Be Perfect

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.“

_{Matthew 5:48}

As I have gotten older, this verse has gone from being one I trembled when I read to one that I cherish and cling to. The key to the change has been the transformation in my heart from relying on my own power to change to relying on the Holy Spirit to change me. As I have understood and allowed my heart to soak in the truth that Jesus IS my perfection, I’ve been set free from the bondage self-righteousness. My conscience no longer condemns me, not because I don’t sin but because Jesus didn’t and He gave that righteousness to me and took my sin upon himself.

We as believers need to rest in that truth because our old sinful nature doesn’t want to believe it. That nature and Satan want us to believe that we have to be righteous in ourselves. They want us to think we are the masters of our fate so that they can condemn us when we fail and we always fail.

Believing that we always fail can be a hard thing to believe because we do see good in this world. We also see evil and we can always think that there is something or someone worse than ourselves. So we often think, “Well at least I’m not as bad as …” and from that think of ourselves as acceptable before God. The real error in this is that we think way too little of sin.

We think way too little of sin because we think way too little of good. We really don’t know what good is. So we compare our behavior to a corrupted view of good and think we are OK before God. We don’t realize what God means when he says “It is very good.” So what is good? In a word, good is perfection. Good is the way that God intended everything to be. Everything in all of the universe not only doing what it is supposed to do but being what it is supposed to be.

The law points to this. The Pharisees, and most people in general, were so focused on the restrictions of the law (and those are real and good) that they truly forgot to pay attention the goal of the law. The law was never intended to be a path for sinful people to be fully righteous before God. The law was given because ever since the Fall human faculties prevent us from seeing our sin fully. As noted before, we grade ourselves on a comparative scale. The law is showing us the perfection of what God is and what a human is supposed to be.

For example, a person may say, “Well, I’m good because I didn’t murder anyone like that person in jail.” And we may even justify ourselves because the law says, “Do not murder.” So if we do not murder are we fit for heaven and living in God’s presence? No, Jesus says. Jesus says that anyone who says to someone else, “You fool!” is in danger of hell. The point is the condition of a persons heart. If you have contempt for someone else in your heart, you are a sinner and not fit for heaven. You might make the mistake of thinking that you will just stop saying phrases of contempt. But that misses the point. You might be able to stop saying those things but in your own power you will never be able to make your heart stop hating people.

The point of this dynamic in the law (whether the revealed law, or the law written on your heart) is to reveal our sinfulness (our not goodness) and drive us to dependence on Jesus to solve that problem. It is only when we are perfect, holy, completely good that we are fit for heaven. You may think this is a bit harsh. You may think that if this is the standard that no one will get into heaven. You would be right, IF everyone had to made fit for heaven on their own power. Everyone who does that will not only be condemned to hell but already stands condemned from the day they are born.

But it might help to put this standard into context. When we think of heaven it is helpful imagine what life was like back in the garden before sin entered the world. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world where they only had one restriction, don’t eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Everything else they could think, say or do was perfect in intent and effect. Can you imagine a world where billions of people live where nothing anyone did would annoy anyone else? Can you imagine a world where everyone’s desires never affected anyone else negatively in any way? Can you imagine a world where people are so good that there is no need of government or police? These things may be easy to think of at first but the more you understand deeply the implications of those questions you will see that they are impossible to really grasp.

It is into this perfect real world that God will put us in heaven. You will be with billions of people, none of whom think, say or do the slightest thing wrong. Now, if simply choosing to bite a fruit, ruined God’s very good world to the point where His son had to condescend to live a perfect life and die to restore that world, do you think that God would allow anyone into heaven with a heart that has hate in it? No.

The promise though is that when we trust Jesus, he takes care of all our sin, past, present and future, by his death on the cross. He gives us his righteousness to give us a right standing before God. Then the work of the Holy Spirit begins the process of changing your heart to root out all sin. That process will never be completed in this life but it will continue until Jesus comes or we die. At some point after death the Holy Spirit completes that work to make us perfect. So will indeed will be Holy and God is Holy. We will be good, just as God designed us to be.

So the phrase in Matthew 5:48 is a promise that God is going to make you Holy. Take joy that God will do that. All we have to do is just believe Him.