If Thou Wilt Be Perfect

The Bible reveals that “that which is perfect” is a Being. God is the only Perfect Being; no human being is perfect apart from God. We make the blunder of applying to human beings terms which the Bible applies to God only. Our Lord in replying to the rich young ruler, who used the term “Good Master,” said, “None is good save One, even God” (RV). There is only one Being to whom the term “good” can be applied, and that is the Perfect Being, the term cannot be applied to good men. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord places God as the model for Christian character; He does not say, “Be good as a man is good,” but—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (RV). We are to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, not by struggle and effort, but by the impartation of that which is Perfect. We are accustomed to the use of the word “perfect” in connection with our relationship to God (e.g. Philippians 3:12-15), but here the word is used in a bigger sense, viz. perfect as God is perfect.

“Love” is another term we are apt to apply wrongly. We emphasise perfect love towards our fellow-men; the Bible emphasises perfect love to God. Love is an indefinable word, and in the Bible it is always used as directly characteristic of God—“God is love.” In Romans 5:5, Paul says that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts,” not the power to love God, but the love of God.

Or take Truth. The Truth is our Lord Himself, consequently any part of the truth may be a lie unless it leads to a relation to the Truth. Salvation, sanctification, the Second Coming are all parts of the Truth, but none is the Truth; and they are only parts of the Truth as they are absorbed by the Truth, our Lord Himself. We are not told to expound the way of salvation, or to teach sanctification, but to lift up Jesus, i.e. to proclaim the truth.