"Names and sects and parties fall: Thou, O Christ, art all in all!"
The second and third _unto_ of verse 13 are parallel with the first, and with each other. A truer faith and better knowledge of Christ uniting believers to each other, at the same time develope in each of them a riper character. Jesus Christ was the "perfect man." In Him our nature attained, without the least flaw or failure, its true end,--which is to glorify God. In His fulness the plenitude of God is embodied; it is made human, and attainable to faith. In Jesus Christ humanity rose to its ideal stature; and we see what is the proper level of our nature, the dignity and worth to which we have to rise. We are "predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son." All the many brethren of Jesus measure themselves against the stature of the Firstborn; and they will have to say to the end with St Paul: "Not as though I had attained, either were already perfect. I follow after; I press towards the mark." A true heart that has seen perfection, will never rest short of it.
"Till we arrive--till we _all_ arrive" at this, the work of the Christian ministry is incomplete. Teachers must still school us, pastors shepherd us, evangelists mission us. There is work enough and to spare for them all--and will be, to all appearance, for many a generation to come. The goal of the regenerate life is never absolutely won; it is hid with Christ in God. But there is to be a constant approximation to it, both in the individual believer and in the body of Christ's people. And a time is coming when that goal will be practically attained, so far as earthly conditions allow. The Church after long strife will be reunited, after long trial will be perfected; and Christ will "present her to Himself" a bride worthy of her Lord, "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing." Then this world will have had its use, and will give place to the new heavens and earth.
II. The goal that the apostle marked out, did not appear to him to be in immediate prospect. The childishness of so many Christian believers stood in the way of its attainment. In this condition they were exposed to the seductions of error, and ready to be driven this way and that by the evil influences active in the world of thought around them. So long as the Church contains a number of unstable souls, so long she will remain subject to strife and corruption. When he says in verse 14, "that we may be _no longer children_ tossed to and fro," etc., this implies that many Christian believers at that time were of this childish sort, and were being so distracted and misled. The apostle writes on purpose to instruct these "babes" and to raise them to a more manly style of Christian thought and life.[111]
It is a grievous thing to a minister of Christ to see those who for the time ought to be teachers, fit for the Church's strong meat and the harder tasks of her service, remaining still infantile in their condition, needing to be nursed and humoured, narrow in their views of truth, petty and personal in their aims, wanting in all generous feeling and exalted thought. Some men, like St Paul himself, advance from the beginning to a settled faith, to a large intelligence and a full and manly consecration to God. Others remain "babes in Christ" to the end. Their souls live, but never thrive. They suffer from every change in the moral atmosphere, from every new wind of doctrine. These invalids are objects full of interest to the moral pathologist; they are marked not unfrequently by fine and delicate qualities. But they are a constant anxiety to the Church. Till they grow into something more robust they must remain to crowd the Church's nursery, instead of taking part in her battle like brave and strenuous men.