p. 3 | Perfection Is Coming by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 13, 1902

Perfection Is Coming

By Uriah Smith

“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” 1 Cor. 13: 9, 10. We lift up a cheering standard before the weary and waiting hearts of humanity. Perfection is coming. That is the promise: “When that which is perfect is come.” That state is far from present now; not in time, but in degree. All is imperfect here, not by any failure on the part of the Lord, but by the failure on the part of men. Sin has ruined all. Death with all its attendant evils, entered into this fair domain of the beneficent

creation of God, and so “death passed upon all men.”

Therefore, instead of the perfect state, which God provided and intended for us, we have suffering, disease, disappointment, blighted hopes, and misery of every kind; and thus we are brought to face, in bitterness of heart, the question of the ancient patriarch, “If a man die, shall he live again?” No one can think such a state of things is perfection, or be satisfied therewith. But he who wrote the world’s inspired songs, tells us that a time of perfection and satisfaction is coming, and he indicates how it will be brought about: “I shall be satisfied,” he says, “when I awake with thy likeness.” Ps. 17: 15.

But though this is not the perfect state, we have something to encourage and comfort us even here; for we know in part. We may be thankful for this: that we know in part, know enough to perceive the way of truth, and the path of obedience. We know the way to reach salvation; and “we prophesy in part;” that is, we have power to read and understand the prophecies, though only in part. But Paul explains that when he says, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.”

Christ had already said to his disciples: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. . . . and he will show you things to come.” John 16: 13. To receive this instruction is a part of our preliminary preparation for the heavenly world. How necessary, then, that we receive and cherish the Holy Spirit, and grieve it not away, nor the holy angels, nor any of the agencies through which God designs to instruct us in his service.

“But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away,”—not ignored, nor thrown away; for that which is only for the present has its place to occupy, and its work to perform; and blessed will that man be who shall be found not to have obstructed nor interfered with its work.

The apostle likens our advancement in the Christian life to the growing up of a man to the maturity of life from the limitations of childhood. Then Paul says, “When I became a man, I put away these childish things.” It is always easier to be childish than to be childlike. When found ambition controls us, and the mind becomes absorbed in the dream of advancement to high stations, a big salary, influence, and power over others, giving up “the weightier matters which these things of the world crowd out, it then becomes childish. James and John had such a dream when they besought the Lord to give them a place on his right hand and on his left hand in his kingdom, and this, with their ambition, aroused the indignation of the ten against them. They were childish. Matt. 20: 20–24.

To be childlike is described in Matt. 18: 2–6 and Luke 18: 16, 17. A child of God has infinitely higher views to engross his mind. But those who have come to years of maturity and do not rise above the little puerile notions and childish conceptions of early youth, must be, in the sight of the angels, odious and unnatural creatures, and a mockery of Christianity.

Now we see through a glass darkly, but when that which is perfect is come, we shall see as we are seen, face to face, and know as we are known. We shall see and know God, know Christ, and an innumerable company of angels, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and recognize our departed friends; for we shall know as we are known. Without this, could we say that that which is “perfect” is come? But as Paul says of the ancient worthies that they “without us should not be made perfect,” so we may say of our friends, It will not be a perfect state to us unless we can know them all. U. S.