The Sanctified Perfected for Ever

X. — 14. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

THIS verse is in reality the conclusion of the doctrinal part of the Epistle. The four following verses are simply the citation of the words of the new covenant to confirm its teaching with the witness of the Holy Spirit. The writer having, in the context, expounded the nature of Christ’s sacrifice, as showing what the way into the Holiest is, sums up his proof of its worth and efficacy in the words: By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. We find here five of the most important words that occur in the Epistle.

Sanctified. That looks back to the great purpose of Christ’s coming, as we had it in chap. ii. Sanctified is cleansed from sin, taken out of the sphere and power of the world and sin, and brought to live in the sphere and power of God’s holiness in the Holiest of All. It looks back, too, to ver. 10: In which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ.

He hath perfected them that are sanctified. It not only says that He has finished and completed for them all they need. The word points back to what was said of His own being made perfect. All He became was for us. In His one sacrifice He was not only perfected Himself, but He perfected us; He took us into the fellowship of His own perfectness, implanted His own perfect life in us, and gave His perfected human nature to us what we were to put on, and to live in.

For ever. He hath perfected us once for all and for ever. His perfection is ours; our whole life is prepared for us, to be received out of His hand.

By sacrifice. The death, the blood, the sacrifice of Christ, is the power by which we have been alike sanctified and perfected. It is the way which He opened up, in which He leads us with Himself into what He is and does as the One who is perfected for evermore, and the Holiest of All.

By one sacrifice. One because there is none other needed, either by others or Himself; one divine, and therefore sufficient and for ever.

The chief thought of the passage is: He hath for ever perfected them that are being sanctified. The words in ver. 10, In which will we have been sanctified, speak of our sanctification as an accomplished fact: we are saints, holy in Christ, in virtue of our real union with Him, and His holy life planted in the centre of our being. Here we are spoken of as being sanctified. There is a process by which our new life in Christ has to master and to perfect holiness through our whole outer being. But the progressive sanctification has its rest and its assurance in the ONCE and FOR EVER of Christ’s work. He hath perfected for ever them that are being sanctified.

In chaps, ix. 9 and x. I we read that the sacrifices could never, as touching the conscience, make the worshipper perfect, never make perfect them that draw nigh, so that they have no more conscience of sins. Our conscience is that which defines what our consciousness of ourselves before

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God should be: Christ makes the worshipper perfect, as touching the conscience, so that there is no more conscience of sins. He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. At the close of the chapter on Christ’s priesthood we read of Himself (vii. 28): He is a High Priest, a Son, perfected for evermore. Here at the close of the unfolding of His work, it is said of His saints: He hath perfected them for ever. The perfection in both cases is one and the same. As the Son of Man, as the Second Adam, who lives in all who are His, He perfected Himself for them, and them in Himself. His perfection and theirs are one.

And wherein His perfection consists we know too. (See in ii. 10 and v. 9.) A Leader in the way of glory, God made Him perfect through suffering; perfected in Him that humility and meekness and patience which mark Him as the Lamb, which are what God asks of man, and are man’s only fitness for dwelling with God. Having offered up prayer, and having been heard for His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by what He suffered, and was made perfect. His godly fear, His waiting on God in the absolute surrender of His will, His submitting to learn obedience, His spirit of self-sacrifice, even unto death, — it was by this that as man He was perfected, it was in this He perfected human nature, and perfected His people too. In His death He accomplished a threefold work. He perfected Him self, His own human nature and character. He perfected our redemption, perfectly putting away sin from the place it had in heaven (ix. 23), and in our hearts. He perfected us, taking us up into His own perfection, and making us partakers of that perfect human nature, which in suffer ing and obedience, in the body prepared for Him, and the

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will of God done in it, He had wrought out for us. Christ Himself is our perfection; in Him it is complete; abiding in Him continually is perfection.

Let us press on to perfection, was the call with which we were led into the higher-life teaching of the Epistle. Here is our goal. Christ, by one offering, hath perfected us for ever. We know Him as the Priest for ever, the Minister of the new sanctuary, and the Mediator of the new covenant, who by His blood entered into the Holiest; there He lives for ever, in the power of an endless life, to impart to us and maintain within us His perfect life. It is the walk in this path of perfection, which as our Leader He opened up in doing the will of God, which is the new and living way into the Holiest.

1. The work of Christ Is a perfect and perfected work. Everything is finished and complete for ever. And we have just by faith to behold and enter In, and seek and rejoice, and receive out of His fulness grace for grace. Let every difficulty you feel in understanding or claiming the different blessings set before you, or in connecting them, find its solution in the one thought — Christ has perfected us for ever; trust Him, cling to Him, He will do all.

2. One sacrifice for ever. We perfected for ever. And HE who did it all, HE for ever seated on the throne. Our blessed Priest-King, Hs Hues to matte it all ours. In the power of an endless life, in which He offered Himself unto God, in which He entered the Holiest, He now Hues to glue and be in our hearts all He hath accomplished. What more can we need? Wherefore, holy brethren! partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus,