Is Perfection
Possible?
In the Bible, Jesus
made a statement in Matthew 5:48, “Be
perfect, therefore, as your heavenly
Father is perfect.” Many
pastors say that we must overcome
every sin in order to be saved. What
do the scriptures have to say? Do you
think it is possible to live without
sinning?
I am happy to respond
to this question. Even though entire
books have been written on this
question, I will be as brief as
possible. You may already know that
Christians have debated the topic of
perfection for centuries. There are
more than 200 different Christian
denominations in the United States
and each one claims to know the way
to Heaven. It is no wonder that
people are confused about the
requirements for salvation. I find
that when it comes to the topic of
perfection, Christians range between
two extremes. At the one end of the
spectrum, some Christians have no
concern for perfection. They believe
that out ticket to
Heaven comes through performing
rituals and/or sacraments. For
example, some people believe that
salvation is as simple as this: “…
If you confess with your mouth,
‘Jesus is Lord,’ and
believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will be saved.
For it is with your heart that you
believe and are justified, and it is
with your mouth that you confess and
are saved.” (Romans 10:9,10)
This approach is similar to that of
becoming a Moslem. To become a
Moslem, a person has to sincerely say
three times, “There is no deity
but Allah and Mohammed is His
messenger.”
At the other end of
the spectrum, some Christians insist
that salvation comes through rigorous
obedience to God’s laws. They
claim that a person must overcome
every sin (Matthew 5:48; 1 John 3:
6-0, Hebrews 10:26) and that person
can live without sinning if he or she
is properly connected to Christ. When
everything written about salvation in
the Bible is put on the table, I
believe that victory over any sin is
possible, but sinless living is not
possible until the carnal nature is
removed. (Hebrews 8: 8-11, 1 John
3:2)
God has a very
practical way of saving sinners that
can be compared to a coin. “The
coin” of salvation has two
sides. One side of the coin is our
ticket to Heaven (justification)
and the other side of the coin is our
preparation for Heaven
(sanctification). We respond to
God’s love when we accept His
offer of salvation and we show our
gratitude to God by allowing the Holy
Spirit to test us, discipline us,
teach us, and prepare us for Heaven.
The Father has made
the coin of salvation available to
the whole world through the blood of
His Son, Jesus Christ. The Father
wants all human beings to accept the
coin of salvation, but there is a
caveat. (Isn’t there a
caveat when accepting a free
kitten?) Before people can receive
the coin of salvation, their whole
orientation to life has to be
changed. This transformation is so
dramatic that it is called
“rebirth.” “In
reply [to Nicodemus] Jesus
declared, ‘I tell you the truth,
no one can see the kingdom of God
unless he is born again.’” (John
3:3) In other words, a person cannot
enter the kingdom of God by being
‘a good person” or by doing
good deeds. Human goodness does not
impress God. Jesus said that even the
pagans do good deeds! (Matthew 5:47)
The root problem is not sinlessness,
but it is selflessness: “Those
who live according to the sinful
nature have their minds set on what
that nature desires; but those who
live in accordance with the Spirit
have their minds set on what the
Spirit desires. The mind of sinful
man is death, but the mind controlled
by the Spirit is life and peace; the
sinful mind is hostile to God. It
does not submit to God’s law,
nor can it do so. Those controlled by
the sinful nature cannot please
God.” (Romans 8: 5-8)
Man’s number one
problem is the sinful nature. (The
devil holds second place.) Parents do
not have to teach their children to
lie, cheat or steal. Sinning comes
naturally and when a person
experiences rebirth, the carnal
nature does not go away. In fact, the
carnal nature becomes aggravated by
the presence of the spiritual nature
and it constantly wars against the
spiritual nature which God places in
every born again heart. (Romans 7)
Some people believe that it is
possible to silence the carnal nature
and be free of its tendencies. I
believe these people are misled. Paul
had been a Christian almost thirty
years when he wrote, “I
do not understand what I do. For what
I want to do I do not do, but what I
hate, I do.” (Romans 7:15)
Consider the scenario:
At a point in our lives, the Holy
Spirit begins working on our hearts,
trying to get each of us to surrender
to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If a
person stops resisting and surrenders
his life to Jesus (a surrender to
Jesus means a willingness to go, to
be and to do whatever Jesus commands
in His gospel), a real miracle called
rebirth will occur. The evidence of
rebirth is a complete change in
orientation. The things we hated, we
now love and the things we loved, we
now hate. (1 John 2: 15-17)
The Holy Spirit
tirelessly promotes the gospel of
Jesus because it contains several
important truths about God and man.
For example, the gospel reveals a
sinner’s true state before God.
The gospel declares the penalty for
sin and it reveals the good news that
man has a Savior in Jesus Christ. The
gospel of Jesus also declares that
God freely offers every submissive
sinner “a robe of
righteousness” which Jesus
Christ Himself created when He lived
on Earth. (Matthew 22: 1-14) The
righteousness of Christ is also
illustrated as a wedding robe because
God will clothe our lives of
sin with the perfect life of Christ
in exchange for our totally
submissive hearts. When a sinner
receives the robe of Christ’s
righteousness, the sinner is
justified in God’s sight (this
means, justice has been served, the
sinless life of Christ has been.
exchanged for the sinful life of a
sinner, and God’s law which
demands “a life for a life”
is fully satisfied) This legal
standing occurs in Heaven’s
court at rebirth and this is the
ticket that enables sinners to
enter through the pearly gates. Tickets
to Heaven are not available through
any other means than justification.
(Romans 1:17)
Meanwhile, down
here on Earth, the born-again sinner
is a different creature. Every
born-again person is changed by
God’s divine power. Each day, a
new infusion is available to
each born-again sinner so that he or
she can maintain an attitude of love
toward God and man. In addition to
this power, God sends a willingness
to serve others and a desire to be
honest, forthright, generous, fair
and forgiving. (These are God’s
attributes.) Of course, our
ability to use this power to
glorify God in words and actions is
not perfect and our deficiencies will
be noticed as we undergo tests at
various times and in different ways.
The Holy Spirit uses a variety of
tests to reveal to us our flaws,
defeats of character, wrong
attitudes, and inherited weaknesses
so that we might grow up and
spiritually mature in Christ. Because
God is preparing us for eternal life,
the process of sanctification is an
ongoing process until we die or
experience the removal of the carnal
nature.
In reality, after a
few years of intensive
sanctification, a spiritual plateau
is reached. The sinner has gone about
as far as possible in terms of
learning and doing God’s will.
The remainder of his life will be
spent applying the things that he has
learned, making amends for his
mistakes as they occur (1 John 2:1),
and praying for strength to do what
is right as tests come and go.
Learning to love God and others, in
every possible way, takes a lifetime.
This is why sanctification occurs and
this also explains the limits of
sanctification. However, a thousand
years of sanctification will n0ot
silence the carnal nature. (Romans 7)
When most people hear
Matthew 5:48, they don’t stop to
realize that verse 48 is preceded by
47 other verses! Jesus said, “Be
perfect, therefore,
even as your Father in Heaven is
perfect,” within a specific
context. Review Matthew 5: 1-47 and
remember, this passage is called
“The Beatitudes” (the
be-attitudes) for a reason. Jesus
summed up His sermon saying, “Be
perfect,
therefore….”because it is
possible for us to be perfect in
our grade even as the Father is
perfect in His grade!
The school of
sanctification is similar to a school
of education. First graders and
twelfth graders are schoolmates
because they attend the same school!
They may not be in the same class,
but they are in the same school. The
same is true in the school of
sanctification. Some people are in
the first grade and others are in the
twelfth grade and the Father has a
graduate degree. The playing field in
school is level because the
tests and responsibilities for each
grade are commensurate with the
abilities of the students. Using this
example, you can see that a perfect
score in handwriting for a first
grader is quite different than a
perfect score in calculus for a
senior, but a perfect score is a
perfect score regardless of the
year in school! Of course, if a
student does not pass his tests, he
has to stay in that grade until he
does. Once the student reaches a
certain age, he can choose to drop
out if he wants. If a person chooses
to drop out of the school of
sanctification, that is his choice,
but remember, he cannot his ticket
to Heaven. When a person returns to a
life of rebellion he loses his ticket
because there is no place in Heaven
for one rebellious saint. God has
purchased tickets for every person on
Earth through the blood of His son,
Jesus Christ, and God wants every
human being to accept a free ticket,
but remember, there is a caveat. We
have to enter and remain in the
school of sanctification to keep
the ticket. (Ezekiel 18) If we stay
in school, we will be blessed. If we
cooperate with the Holy Spirit, we
can perfectly maintain the attitudes
that Jesus defined in His sermon. Bad
attitudes stem from everything the
carnal nature produces: selfishness,
injury, abuse, etc.
Born-again people can
and do fall into sin, but Jesus
offers forgiveness if the
sinner will confess his sin and allow
the sanctifying process to continue.
(1 John 1:9) Because born-again
Christians are carnal, they are
special targets of Lucifer; Jesus
knows that no Christian can live very
long without slipping into some kind
of sin. (1 Peter 5:8; 1 John 2:1;
5:17) However, born-again sinners
know that we have an advocate with
the Father and Jesus will speak in
our defense if we are repentant
(willing to make things right and
forsake our sin). If anyone says that
he is without sin, he is a liar. (1
John 1:10) Remember, sin comes not
only through deeds of commission, but
also deeds of omission. (James 4:17)
Therefore, there are only three ways
we can be set free from sin:
- If we persist,
Jesus will set us free from a
particular sin – but
this freedom is not
necessarily permanent. In
other words, we can fall back
into that same sin if we are
not careful. (Matthew
12:43-45)
- At death, our
choices end so there is no
further temptation to sin.
Death seals the record of our
life and this record is used
when we stand before the
Judgment Bar of Christ.
(Ecclesiastes 12:14; Daniel
7:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10)
- During the
Great Tribulation, those
passing the test of faith
will have their carnal
natures removed and they will
be sealed in a state
like that of Adam and Eve
before the fall. The first to
have their carnal natures
removes will be the 144,000.
(Revelation 7:3)
Friends, the only
person to ever live without sinning
is Jesus. (Romans 3:23, Hebrews 4:15)
Sinless living for born-again people
is not possible. However, we can
still experience victory over sin.
While victory is possible, sooner or
later, the devil and our ever-present
carnal nature will ambush us and
cause us to sin through commission or
omission. Fortunately, the Bible says
these types of sins do not bring
death. (1 John 5:17) Think about
this. The two people most likely to
achieve a sinless life would have
been Adam and Eve, but God separated
them from the Tree of Life because He
knew they could no longer live
without sinning again! God sees our
hopeless dilemma. Therefore, God
Himself made “the coin” of
salvation. Whosoever will, may come
and receive the coin. (John 3:16)
Ongoing sanctification is our
preparation for eternal life and
justification is the ticket to
eternal life. “For the grace
of God that brings salvation has
appeared to men. It teaches us to say
‘No’ to ungodliness and
worldly passions, and to live
self-controlled, upright and godly
lives in this present age, while we
wait for the blessed hope – the
glorious appearing of our great God
and Savior, Jesus Christ. (Titus
2:11-13)
