I am a perfectionist. I wouldn’t recommend this mindset—it’s made many things more challenging (emotionally) as I tend to fall short of the standards I set for myself. I’ve spent much of my life so far trying to accept that it’s okay to make mistakes.
But I’m a perfectionist in temperament, not theology, because I know the Bible says it’s impossible to live a sinless life, for “we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Why, then, is there another verse in the Bible that says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”? Yes, that’s in the Bible, and it seems like an impossible standard to reach.
Some read this and interpret it as “perfect in actions”, which can lead to an understanding that we are saved by works, which the Bible clearly refutes: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8,9). Even with a healthy understanding of God’s grace, it’s easy to slip down a legalistic path and try to prove our salvation by our works, like by how we keep the Sabbath, or how vegetarian we are, or by how regularly we attend church. But nothing we do will ever be enough; only God’s grace is enough. There is no way that we can ever be perfect like Him.
So there must be more than meets the eye when it comes to this verse—we have to look a little deeper to understand its meaning. In the previous verses Jesus talks about not just loving your neighbour but loving your enemies. “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? . . . If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:46-48). You see, Jesus isn’t talking about living a sinless life, but perfect love, a love that loves even those who are hard to love.
Don’t get me wrong; the standard is still set impossibly high. And none of us will achieve it this side of the kingdom. But we can still grow in our love for others, and even in our unconditional love for the difficult people in our lives. It’s less about striving for a standard, and more about looking to Jesus as our example and growing in His likeness because we love Him. When we truly internalise how much He loves us, we learn to love Him in return, and because we love Him, we want to be more like Him. Out of this process, our love for others grows.
Loving others is the second greatest commandment according to Jesus (Matthew 22:36-40). It’s not how we keep the Sabbath, or being vegetarian, or our church attendance, but our kindness and compassion towards other human beings.
In the original Greek, the word perfect is teleioi and is defined as “having reached its end”. Perhaps we shouldn’t think of that definition as meaning perfect in the context we tend to understand it in (free from mistakes) but as mature or grown. We spend our lives growing towards maturity in our faith, and though we will never be perfect, we can grow in our understanding of how to love those around us.
Ashley Jankiewicz is an assistant editor for Adventist Record.
