The Soul’s Adjustment

“Now that God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”—Hebrews 13:20–21

I do not know who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews; and if it did not sound so irreverent, I would be inclined to say I do not care very much. There are many professors in our theological chairs who are troubling the rising generation with the authorship of the different books of the Bible to such an extent, that pupils and students are losing all taste for their Bibles. Personally, I don’t think a man in the Spirit cares two raps whether Apollos or Paul wrote it or whether it was a man or a woman who wrote it. I am very much like my dear friend, and near neighbor, in Edinburgh, Principal White, who was asked how many Isaiahs there were. “They tell us up at the new college there are two, and one wrote one part of Isaiah, and another wrote another part. By the same process of reasoning I could find six. My old heart just inclines to one. I have said Isaiah from the beginning of my ministry, and I shall say Isaiah to the end.” I am still old fashioned enough to say “Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews.” I believe Paul had something to do with the writing of this letter. If after you have gone all through this letter, and cannot find anything that indicated the Pauline authorship, you will find at the end of this great word, “Pray for us.” And again, “Now the God of peace that brought that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever.” We are being told today that if we closed our eyes and were eating veal, we should not know whether we were eating veal, pork, lamb, or chicken. People are in the habit of eating what is set before them and judging from what they see as to what they are eating. If you were to shut your eyes, and I read these words, some would have concluded that I was reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans or Corinthians. Who uses the expression “God of peace,” but Paul? Who appeals to the God of the resurrection, but Paul? Who is it that appeals to God for the perfection of the saints, but Paul? The whole language should like Paul.

Here are some of the great doctrines found int the text:

“The God of Peace.” The doctrine of the Resurrection, brought out here in the reference, “who brought again from the dead that great shepherd of the sheep.” “The Everlasting Covenant.” The perfection of the saints of God.

I marvel when I read from the New Testament to find with what ease these writers moved among the great doctrines of our Christian faith. I am amazed when I come to the old Puritan writers to find with what ease and familiarity they moved among these same. We have been shorn of our strength because we have alienated our Christian experiences from the great doctrines of the Bible. Our preachers are preaching on small themes; sometimes, a new book. Read the Saturday papers and see how far removed many of the titles are from anything belonging to the New Testament. We are not hearing in our day the great words of the Scriptures that are food for the soul.

This is one of Paul’s great prayers. You see a man at his best when you see him in his prayer life. Old John Owen, prince of the Puritans, once said, “The preacher is not what he appears to be when his congregation overflows the aisles, and packs the building to the ceiling, or when the treasury is overflowing. The preacher is only what he is when he is upon his knees before the Lord.” If that be so, some of us preachers are far removed from the throne. Is it not the deplorable truth that we spend far too much time in public, appearing as actors upon the stage, and all too little do we spend in solitude with God? When the Lord called Ezekiel, He said, “Get thee into the wilderness, and there will I talk with thee.” When John the Baptist was ordained to his life’s work, he came forth as the son of the desert. When Moses was being prepared for his work, the back side of the desert was the Nyack Academy; and when Paul was being prepared for his work, Arabia was the college in which he was taught at the hand of the Lord. As I am before God, so will I be when I come to my fellows.

How majestic Paul appears from the great heights in Romans and Corinthians! Has there ever been given to the sons of men a greater or profounder theologian than Paul? And yet we see him best when we see him in his prayer life. You reach him here on the deep-most rung of the ladder when he is pouring out his heart on behalf of those who were being won to the Lord.

What do your friends know about your prayer life? Are you known as an exceedingly busy person on the exterior? What do people know about your prayer life? Has the burden for others been so pressed upon your soul that you have to vent your feelings in prayer before God in order to be eased of the burden?

When you come to Paul’s prayers are you not particularly struck by the manner in which he approaches the Lord? “Now the God of peace.” We are so bankrupt in our language that we use the same phraseology almost every time we go to God in prayer. But these giants of those days selected a title or phrase or tribute through which the blessing they were seeking was expected to come. They rarely ever went into the presence of God, so far as their recorded prayers are concerned, without some title. On this occasion Paul takes the words, “The God of peace.” “O Lord God of Hosts” was to Israel the God that marched before them into battle. They chose a true title, because they wanted to appeal to God for a sufficiency to meet the given need. Now this title is exceedingly striking as it falls from the lips of the apostle. He was essentially the apostle to the Gentiles. You remember how he said, since the Hebrews, his own kith and kin, counted themselves unworthy of everlasting life, he turned to the Gentiles. The same writer wrote his letter to the Ephesians, and in that letter to the Ephesians you have the apostle glorying in Christ, “who is our peace, having broken down the middle wall of partition” that separated Jew from Gentile. Having broken down, He has made peace through the blood of His cross. But now he is writing for the Hebrews, and he is appealing to God for the Hebrews, not Gentiles, and it is only natural that he should choose a title that would give no offense to the Hebrew or to the Greek. Therefore, he takes this title in which the human family has become welded, become one—“The God of peace.”

Brethren, does it not fall upon our ears today as a benediction? Is it not as the dew of the morning to our spirits? In a world that is being made wretched with sorrow, where every heart is bleeding, where millions upon millions have been plunged into the deepest depths of sorrow, and we do not know what tomorrow will bring forth, could there be a word that could bring a better or a grander benediction to our spirit than just this word, “The God of peace?”

Let it be forever remembered that there is a great difference between “the God of peace” and “the peace of God.” You will never have “the peace of God” until you have “the God of peace.” It is impossible for you to have “the peace of God” in the measure that you know “the God of peace.” “The God of peace is the One who Himself possesses the peace; and the peace that is resident in Him and which is His nature, He wills to pass on to every trusting soul that will receive Him. Oh, when shall we get away from the idea of receiving a benediction from God? Why not receive the God of the benediction and get God and His benediction at the same time? “I wish you to have,” he says, “the God of peace.” The psalmist said, “Thou art my song and my salvation.” It is not “Thou hast provided for me a song” or “a salvation.” Thou art my song, my salvation. Thou art my high place. Thou art my high tower.” “The God of peace.” And in accepting Him, you will find there will come to your troubled spirit “the peace of God which passeth all understanding” keeping “your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.”

There are antagonistic forces within the human soul that strangely war against “the God of peace.” And you wonder why in your troubled spirit you have not the rest and peace which He desires you to have. You can have that only when a cessation of hostilities has come about. Do not misunderstand me, if you please. Because war may cease for a moment, that is no argument that war is ended or peace has been made. “The peace of God” from “the God of peace” will have been imparted to you when your rebellious spirit has lain prostrate before Him, when you have come to the end of yourself, abandoned yourself to Him, subjecting yourself to His authority. Rebellion ends there. Trust in anything brings a measure of peace. Trust in the living God brings the abiding peace. As Frances Ridley Havergal puts it,

“Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest,
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.”

It is said of “the God of peace” that He brought from the dead that “great shepherd of the sheep.” This is the only direct reference in the Epistle to the Hebrews to the resurrection. Everywhere it is inferred.

Let me remind you that the Epistle to the Hebrews is an epistle of contrasts, contrasts that are drawn strongly. It has the contrast between the son and the servant, between Moses as the servant, and Christ as the Son. And if you will follow that contrast through, it will be of interest as well as a spiritual profit. I cannot but believe that the writer had in his mind Moses who led the people through the Red Sea. Let me remind you of the passage in Isaiah. “The he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he that put his holy Spirit within them? That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them to make himself an everlasting name?”

The contrast strikes the writer. “The God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep.” Moses was the shepherd of his flock. He led his flock through the deep. This is “the great shepherd of the sheep.”

“Brought again from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” “The resurrection of Christ,” said A.T. Pierson, “is the basal miracle of Christianity. Destroy that, and you destroy the foundations upon which we are building, and upon which we are resting.” What is the resurrection of Jesus Christ? It is the literal rising from the dead in His body. They will tell us that Jesus Christ rose just as some men rise in influence and fame; that is all. It is an attempt to destroy the actual and literal rising from the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What does the resurrection of Christ mean to me and to you? I know the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an historical fact. I know it carries with it the pledge and prophecy that you and I shall rise from the dead. He says, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” And when He rose from the dead, He was “the first fruits of them that slept.” Has it no message for any soul today? The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the pattern of the thing you and I ought to be day by day. For if we “be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” Since we have been raised with Him, there should be a heavenly mindedness about us, an other-worldness about us, and people should take note of us that we are not the ordinary kind of folks that move in and out among men; that we have a new life that constantly soars up with all its hopes yonder; its sun is a heavenly sun; its outlook is towards the heavens. That in itself settles for me a thousand and one things that perplex some people. For instance,—Can we go here and there? Is it permissible for the children of God to do this or that? Only what conforms to the resurrection life is right for the children of God. Since we are raised, let there be the heavenly mind.

Again we are told “through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” Now we come to this fine old word “covenant.” Do you know what it means to be in the covenant of grace? That we are no longer under the old law, but we have been brought into the covenant in which God has pledged Himself to do something for us. It is the most assuring and reassuring thing that the child of God can have,—to know that he has God’s pledge to do certain things, provided you and I meet certain conditions. Everlasting covenant. I do not know that it is the preacher’s business to be expert in all the sciences today. I have been a preacher for twenty-five years or so. I was ordained to the ministry about twenty years ago. I have never yet been asked to conjugate a Latin verb. I suppose ministers ought to be able to do it. Or decline a Greek noun. You say, “That is a strange thing! Strange that young fellows in these days that are so keen on education do not come to ministers with their lingualistic [sic] difficulties.” But it is not my chief business to do that. It is not imperative for the minister that he shall be a walking encyclopedia. But he has to be able to answer the questions of the human heart. Hundreds of times I have been asked, “Sir, what must I do to be saved?” Whether I can conjugate Latin verbs or decline Greek nouns or no, I must be able to tell a man how to be saved. When a man says, “Teacher, tell me what the everlasting covenant means,” I am unfit as a pastor if I cannot do it. The everlasting covenant is here “ordered in all things and sure.” What does it mean? You know what a covenant is. Dr. MacLaren once said, “The everlasting covenant is a contract into which God Himself has voluntarily entered, wherein He guarantees to fulfill to every trusting soul all the good pleasures of His will.” Blessed be His name, we are in that covenant. He was under no compulsion from His side to go into it. But He says, “I’ll guarantee to fulfill to you all I have said.” You take your check and present it to the teller of the bank, and upon identification the check is cashed. You can take the Word of God to God, and you may be sure He will fulfill that Word to you. Ah, infinitely more real is that to me than the cashing of a check in a bank in this country. God’s Word cannot be broken.

Yonder in Gray Friars Cemetery where thousands and thousands of martyrs lie buried, there is a rugged, jagged slab which is known as the slab of the Covenanters, on which they signed the ancient covenant and in which they dipped the pen when they sealed the covenant with their blood. When our Lord wanted to make more sure to us, if possible, His pledged Word, He sealed it with His blood. Never can that Word be broken. “The God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.”

Well, what is it all about? It is about the adjusting of the soul. For here is a man concerned about the soul development of young converts. And he appeals to “the God of peace,” the God of the “resurrection,” the God of “the everlasting covenant” to make perfect the souls of believers. “Make you perfect” he says, “in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ.” “Make you perfect.” This is the prayer that he has based upon that great appeal. What can God mean by “perfect?” Is it possible for anybody to be perfect? Well, the apostle prays for it. Is it possible for any of us to be sinless? That is another thing altogether. What is the meaning of the word perfect? There is no connection between this word perfect and sinlessness. And sinlessness is not the thought here. The thought here is that of adjustment. It is a pity our grand rugged translators did not translate this word “perfect” as it is. It is the same word as is used of our Lord’s disciples after they had been out fishing. They were found mending their nets. It is the word the osteopath uses for setting a bone. A bone gets out of joint, and it is a very inconvenient thing. The word “perfect” simply means setting a bone. My watch will not go correctly. When I go back to Scotland, I am going to take it to the maker to have it adjusted. It does not require a new inside or to be remade. It requires to be readjusted. What is wrong with the saints? We would never be guilty of committing a vulgar sin. We are not tempted to do it. We need to be adjusted, put right.

I used to have a little machine that did a lot of work for me before I came to this country. You talked into it, and it talked back; and when the secretary came, she did all the work. One day I had a lot of work to do. I said I would rise early in the morning and go through the work. I arose. I switched on the current, but not a wheel would move. It was just dead. The thing stood still and mocked me. For more than half an hour it was a tussle between the operator and the machine, and the machine beat me. I gave up in despair. My morning was lost so far.

When business hours came, I telephoned a friend of mine who knew about these machines. He came over according to promise, and he did what I had done. It would not move. He took out two screws and lifted up the thing bodily. He took a screwdriver, put it between some wheels, gave it an invisible twist, closed it down, switched on the current, and the thing went on. “Your machine is all right,” he said: “Good morning.”

“Not yet,” I said. “What was wrong with the machine?”

He said, “I’ll tell you. Your machine needed adjusting one-sixteenth part of an inch.”

“Do you mean to tell me that one-sixteenth part of an inch makes the difference between efficiency and inefficiency?”

“Yes, it does make that difference.”

Lord, help me! A sixteenth part of an inch makes me unfit for my Lord’s work. It is not that you get drunk, blaspheme, violate the Decalogue, but you get out of joint one-sixteenth of an inch, and you are unfit. It defeats the purposes for which it came into being. “The God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect (adjust you) in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ.”