Welcome to our program. Now,
the title of the message today is Going to Perfection. Going to Perfection. Interesting
title, but it's taken from Hebrews chapter 6, in verse 1, where
the Apostle Paul wrote, Therefore leaving the principles or the
beginnings of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. Now, let me begin by saying a
little bit about this issue of perfection. There are denominations
of religion calling themselves Christian who teach what we call
the doctrine of sinless perfection. And what they mean by that is
that once a person is saved, that that begins that person
on a road to whereby dedication and remorse and prayer and good
works, that that person can grow in this life into a state of
sinless perfection. Well, let me say this now. That
is not a scriptural thought at all. It's totally opposed to
the gospel. There is no way in which we in
ourselves, who are Christian, can grow in this life to where
we get to be where we can say, well, I'm living above sin or
sinlessly perfect in myself now in this life. Now, let me say
this. Now, is there any sense at all
that believers can say we are sinlessly perfect? And the answer
is yes. And that is this way, as we are
viewed by God the Father in Christ. In Christ I have no sin, because
in Christ who took my sin, God cannot and will not charge me
with my sin. The only way that I can say I'm
holy is in Christ, not in myself here on this earth, because here
on this earth, even though I'm saved by the grace of God, I'm
still a sinner saved by the grace of God. I know that upsets a
lot of people. But it's so. Paul describes it
in Romans chapter 7, beginning at verse 14. He says at the end
of that chapter, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? Why, on this earth, every believer
is still plagued with the flesh. And the flesh is sinful. That
flesh is a principle of sin that still resides in me. Now, every
believer has a new principle, a principle of life, a principle
of godliness that causes us to look to Christ and feel remorse
for our sins and go to him for relief. And as long as we're
on this earth, there's a battle. It's called the warfare of the
flesh and the spirit. Now, let me tell you something.
As long as that battle goes on within you, you cannot say you're
sinlessly perfect in yourself. So the only way that a believer,
a justified sinner, can say I'm sinlessly perfect is objectively
in Christ. My sins were imputed, charged
to Him, and His righteousness is imputed, charged to me. Now
one day I will be sinlessly perfect in myself. When is that day? It's when I leave this life and
go to be with the Lord. That's when every believer will
be sinlessly... Listen, right now, as I stand
in Christ, I am free from sin and dead to sin in this sense
only. Sin cannot condemn me, and sin
cannot keep me from looking to Christ. But in my flesh, I still
feel the presence of sin. I still feel the influence of
sin, and the power of sin not to condemn me, because I'm in
Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who
are in Christ, who walk not after the flesh, but according to the
Spirit. So, in Christ I have no sin,
and sin cannot condemn me. But in myself, I still feel the
power of sin to keep me from being sinlessly perfect, from
serving God perfectly. And I'm plagued with it. Now,
what does that do for a believer? Well, does that mean, well, we
just give up and give in? No, sir. It means we continue
to look to Christ for all of salvation, for all hope, for
all rest, and all relief. And we seek to walk after Him. We seek to obey His will. We should strive to obey Him
perfectly. But we're failures on every count.
That's why we need Christ. When you see the progression
of the apostle Paul through the epistles, you see this awareness
of sin in his own life getting stronger and stronger. Not just
to leave him in sin, but to cause him to value Christ even more.
Christ becomes more precious. Listen, as we grow in grace and
knowledge, we see ourselves even greater sinners. But we see Christ
as more precious, even a greater Savior. And Paul showed that. He started out, he said, I'm
not fit to be called an apostle. And then he went on, he said,
I'm the least of the apostles. And then he went on, he said,
I'm the chief of sinners. But Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners. So that doctrine of sinless perfection
that people talk about today, where they say you can reach
it here on this earth by your efforts, is not scriptural. In
fact, it's a denial of grace. It's a denial of Christ. Well,
what does Paul mean here when he talks about going on unto
perfection? He means maturity. The context
tells us that, and that word is translated, growth and maturity. That's what it means, growing
in grace. Now, he had just admonished these
professors of the gospel for being dull of hearing, for being
unskillful in the word of righteousness, for being unable to receive the
strong meat of the word. Here's the remedy. Go on unto
perfection. Now, let's look at that in Hebrews
6 and verse 1. He says, therefore, or for this reason, because you're
dull of hearing, because you're unskillful in the word of righteousness,
because you're not able to receive the full embodiment of the meat
of the word, because you're not of full age. That word of full
age in Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 14 is the same word for
perfection, of full age, maturity. Therefore, leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ, Let us go on unto perfection. Let's
grow. Let's go to completion. Now,
what does he mean, leaving the principles of the doctrine of
Christ? Well, first of all, what is the doctrine of Christ? Well,
he's going to list some things here. Most of these things have
their beginnings in the principles of the old covenant law of Moses,
and we'll see that. But they have their application
for us today. The doctrine of Christ basically
is the doctrine of his person. Who is Jesus Christ? Well, the Bible teaches us very
plainly that he is God, the second person of the Trinity, the Son
of God, who has no beginning, no end, the Alpha and the Omega,
100% God in every attribute of deity. Whatever can be said of
God of deity can be said without reservation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. God is omnipotent. That means
He's all-powerful. Jesus Christ is all-powerful.
He calmed the storm. He created the world. The Scripture
says, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God,
and the Word was God, and in the beginning there was nothing
that was created without Him, for the worlds were created by
Him. He is the Creator. He is omniscient. That means
He's all-knowing. And Jesus Christ is all-knowing.
He knew the hearts of men. The Bible says that He's infinite.
Jesus Christ in His deity is infinite. Everything that can
be said about deity can be said without reservation of Jesus
Christ. Well, He is also man. God-man. That same Word which
was with God and was God, that same Word was made flesh and
dwelt among us. We've read about that. He took
on Him the nature of human flesh, the nature of His children, the
nature, the seed of Abraham, God's elect, His sheep out of
every tribe, kindred, tongue and nation. He was born of the
Virgin Mary. And his humanity was created
for him in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit without the agency
of man. You see, he was born sinless. He did not contract the sin that
we contracted through our father Adam. It was a miracle birth. It was an incarnation, the Word
made flesh. And so he is very man, 100% man. Now listen to me. Everything
that can be said about humanity can be said about Jesus of Nazareth
except one thing. He's without sin. You see, humanity
in Adam is lost and fallen and sinful and dead and condemned. But his humanity was not born
of Adam. It was created by the Spirit
in the womb. The angel said that holy thing
that resides in Mary's womb. So his humanity is everything
that our humanity is, yet without sin. But who is Jesus Christ,
the doctrine of Christ? He is God-man. Now, anyone who
denies the doctrine of Christ's person denies Christ. Anyone
who's not settled on this issue, now somebody said, well, you
can't really explain the makeup or the constitution of the person
of Christ. Well, we can explain it fully,
and we don't need to. We just know it's so. He is God. He is man. No mixture of the
two natures, but one person with two distinct natures. And that's
how he resides now, as God-man. You see, he had to be God to
save his people from their sins. He had to be man to stand in
our place and take our sins and go to the cross of Calvary and
die. You see, God cannot bleed and suffer and die, but this
person who is God did bleed and suffer and die. That's to be
attributed to his humanity. On the same token, Man cannot
bring forth a righteousness that ensures the salvation of a multitude. But this person who is man did
bring forth a righteousness, and his blood does cleanse the
sins of a multitude. And that's to be attributed to
his deity. He's God-man. Now, the doctrine
of Christ. We can talk about his office
as mediator, he's our prophet, he's our priest, he's our king,
he's our advocate, our surety. And then, his finished work on
the cross. Who is Jesus Christ and what
did he do? He came to this earth and he
obeyed the law perfectly, satisfying the law in every precept, And
he went to the cross of Calvary with the sins of his people upon
him, and he satisfied justice. He drank damnation dry. He paid
the debt in full. He finished the work. The sins of his people were laid
upon him, and his righteousness was imputed to them. He did all
that at the cross of Calvary. He finished the work. Salvation
is not through a work that you do for God. Salvation is through
a work that God does for you. And that's what the Bible says,
and those for whom he did it shall be saved. They're not going
to be damned. He didn't die for any who perish. He died for his
sheep. And he said, my sheep hear my
voice, and they follow me. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Now, Paul said, now that's the
doctrine of Christ, it's the gospel. Sovereign grace, sovereign
mercy in Christ. So he says, therefore leaving
the principles or the word of the beginning of the doctrine
of Christ. Now what does he mean leaving
it? Do we hear it and believe it and then just forget about
it? Absolutely not. It doesn't mean to leave behind. It means to grow from. In other
words, after these things have been settled in your heart, And
you've been convinced of these issues of who Christ is, what
he has done, where he is now, and why he did it. The gospel
resides in your heart. That seed of the Word of God
takes up residence in your heart. You don't leave it behind and
forget it, but you grow from it. Let me give you an illustration
of that. It's like a baby, a healthy baby
that is born, a newborn baby. And it has everything that it's
ever going to have. It has two eyes, a nose, two
ears, two arms, two legs, the heart, the lungs, everything
perfectly intact there. Now there's that infant with
all of its arms, legs, eyes, nose, ears, the brain, everything,
everything it's ever going to have. But it's going to grow. Those arms are going to grow
bigger and stronger. The legs the same. The brain
is going to grow in size and in knowledge. Everything, the
eyes are going to become clear, the features are going to be
matured. The baby is not that arm of the
baby. It's not going to grow by cutting
it off and leaving it behind and forgetting about it. You
see what I'm saying? It's going to grow right there
attached to that baby's body and it's going to get stronger.
And that's what he means there. We don't leave these first principles
of the gospel. We keep preaching the gospel.
But we grow from it. We mature. We go on unto completion,
perfection. That's what he's talking about.
That's the remedy for being dull of hearing and unskillful in
the word of righteousness and not being able to receive the
meat of the word. We grow. And like I said, listen,
we preach the gospel every time we preach. The basic gospel,
the first principles. But we don't stop there. We go
on into the Word of God. We go to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
all the way through to Revelation, you see. Hearing and seeing the
particulars and implications of this gospel of Christ. Paul said, I strive not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now that doesn't mean that the
only thing Paul preached was the person and work of Christ.
He dealt with a lot of different subjects in the epistles. Here
he's dealing with growth in grace. He dealt with church unity. He
dealt with issues of division. He dealt with how to deal with
the Lord's Supper. But he did it all in light of Christ and
Him crucified. And that's the way we ought to
do as preachers of the gospel. So read it again now, verse 1.
Therefore, leaving or growing from the first principles of
the doctrine of Christ, let's go on into perfection, completion,
maturity. Let's grow. Now look at this,
not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works
and of faith toward God, verse 2, of the doctrine of baptisms,
and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead,
and of eternal judgment, and this, verse 3, this will we do
if God permit. Now he mentions several things
here concerning the doctrine of Christ, the first principles. the word of the beginning. Notice,
he says this, not laying again the foundation. Now, what does
he mean by that? Well, when God brings his sheep
under the preaching of the gospel, the doctrine of Christ, the person,
work of Christ, all these great truths of salvation by grace,
when God brings his sheep under the preaching of that message,
He sends His Spirit to give them life. And the Holy Spirit imparts
life from Christ, the principle of spiritual life. And He brings
them to a saving knowledge of Christ and Him crucified. And
now that's called the new birth. Christ said, you must be born
again, or you cannot see. That means understand savingly,
or know savingly, the Kingdom of God. He said, except you be
born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Well, in
that new birth, the Holy Spirit gives life. You see, salvation
is not just an improvement upon the old. It's life from the dead. When God saves a sinner, He brings
that sinner spiritually from spiritual death to spiritual
life. And the Holy Spirit gives life.
And the evidence of that life, the first evidence of that life,
is in light of our sinfulness. And what we see of ourselves
and our wretchedness, we see Christ, and we run to Him for
salvation. We seek rest. We seek completion. We seek relief from the guilt
of sin, the condemnation of sin in Christ. And what the Holy
Spirit does through the Word of God, He seals that into our
hearts. He convinces us, the scripture
says, He convinces us of sin, because we believe not on Christ.
He convinces us of righteousness, because Christ goes under the
Father. He convinces us of judgment,
because the Prince of this world is cast out. In other words,
He brings us to such a saving knowledge, that those truths,
that Word of God, becomes part of us, and it cannot be removed.
Now, what Paul is saying here is this. If you truly believe
the doctrine of Christ, if you truly know God, the God of justification
by grace, the God of sovereign grace, the God who justifies
the ungodly, if you truly know your sinfulness and know that
your only hope of salvation is in Christ and Him alone, His
blood for all your sins, His righteousness for your complete
justification, that entitles you to all of salvation, even
final glory in heaven, not based on your works, but in His. If
you're truly convinced of these things, I don't have to keep
convincing you. That foundation has been laid
in your heart. And I don't have to go back and
argue with you about that. I don't have to go back and try
to preach this to you in such a way as you don't believe it.
When I preach it to you, we enter in together. in the fellowship
of faith and assurance and peace. I don't have to keep convincing.
I don't have to talk to you like an unbeliever. That's what he's
saying. If these things have been laid in your heart as a
foundation. So he says you've got to grow
from these things you profess and I shouldn't have to keep
going back and try to convince you. I know I can't convince
anybody. It takes the Spirit of Christ. It takes the Spirit
of God. But he says, we shouldn't have
to go back and lay that foundation again. That foundation should
already be laid and settled. You know, many of you probably
have experienced either building a house or watching one, having
one built. First thing they do is they clear
the land, dig the footer, and they lay the foundation. And
then you build upon the foundation. When the foundation is through,
you don't start moving your furniture in, do you? That foundation has
to be laid and settled, has to be cured. You don't go in and
set your furniture up on the foundation and start living there. The house has to be built. Now,
once the house is built, if the foundation is bad, what's going
to happen? The house is going to fall. So
the foundation has to be laid, Christ and Him crucified, the
doctrine of Christ. Now, once you get the house built,
let's say you see something in the ceiling, a crack maybe or
something like that, and you've got to repair that crack. You
don't have to go back and lay the foundation again to repair
the crack in the ceiling, do you? I hope you don't. If you
do, you're in a mess. That foundation's been laid.
You see? And that's the way it is with
this spiritual growth. You need to grow from this foundation.
We shouldn't have to keep going back and laying it. Well, what
is that foundation? Well, look at what he says. He
lists these things. He says, "...not laying again the foundation
of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God." What
are dead works? They're works done by a sinner
without Christ. My friend, without faith it's
impossible to please God. Listen, you who know Christ,
when you were in your sins, without faith, you didn't do anything
good. All you did was dead works, fruit unto death. That old covenant
that the Jews were under, all that was was dead works if you
didn't see Christ there. When they went to bring sacrifice
of animals, if they didn't see that pictured Christ to be fulfilled
in Him, it was nothing but a dead work. A dead work is a work that
leads to death. Anytime A person is seeking to
be saved by their works. It's a dead work, because it's
only going to lead to death. And you shouldn't have to be
convinced of that again. He says of repentance from dead
works and of faith toward God. Faith toward God is faith in
Christ. You can't come to God except
through Christ. In other words, I'm not trying
to work my way to heaven. That's dead works. But I trust
Him, whom to know is life eternal. And then verse 2, he says, "...of
the doctrine of baptisms." Now, baptism, it's not talking about
water baptism here. I mean, we can talk about that,
where people, believers, are immersed, death, burial, and
resurrection, identifying, not to be saved. But baptism here
means union with Christ. That's the baptism of the Holy
Spirit, when the Holy Spirit unites us vitally, in our experience,
to Christ. And what he's saying here is,
I shouldn't have to go back and convince you and lay this foundation
again of union with Christ. Christ is the representative.
He's the substitute. He's the Savior. He's the Redeemer. We're the redeemed. Salvation
is of Him. And he says, and of laying on
of hands. Our union with Christ means the laying on of hands.
Now, back in the New Testament, the apostle would lay hands on
a person for authority and gifts. But here he's talking about imputation.
Back in the Old Testament, on the Day of Atonement, after they'd
sacrificed and the high priest would come out, then they had
the scapegoat. And the scapegoat, they would
lay their hands on the scapegoat, and that symbolized the charging
of sins to the sacrifice, imputing sin to the sacrifice. And it
meant faith, you see, that God would charge our sins to what
that goat, that scapegoat, represented, the Lord Jesus Christ. And our
sins are imputed to him, charged to him, the sins of his people,
and his righteousness is imputed to us. That foundation ought
to be laid, and we ought not have to go back and lay it again.
And then next he says, and of resurrection of the dead and
of eternal judgment. The Old Testament saints believed
in the resurrection. Job said, I know that my Redeemer
liveth and I shall stand in the last day. Now, I don't know what
all they didn't know, but here's the point. God's people will
be resurrected unto life in Christ. They'll stand before God at the
judgment, not in order to be judged, but to be declared to
be in Him. And it will be shown in that
great day that we are eternally saved, eternally kept and secure,
and deserve the inheritance of grace and glory, not because
of our works, but because of Christ and His righteousness
alone. Now that's the foundation. Now he concludes in verse 3,
this will we do if God permit. Now here's Paul's recognition
that he as a preacher of the gospel does not have the power
to accomplish any of these things. We can preach the gospel and
we don't even do that by our own power. The scripture says
no man is sufficient for these things. You see, it's all of
God's grace. We can preach it, but we can't
make it effectual. You who are listening to me in
the television audience, I can preach this gospel every Sunday,
but I can't make you believe it. I don't have that power. You don't have that power. Only
God does. You're to seek the Lord. Seek faith in Him. Now,
you who know the gospel and who profess it, I can't make these
words effectual to your growth. God must do that. We'll do all
this if God is willing, if God permits. It's by His power. Salvation is of the Lord. Growth
in grace is of the Lord. Listen, our being saved, our
being kept saved, our growth in grace, and our final glory
in heaven is all of the Lord, and it's all through the blood
and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're powerless
except God permit.