Hebrews 13: 20 - 21: May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.

Continuing the same verse from the last session, Dr Tong focused on the concept of perfection. The verse (especially in the Chinese translation) says that we are to be equipped or to be made perfect. The question is what perfection really means? When one is not clear about what perfection is, one is likely to make mistakes relating to the doctrine of sin, and the understanding of sanctification, and finally the doctrine of God. Is perfection something that is completely not attainable, and exists only in the realm of theory? But the Bible says in the Old Testament that God wanted Abraham to be perfect. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ wanted us to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. So clearly, being perfect is a command from God. If that is the case then, which person in the history of mankind actually attained perfection? Why were the saints and apostles people filled with all sorts of weaknesses? Conversely, if perfection is impossible for us, why would God the Father and God the Son demand this from us?
Can this perfection be a partial one? But Jesus Christ did not seem to mean a partial or fragmentary type of perfection; but a perfection like that of God the Father, who certainly is absolutely perfect in every sense of the word. Is this possible at all? If it is, why would the apostle Paul proclaimed that he did not believe that he had attained, but would continue to strive forward. If the apostle Paul dare not proclaim himself to be perfect, how dare anyone else? The founder of the Methodist church once said that it is possible for someone to reach perfection while on earth. But based on Reformed Theology, the concept in itself is not perfect, because we are using imperfect reasoning to judge this matter. So this is paradoxical, and ironical.

Dr Tong said that looking through scripture, we will be able to find four different stages of perfection. The first would be the perfection that was present when man was first created. When God created Adam, He did not merely said that the creation was 'good' as He did for all other creations. He proclaimed the creation of man to be 'very good' (Gen 1:31). This means that Adam had a state of perfection that was given to Him by the Creator. This state of perfection must have been different from that of the Creator, because there exists an absolute qualitative difference between the Creator and the creature. Therefore, perfection for us is not equivalent to the perfection of God.

The second state of perfection is the perfection that came from man's fallen reasoning. Since the fall of man, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. But we still could consider someone to be closer to perfection than others, in that we can still do a comparison. We consider some people to be perfect, like the Chinese considers Confucius as a saint. But this perfection is based on man's fallen standard; it is in reality, an imperfect perfection.

The third state of perfection comes when Christ saves us, and enable us to have perfection under the promise of God. When we are saved, we want to lead a life to be more and more like Jesus Christ, to be perfect like He is, to be holy like He is, to be merciful and kind like He is. We are willing that the Holy Spirit leads us into a perfect life.

The fourth state of perfection occurs when Christ comes again, and we become perfect in eternity/ We will be together with all the redeemed, and be made perfect in a manner that nothing else can be added. We will no longer sin, and will no longer be tempted. This is the most wonderful time that will last for all eternity.

Dr Tong said that no other faith could have produced such classifications of perfection, because only our faith comes direct from the source of Truth, in God's own revelation in His WORD.

The flip side of perfection is short-fall. When the Bible talks about sin, it is actually talking about the short-fall of the glory of God. We are created to reflect God's glory, and when we are not able to do that, when we have short-fall of this glory, sin exists. Sin is equivalent to the short-fall of glory. Such knowledge can come only from God's own revelation, not from any human reasoning. The church father Augustine believed that sin is not a dynamic presence, and has no quantitative value. Therefore, one cannot equate the evil one with God (as if Satan is an evil god fighting on equal terms with God), or sin with righteousness, darkness with light, or we will fall into the trap of dualism. Darkness is actually the absence of light; darkness is not an entity. The glory of God is an entity, and sin is the absence of that entity. Therefore, sin cannot possibly have eternal value as its presence is not a reality, but the absence of God's glory. When God restores His full glory, His will would be done completely.

But which type of perfection was the author of Hebrews referring to? The Jehovah Witnesses say that whatever we lose in Adam, we claim back through Christ. This means that we return back to the original perfection of Adam. But Dr Tong said that this is not what the Bible says, for all this does is to bring us back to the state of Adam before he sinned. The perfection that the Great Shepherd brings would be better than the original state of Adam. This is consistent with the entire theme of Hebrews, Christ being better. Thus, God wills that every saint be made perfect through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a perfection like that of Christ.

Many people, including Watchman Nee, makes the mistake of thinking that God wants our bodies to be broken, so that our spirit can be made perfect. It is not that God wants us to be broken. He wants us to be made perfect. Our spirit may be saddened before God as we repent from our sins, but He wants to restore us and empower us. The Bible talks about us being vessels for God; not broken vessels for God.

We lead this perfect life by being like Christ. We are to be dead towards sin, and alive towards righteousness. We are not to live for ourselves any longer, but our will needs to match the will of God; our emotions need to match the emotions of God; our actions the actions of God, so that the Great Shepherd can lead us into greater perfection. While on earth, we will attain the perfection beyond the perfection of Adam. However, this perfection is not the perfection as deemed by the Roman Catholics or even John Wesley, who believed that it is possible for us to be truly perfect while on earth.

In reformed understanding, this perfection is one of potential, qualitative and not quantitative in nature. In other words, we will have the heart for perfection, but will never attain complete perfection in everything we do. We may be able to handle our known sins, but surely there are unknown sins. which was why David asked that the LORD forgives his hidden sins (Psalm 139). So we would continually want to know and discover our hidden sins, and desire to be perfected. A perfect person would never, ever feel that he is already perfect. Those who think of themselves as perfect are surely imperfect. The mindset of the perfect person is one of humility, one that continues to seek after the LORD daily until Jesus comes again. By the Holy Spirit, we continue to lead holy lives until we are made completely perfect when Christ comes again.

Dr Tong emphasized again that this perfection is passive on the part of the human being, in that it is Christ who would make us perfect. Many people assumed wrongly that while the grace of salvation is free, we need to work to keep salvation in our lives. So there have been many people who try their best to struggle to achieve perfection. The Roman Catholics also have the concept of the purgatory, where one continues to be purified and be cleansed of minor sins in life. But Dr Tong points out that we are passive in being saved, passive in being re-born. Our achieving perfection will also be by the grace of God, because it is the LORD's WORD and the Holy Spirit's work that enables us to restore normalcy to our spiritual life, thereby enabling us to progress towards perfection.

Verse 21 tells us that He will equip us with everything good for doing His will. There are four areas that we should take note of in this verse. The first one is that we are to have a part in good works. We can see a parallel reference in Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Here, the apostle Paul said that we were made by God to do good works. When we become a Christian, we are left on earth to do good works for God, or He would simply take us back when we received salvation. We are not saved through our works, but we do good works because we have been saved. No Christian should say that he has no part in good works. But scripture clearly tells us that our faith means nothing without good deeds. The life of faith produces the lifestyle of faith; good fruits come from a good tree. So the first thing is that we need to produce good fruits in our lives.

The second area would be by so doing, we fulfill God's will. This is the most important responsibility for human beings, to fulfill God's will while we are on earth. We need to live a life on earth as if we are in heaven, doing His will and executing His plans. Jesus Christ said that His food is to do the will of the Father who has sent Him (John 4:34).

Thirdly, we do all these things to please him, as verse 21 points out. This is an important mark of the perfect person, in that he is only concerned about whether God is pleased, not whether men are pleased. Jesus Christ said that He always did things that are pleasing to the Father (John 8:29), and because of that, many placed their faith in Jesus. We are left on this earth of uncertainty, where there is still pain and suffering, persecution, loneliness, diseases and many more things we do not understand; so that we can bear witness to His name, and allow the rest of the world to see that we lead a different life. In so doing, we become pleasing to God.

Fourthly, by bearing witness to His name, we bring glory to His name. Dr Tong again reminded all that the best watches are made by countries influenced by reformed theology, because they have inherited the idea that we bear witness to God in everything we do, so that we can be pleasing to Him. We ought not to simply look at the exterior when we judge things. The most influential scientist today is probably Stephen Hawking (British scientist disabled and mute). Hawking may be disabled and disfigured, but every word he utters via his computer-generated voice is important enough to influence the world. Works by Beethoven are so perfect that they cannot be altered, nor have there been any composers who match his talent since his death. All these events tell us that there are so much more in life that we have yet to achieve, and so much more we can continue to do for the glory of God.

Dr Tong ended the session by encouraging all to seek to do good works because it is God's will; and remember that by so doing, we will please Him and bring glory to His name. Let us not waste away a moment of our life on earth, but do our best for He has purchased us with a heavy price.

Disclaimer: This summary does NOT represent the official position of STEMI (Stephen Tong Evangelistic Ministry International), and is the personal opinion of the author, expressed without prejudice. Expressed opinions are meant for academic discussions only.