never relieve man of his charge, nor of the whole of the consequences of his failure, though mercy may relieve him of some of them. We must mourn today, as Jerome and Augustine did many centuries ago, over the uncertainty of the text of Scripture in certain places, because of the carelessness or the perversity of those to whom it was first committed.
But the promises! God has promised to preserve his word. God has promised to preserve his church. God has promised to preserve his saints. The plain fact is this, that God has never promised to do anything except in such a manner as maintains our own responsibility intact, and every promise of God assumes the real responsibility of man. This being so, perfection is out of the question.
The saints of God are said to be “kept by the power of God,” but kept how? In perfection? Nay, but in the veriest weakness, the best of them offending in many points, so that in the final analysis the righteous shall scarcely be saved. Paul prays by the Spirit of God, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (I Thes. 5:23), and any man who wishes to put a technical construction upon these words may find abundant material here in support of perfection, but the facts remain, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”—-”In many things we all offend”—-and “the righteous” are so far from perfection that they shall “scarcely be saved.”
And mark, not a whit more is said of the church or of the Bible than of the individual—-and no promises of preservation of the church or the Bible will be fulfilled in any other manner than those which concern the individual. They will be fulfilled as all else is upon this stage of man’s responsibility, not in perfection and power, but in poverty and weakness. God can never have intended any more than this by any promise, purpose, or prayer of the Bible, for any specific purpose which goes beyond this must exist at the expense of his general purpose, to try the ways and deeds of men, and to display all the fruits and consequences of both good and evil.
No promise has been more relied upon as a pledge of perfection than this, that “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” From this men have drawn perfection in doctrine, perfection in unity, perfection in government, but it is all the merest chimera. Whatever the promise may secure, it secures nothing apart from the real responsibility of man. It may just as well mean that the gates of hell shall not prevail to destroy the church, as that they shall not prevail to corrupt it. As a matter of fact, this promise notwithstanding, the church was corrupted under the very eyes of the apostles, as the whole New Testament testifies. The doctrine of the church was corrupted, its morality was corrupted, its unity was destroyed. Paul is obliged to lament that “all they which are in Asia be turned away from me.” (II Tim. 1:15). Was not God able to prevent this? Perhaps he was, but not by any means consistent with the responsibility of man. He might have sent the black plague, to depopulate the churches of Asia, ere they could forsake Paul, but this has never been his way. In I Corinthians 1:10 Paul writes, “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Thus he lays the responsibility for this upon themselves. That they failed to fulfill that responsibility is notorious, and it is equally notorious that God did not fulfill it for them. Their actual condition is portrayed in I Corinthians 11:18, where we read, “I hear that there be divisions among you.” This was certainly contrary to the will of God. It is for those who rest in the fact that “God is able” to explain to us why God did not remedy the situation. But the plain fact is, God did all he could do to remedy it, consistent with the real responsibility of man. He appealed to them to remedy it themselves—-may have disciplined them for failing to do so—-may have used various other means besides—-but he did not remedy it for them.
And having spoken of their actual condition in verse 18, Paul goes much farther in the next verse, saying, “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.” Must be, for this is the time of man’s probation and responsibility, in which God allows man to go his way, and evil to run its course and bear its fruit. He will have a full display of all the ways of sin, so that evil will never raise its head the second time. This earth is the theater for that display, and this life the time of it. “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” (Matt. 18:6-7). The little ones are actually offended, and it must needs be, not because God wills it, as some perversely suppose, but because these things actually lie in the hands of men, and men are sinners. “That which is crooked,” therefore, “cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.” (Eccl. 1:15). Not till the day of judgement, and that day is not yet. When God once entrusts anything into the hands of man, he does not take it back into his own hands—-not till the day in which he calls upon the man to render an account of his stewardship, and it will be too late then for the power of God to help him out. The doctrine which makes a nullity of the responsibility of man, by putting all back into the hands of God, is very pleasing, as pleasing as John Newton’s reverie—-but it is not true. It contradicts every page of the Bible. Its only real effect upon the inhabitants of earth is to make them morally careless. The more we look to God to bear our responsibilities for us, the more careless we become, and the more careless we become, the more we look to God to bear our responsibilities for us. And shall this be called faith? This is not trusting God, but tempting him, and God will have nothing to do with either the doctrine or the practice.
And so long as the responsibility of man remains a reality, there will be no perfection under the sun. God alone can secure it, and he must work against his own purpose to do so.
Glenn Conjurske