WHY DID JESUS SAY 'BE PERFECT'?
(5/26/11)

Why did Jesus say "Be Perfect"? Then He added "even as your Heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt.5:48). What exactly did He mean by that statement? Jesus said this in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. This is the same sermon where He says that if your eye offend you pluck it out and if your arm offend you cut it off. Obviously Jesus isn't expecting us to do those things. He was conveying to the people who were trying to live by the law that if the law of God is your standard, nothing less then perfect obedience is acceptable. If obeying the "law" is what you're depending on to give you right standing with God, then certainly cut off anything that will cause you to fail. In that context, be perfect, even as the Heavenly Father is. Jesus was wanting to bring the people to the end of themselves to reveal to them that it is impossible for them make it by their own efforts, and that they need a savior.

We know that under the New Covenant Jesus has given us the gift of His own Righteousness. We are made righteous, in Him, by faith. So we can be perfect, but not by our own perfection, it is His perfection which we receive by faith to enable us to be acceptable to the Father. One friend of mine put it this way: be perfectly "at peace" with the confidence and ability of our Heavenly Father to save us with His Righteousness through the merits of Jesus Christ. God is so holy that nothing less than perfect holiness is acceptable in His presence. That is why Jesus said to be perfect. That puts us in a dilemma. We can't just ignor this command. Somehow, we must "be perfect" in order to be acceptable to God. We can either obtain that perfection by our own efforts (impossible) or we can receive His free gift of perfect righteousness and stand in that.

By "self-effort" I simply mean that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much of the law I keep, no matter what I do or don't do, I cannot produce perfection, completeness, or even spiritual maturity by my own efforts. Yet Jesus commanded it. He wanted people to understand that the holy standards of God are so high, it's impossible to get there from here. That is why we needed Jesus to become the way for us. That's why we needed Him to be our perfection, our all in all.

Summarizing, this is how I see it. The whole context seems to be showing them the ultra high standards of a truly holy God. This statement of "Be Perfect" comes right after many other "impossible" statements that Jesus made. He said that if your hand offend you cut it off. If your eye offends you, pluck it out. Obviously He didn't expect us to do that. I believe he was talking to people who were accustomed to the law and felt that they could earn their right-standing with God through obedience to the law. They believed that they bacme righteous by the things they did or didn't do. Included in the crowd were many self-righteous scribes and pharisees. He was raising the standards, so to speak. He told them that if they lust, they've already committed adultery in their hearts. If they hate someone, they've already murdered in their heart. Certainly, if right-standing with God depended on keeping the law, self mutilation might seem a reasonable option for some people. After making several other radical near impossible statements, bringing the listener to the end of themselves, He makes one more impossible statement, "Be Perfect". He doesn't stop there, He tells them to be as perfect as the Father is perfect. If we understand the holiness of God, this all makes sense. Nothing less then absolute 100% holiness can enter the kingdom of God. The listener would have to conclude, "this impossible for me to do". That is where Jesus wants us to be in order to place our full faith and trust in Him as our only Way, our only Truth, our only Life. We have to rely on Him to be our righteousness and our perfection. God is awesome!