“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48
It was said of the Lord Jesus Christ that when He spoke, “…He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Matt. 7:29) On another occasion, when the chief priests and Pharisees had send men to apprehend the Lord Jesus, these men returned without Him saying, “Never man spake like this man.” (Jn. 7:46) What was it about the Lord’s words, and manner with which He spoke, that had such a tremendous effect on His hearers? It was simply the power of the Spirit of God, the expression of that anointing from on High, quickening the Lord Jesus, giving Him words from the Father, in the demonstration and power of the Spirit. That power created a division among the people, those who came to believe that He was indeed the Son of God, and those, who in the face of His miracles, and the truth of His words based upon the inspired proof and testimony of Scripture, chose to deliberately reject Him. This last camp would be those who would eventually cry for His crucifixion, defying the law and righteousness, to further their own cause and position. These were those also who did NOT speak with spiritual authority, but remained as Jesus declared them to be, “blind leaders of the blind,” whose end would be destruction. What was the purpose of Christ speaking in such an authoritative manner, one that would put His life in danger, but yet, further the will and purpose of God? It would be the revelation of God to the then known world, and because of the inspired Scriptures, present Him to us today, that we might see Him, and as the hymnwriter wrote, “…catch a gleam of glory bright.” What does this revelation have to do with the perfection of God, and the admonition of Christ to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect?
When a person is born again of the Spirit of God, he becomes a child of God, a child of the Father who is perfect. This occurs because of a perfect work of redemption by Christ, during His life, and fully realized, and finished, on the Cross of Calvary. Only a perfect work, a sinless and perfectly righteous work would suffice, and be accepted by the Father. The Son in whom the Father was well pleased, of necessity, had to present to the Father a perfect sacrifice, a sinless sacrifice, to be the perfect counter, and overwhelming response to the awfulness, and deprivation of sin. Only the perfect work of Christ, revealed for time and eternity in His precious shed blood, would be the sole atonement for the wicked, godless sins of men. Only a perfectly pure and good sacrifice, would possess, by the power of an indestructible life, the capacity and effective working of God to deal with sin in its totality. Nothing in heaven or earth, no creature, no righteous angel or saint, could ever provide the perfect answer to death, hell, and Christ’s enemy, Satan. But this Christ did, signifying it by His singular, solemn, profoundly perfect declaration: “It is finished.” From that moment on, with the veil of the temple rent in two, and the acceptance by the Father of His Son’s perfect work for His glory, in behalf of all men, there would be the ever-ascending, rising endeavor by every believer to BE what God had not only called him to be, but by providing the means by which he could escape the downward pull of sin, and Satan, to rise to the heights of knowing Christ, the perfect Christ. It would be by the Father’s will, and working, that every child of God would be placed into Jesus Christ. In that union with the perfect, holy Christ as Lord, there would be at times the faint reflection, and manifested fruits, of the perfect life of Christ by the Spirit. Herein is the manner by which the saved sinner becomes increasingly perfected, by abiding in the perfect One.
Dear Father, Fill us with Christ. In Jesus’ name, Amen.