by Jacob Ninan
If we talk about perfection, a lot of people will immediately react by saying that they are not perfect and that nobody is perfect! Is that an indirect excuse for a careless attitude towards sin and imperfection? Are they taking cover behind the point that nobody is perfect and implying that therefore they need not seek to deal with their imperfections? That kind of an attitude indicates that they have neither a hatred for sin nor fear of God. The chances are that these people are not born again (1Jn.3:9).
There is another group of people on the opposite side, who are always striving for perfection and getting frustrated because they keep coming across their imperfections. Some of them are trying to change the world and finding themselves beating their heads against hard walls. Discouragement and despair are their constant companions. Unfortunately, some of them give up hope altogether.
It is strange, but there are also a few people who have come to believe that they have become perfect! They claim that they have seen the secret of perfection and that they have not committed any sin for so many years. Some of them imagine and claim that they are a part of the bride of Christ or the 144000 in the Book of Revelation, depending on their theological emphasis! Everyone else can see their imperfections and realise that these people are deluded, but they firmly hold on to what they believe. Usually they have redefined sin for themselves and then that makes it possible to make this claim.
Honest Christians face a huge challenge when they come across God's expectation for them to be holy and perfect. It is one thing for God to say that He wants us to be holy because He is holy (Lev.11:45;1Pet.1:15,16). But Jesus interpreted it and took this to a higher level saying that we should be perfect as the heavenly Father (Matt.5:48). The Hebrew word used for 'holy' is qadosh meaning 'sacred' and the Greek word for 'holy' is hagios meaning 'sacred, physically pure, morally blameless'. The Greek word for 'perfect' is teleios meaning 'complete'. We cannot ignore these expectations from God by hiding behind forgiveness and the imputed righteousness of Christ. These have been certainly granted to us in God's gift of justification, but then He wants us to actually partake of His righteousness in the process of sanctification or being made holy unto Him.
We must recognise that holiness and perfection are part of God's plan for us, even though we must also find the right way to reconcile that with the reality of our imperfection. While justification takes care of our acceptance by God, we need to understand how that goes along with the fact that we keep finding ourselves failing or coming short in one way or another all through our life.
The apostle Paul was an epitome of honesty when he confessed that he had not reached perfection. But he was pressing on towards that (Php.3:12). At the same time, he also used the word 'perfect' in another sense, meaning maturity, in a different context (Php.3:15). So what can we understand by perfection?
When God expects us to be perfect as He is perfect, we can understand that He means the perfection without flaw in any way. But immediately we can also see that this is way beyond us as things are with us. We are imperfect and limited in every way, in knowledge, ability, power, strength, wisdom, etc., while God is perfect in every way, as is possible only for God. Obviously, God is not expecting us to become gods, but only perfect to the extent that created beings can. In the moral realm, sin has corrupted every part of our thoughts, emotions and our ability to make decisions. We are handicapped in many ways, because of lack of knowledge, lack of power, the corruption that is in our heart and mind, etc. Many times we end up doing things we should not have done, and omitting to do things we should have done. This is how it will be as long we are on earth. Paul recognised this about himself, that there was nothing good in himself (Rom.7:18). In addition, he saw a law at work in him fighting against what he really wanted to do (Rom.7:22,23).
We are all imperfect without exception, and we are not in a position to become perfect like God. But when God begins His work of salvation in us, we receive a desire to press on towards perfection, or to make progress in the direction of perfection (Heb.6:1).
God gave Paul the revelation that helped him to find the balance. On one hand he experienced the frustration of not being able to be perfect in all that he did (Rom.7:19-24). What caused him to triumph over this in his mind was the recognition that God had given him a new mind that was set towards perfection, pleasing God in every way (Rom.7:25). He realised that even though he could not eliminate the flesh, which he would have wished for, now he had the ability to focus on making sure that with his whole heart he was seeking to serve the law of God.
"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death" (Rom.8:1,2). 'Therefore' links the removal of condemnation to those who are serving the law of God with their mind. We could not attain to this by trying to keep the Law. Now the spirit that God has given us when we were born again causes our heart and mind to be set on the things of God, instead of the attractions of the flesh to which we were bound earlier.
Even after being born again, we will find, just as Paul did, that our 'flesh', our old sinful nature, has not disappeared, but it continues to tempt us with lusts and desires (Jas.1:14,15). Satan and the world draw us to them because there are these desires in our flesh. To press on to perfection means to have increasing victory over these lusts and to become more and more like Jesus in His character. We can do this when we set our mind on the work God is doing in our heart and mind, deny ourselves and follow Jesus. It is a choice or a position we take, not only with regard to our deeds, but also to our thoughts, attitudes, intentions, etc. There is forgiveness if we fall.
There are some practical considerations we should be aware of. "Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal.5:24). To crucify the flesh is to take a position against the flesh, that we do not want to yield to its lusts. We can do this because of the new mind that God has given us with the new birth. But crucifixion leads very slowly to death. If become careless, we can fall, and then it would be like taking the flesh down from the cross and feeding it, and then its death will get delayed. We need to repent, and crucify it again. If we walk according to the flesh, we cannot claim to have no condemnation. That condemnation should lead us to repentance and restoration to God.
What this means is that victory is not permanent or once-for-all. We can be tempted at any time in our life, as we see Jesus who faced temptations even after living a sinless life for 30 years! But if we live faithfully, the power of the lusts becomes less and less. At the same time, we should not imagine that now they will not bother us any more (1Cor.10:12). The Devil is always looking out for a suitable occasion to attack us (1Pet.5:8).
If we are to press on towards perfection, we must persevere in learning to be faithful, and then there will be an overall progress and our failures will become less and less. But we must learn to be honest with ourselves and to walk before the eyes of God, and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit at every moment whether He wants to convict us or to show us the way forward.