Matthew 5:48 - Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
When I was young I had one of those sickening Kitty Cat posters on my wall showing a sweet, widdle kitty that had gotten into a basket of yarn. The inscription read: "I'm not perfect, just forgiven."
This is a popular quip of many Christians. It is meant to demonstrate that the Gospel of Jesus is about grace. And this grace covers all the imperfections so that we don't have to be perfect to have salvation and forgiveness. In fact, we don't even have to be perfect once we accept the Gospel. Grace covers all.
Yet . . .
Jesus said the words that many followers don't really want to think about: Be perfect. It was during His famous Sermon on the Mount and He was talking about loving your enemies. He also touched on how these actions of love and reaching out to the unfavorable are an evidence of salvation. This is what He is talking about when He says it. He threw it in like a glandular kid doing a cannon ball into your serene backyard pool. Loving our enemies is hard enough, and what does that have to do with perfection?
I went on a journey to try to decipher some of the mystery behind such a raw and unattainable command. This is a chronicle of that journey.
If you read the commentaries and scriptural dictionaries about 'perfection', you would come across a general consensus. In short: when God says we should be perfect, He doesn't really mean it. You come across explanations that use terms like:
Limited perfection
Relative perfection
Mimicking, reflecting, or a shadow of Gods perfection
Perfection is not so much achievable as it is a "sign", "symbol" or distant reality attained "only in eternity"; "a divine ideal forever shining before us". Not attainable in this life? Whew. That’s good news. For a minute there, I was worried that God was actually serious. I mean, God did say we should be 'imitators' of Him (Eph. 5:1), so that must also apply here. Glad we got that cleared up.
But wait, if Jesus is speaking metaphorically, does that also apply to loving our enemies? Does Jesus go straight from the literal and make a leap into the nebulous?
Now, I may not be a scholar or a linguist, but even I know that there is no such thing as "relative or limited perfection". It's a made up concept! Imagine trying to apply that same principle to life:
"Yes, I did put on my application that I have a perfect SAT score."
"But your score from the transcript says only 1250?"
"Yes, but I happen to be very smart, and I am a good learner. My ability to mature and grow allows me 'relative perfection' on my SAT. There. That should explain it."
I don't know about you, but I was unsettled by the explanations given to me.
The verse says to: Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. The comparison between the perfection of God and the perfection He requires of us gives us our first clue into what is being asked of us. For instance, if the "perfection" used to describe God is different from the word "perfection" used for us, then we can begin to swallow some of the 'relative perfection' theories. If we look at the roots of each use of 'perfect' we can clear this up . . .
(gulp)
The word 'perfect' in this verse is identical for both times it is used; the word is Teleios in the Greek.
(Game, set, match)
Both times it is expressed as an nominative adjective. The only difference is that one is plural and one is singular; plural referring to "us" and singular referring to "heavenly Father". That’s it. No alternate type of perfection ascribed to us. We are asked to the same standard of perfection that God is.
So, how are the scholars so off?
I believe the answer is still found in the standard of comparison. If we are to be perfect like God, then how is God perfect? The scholars assume that God is perfect in such a divine way that to assume that we can be as perfect would be deification of humanity (a.k.a. idolatry). Err on the side of caution.
But, if we were expected to be a different kind of perfect than God, Jesus could have used a different word. Greek and English do not always line up exactly. In the New Testament, there are 11 other words besides Teleios translated as 'perfect' or 'perfection'. There is a significance in the fact that the word used to describe our command of perfection is the same that is attributed to God's perfection.
How is God perfect? The answer to this question unlocks the key to understanding this verse. In the Old Testament Hebrew, the words used to describe perfection were largely associated with ethics. It is not uncommon to stress the definition of perfection as blameless, faultless, flawless, and without blemish. Certainly, this describes God. We all know that Jesus was sinless. It speaks of Him being 'perfect', however, only in Hebrews. And God's perfection is belabored all through the Bible. But are ethics and/or sinlessness the main function of God's perfection?
If the answer is "yes", then we are surely looking at an unattainable perfection and we will need the explanations of the scholars. If the answer is "no", then what are we missing about God's perfection? Surely, God is ethical beyond doubt?
Is God ethical?
My search for the meaning behind Matthew 5:48 drove me straight into this brick wall of a question. The verse is based on a comparison with God. But God is God. I mean, come on. How is anyone supposed to compete? No wonder the scholars were shooting for moon only to land in the stars. God is sinless.
Wait, Jesus was sinless. But is God sinless?
What does it mean to sin? I mean, we all know that sin is when we screw up. More technically, sin is when we do something God told us not to. Even more technically, sin is not just doing something, its anything that is offensive to God. Stealing is bad because God told us so. He set up the system, so He makes the rules. There are certain things (i.e. the Ten Commandments) that are big no-no's. They are because God knows the system and He knows what is better and worse. But God lives outside the system. When we sin, what makes it 'sin' is that it is something that is an offense against God. Is God sinless because he has never offended Himself? Can God offend Himself? Is God ethical? So, if I murder someone, I am in BIG trouble. But God kills people all the time and we don’t really have any problem with it. We don't call God unethical, we attribute all knowledge and omniscience to Him. Its okay that God kills people because we expect Him to know when death can be right or even good. Because God is God and He has those 'god-like qualities' of omniscience and omnipresence and such, it is not seen as the same kind of 'wrong' as when we kill.
I propose this: God is not ethical. Nor is He unethical. He is above the very system that defines those ethics. Jesus was sinless because He operated inside the system. God is not a sinner, nor is He sinless. He is not defined by that standard, He is just God.
But Erin, what about the fact that God is good? Doesn't that denote sinlessness or ethics?
God is good. But I don't believe that this revelation makes Him ethical. The 'good' we attribute to God manifests itself in all realms. So in our realm, God is good in many ways (i.e. the sinlessness of Jesus). But that does not change the fact that in the spiritual realm, God is still enacting good in a way that we could compare to our realm as unethical. God can kill and still be good. We are bound by a different standard.
So what am I getting at?
I think that in my search to find an answer to Matthew 5:48, I realized that we get stuck because we are trying to measure the length of a piece of paper with a kitchen measuring cup. We are trying to measure the volume of a swimming pool with a yard stick. We set out to be perfect by ethics. "Be ye therefore ethical as your Father in Heaven is ethical." This is where we get discouraged. We can never be as 'good' as God. But if God is not ethical, we are missing the comparison. So how is God perfect?
Our definition of 'perfect' is the lynchpin to this comparison, and the comparison is the key. The word 'perfect' (as mentioned above) can have many different definitions. The one used in the verse in Matthew is used 3 other times in scripture. A look at the way it is used in these other verses may shed light on how we are to view it in Matthew 5.
Colossians 4:12 is talking about Epaphras who is praying for the Colossians that they may "stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God."
James 1:4 is talking about endurance having "its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
From these two verses we can infer that this perfection is associated with "full assurance" and "completion that lacks nothing". To really seal this image we go to the final reference in Matthew 19:21. This is the story of the rich young ruler. Ironically, it mirrors our journey to this point. The young ruler is telling Jesus how ethical he is and how he has followed all of the commands. He calls Jesus good and Jesus asks why he would call Him good. The young ruler has done all these good things and lacked none, but He is looking for an answer about salvation. Jesus reply: "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.".
For our purposes, we will just focus on the first six words of Jesus remark: If you wish to be complete. This translation of the verse is New American Standard. It uses the word "perfect" interchangeably with "complete".
There is a concept in mathematics called The Perfect Circle. This circle is perfect in the fact that it is complete and is lacking no aspects attributed to a circle. Its diameter is exact on every point that you could measure it. In the ultimate definition of what makes a circle a circle, it lacks nothing.
How is God perfect? I submit that the answer is ontological. God is perfect in the sense that he is complete.
How does this apply, then, to us? Be ye therefore complete as your Father in Heaven is complete. James touched on our completeness being tied to endurance. What does completeness look like in the Christian life?
Here is my conclusion: the trick to understand this falls on the word "be". "Be perfect (complete)". There are two ways to 'be". We talked about one earlier when we were trying to "be" sinless or ethical. That is the verb tense of "be". Its an action. It is part of our linear lifestyle. We look down the road in hopes of doing enough to attain perfection. There is also the noun tense "be". This is to "be" in terms of being, not of doing. I can sum up the difference by saying that I can be angry or I can be sad, but I can never cease to be Erin. Anger and sadness are exponents and outpourings. They are actions. My essence is an identity. It is a state of being. So what tense is being used in the verse?
I mentioned before that the word Teleios was an adjective. Adjectives define nouns. We are talking about nouns here, not verbs. This goes back to the measuring the swimming pool with a yard stick. We are trying to apply this verse about perfection by doing instead of being.
The Gospel tells us that when we accept Christ as Savior, we are new creations. We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It grants us new identity. We often forget this identity. We live out of an orphan mindset and continue to scratch in the dirt despite our ability to fly. To be complete is to remember the Gospel; to remember who we are in Christ. To remember that the victory is won; that all power is given to us; that grace covers all and that in Christ I am complete.
Suddenly, this verse seems a lot more attainable. I can be complete by remembering that God is complete and that His Spirit dwells in me. It's about identity, not ethics.
So, be perfect Church, as your Father is perfect. And don't worry about those ethics. If we align our identity, our actions will be a representation of our completeness. The inevitable result will be a that our actions and lifestyle parallel the desire of our Father.
So remember who you are in Christ.
And be perfect.
You can do it.
Really.
