Sayings of Jesus: Be Perfect
Jesus’ most well-known collection of teachings is what’s known as the Sermon on the Mount and it’s found in Matthew chapters 5 thru 7. Whether it was originally delivered in that exact manner or Matthew collated it from separate eyewitness recollections we don’t know, but it contains such memorable teachings as “love your enemies” and the Lord’s Prayer. Our focus here is just one verse (5:48): “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The first thing we should note is that little word “therefore” This contextualizes what “being perfect” looks like in the heart attitudes and behaviors that chapter 5 before it (and arguably, chapters 6 and 7 that follow it) set out.
As always, rather than start with the Oxford English Dictionary to explore what “perfect” means (or what we assume the word means), we should look at what it would have meant at the time. If we do a word search in the Old Testament (e.g., on biblegateway.com), we find no equivalent in the main modern translations of Jesus’ command here. “Perfect” is mostly used only to speak of God and his ways, along with “the law of the Lord” (i.e., Torah—God’s commandments). However, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint or LXX, which was in widespread use in the first century (Greek being the lingua franca of the day), Deuteronomy 18:13 says, “You shall be perfect before the Lord your God.”
I wouldn’t normally look to the King James Version, but it, too, uses “perfect” to translate the Hebrew word in Deuteronomy 18:13, and also in Genesis 6:9 (describing Noah) and Genesis 17:1, where God tells Abraham to be perfect before him.
The same Hebrew word in other biblical contexts conveys the idea of wholeness, completeness, or blamelessness. Relationally, it speaks of being wholly committed to God and his ways.
I’ve said many times that the kingdom characteristics that God seeks in us and through us—such as love, and faith—are not things we “have” or possess. They’re not intrinsic qualities. Rather, they are things we “do.” Or perhaps better put, whether or not we have them, biblically speaking, is only shown by (it’s only defined by) what we do. This has nothing to do with so-called “works-righteousness” that somehow qualifies us for heaven (it doesn’t), but it is the clear teaching of Jesus and the New Testament generally. And the same is true when it comes to the biblical notion of being perfect before God. It’s not a state, or a status, that we possess or one that is somehow bestowed by God upon us. Rather, it’s God’s conclusion that reflects his pleasure with how we’re walking with him and relating to him and to others—which, in turn, is reflected in what we have done and not done.
Now . . . if we know anything about Noah and Abraham, they were far from flawless people. A little biblical research soon shows that. We could say similarly concerning King David, who is described as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). This suggests that what God has in mind by being “perfect” in these biblical references is not some kind of flawlessness that is beyond human achievement. If it is within the grasp of these biblical characters, it must be within ours, too. After all, Jesus would hardly have encouraged it if it wasn’t.
One thing we do need to get out of our heads is perfection as conceived in neoplatonic Greek thinking. Simply put, that’s a mystic and dualistic way of thinking that says spiritual, heavenly things are the true reality (all that really matters) and earthly, physical things are bad (that we should shun them). This is very much not the way that the biblical Hebrew mindset conceived things. Creation is one integrated whole. We see elements of this dualistic mysticism encroaching in certain “other-worldly” charismatic Christian ways of thinking and behaving that we should be on the alert for. Overstating the significance of “spiritual” (heavenly things) while denigrating or dismissing the importance of “physical” (earthly, or worldly, things) is a manifestation of that.
With this background, how then might we characterize what Jesus had in mind by “be perfect” in Matthew 5:48? And equally, what God had in mind in Deuteronomy 18:13. First off, we need to read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 thru 7. These are the characteristics—the attitudes and behaviors—that God seeks in us and through us toward others. Second, we need to read the Gospels and see how Jesus treated people and handled situations. The stories are there to “teach” us just as much as the propositions (the truth statements and commandments). And thirdly, we need to “do” those things. We need to “live out” those things. We need to “copy Jesus.” Even when it costs us something to do so (human nature is to try to avoid personal costliness—usually that’s a good thing, part of our preservation instinct, but not always).
Being perfect is not a state and it’s not a status. Nor is it a “legal fiction”—that God somehow “deems” us to have (even though it’s “not true”), thanks to Jesus being perfect.
Being perfect is not just one thing. It’s a compendium of things. As with everything to do with God, it begins as relational—it’s having and maintaining a right relationship with God,* with others, with ourselves, and with our world. It’s understanding the heart of God and living out the heart of God. It’s doing good, and not harm. It’s loving God and loving people (the latter being the definition of the former). Christianity is a doing word.
Being perfect is doing what God asks of us, to the best of our ability. He understands our limitations; he is very much not the hard taskmaster that the unfaithful servant assumed him to be—whom he was afraid of—in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30.**
* Jesus has enabled us to be made right; it’s our responsibility to choose to stay right.
** The moral of that story has nothing to do with the faithful servants making a sizeable profit; it’s not about the financial results of their investment of the talents—which were sums of money entrusted to them. The teaching is to do with how the different servants rightly and wrongly understood the nature and character of their master, which motivated their attitude and behavior.