ttt

Perfection, Perfectionism

The quest for religious perfection is that one thing that shows an understanding of what Jesus taught with his parables, "The pearl of great price" for instance. This is the proper heart attitude for all believers, it will bring about the fulfillment of Matthew 5-28 in the believer, "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." If this is missing in your life, you have never really intended to please God with your life!

The NT vocabulary reflects the OT interpersonal concepts rather than the Greek ideal of static and dispassionate knowledge. The emphases are on obedience, wholeness, and maturity. The Greek words derived from telos reflect the ideas of "design," "end," "goal," "purpose." These words describe perfection as the achievement of a desired end. Paul uses teleios to describe moral and religious perfection (Col. 1:28; 4:12). He contrasts it to nepios, "childish," which connotes moral immaturity and deficiency. The "perfect man," teleion, is the stable person who reflects "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" in contrast to the children who are tossed about by every new wind of doctrine (Eph. 4:13-14). James uses teleios to describe the end result of spiritual discipline. The trying of faith develops patience and character that the disciple may be "perfect and entire, wanting in nothing" (James 1:3-4).

Responsible, spiritual, intellectual,and moral development which conforms to the desired pattern is perfection. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses teleios to exhort believers to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48). This use of the future tense indicates a moral obligation, however, and not an absolute perfection identical to that of God. Jesus is emphasizing the need for having right attitudes of love which are acceptable to God.

Personal fitness and perfection in the sense of properly using spiritual resources is denoted by artios (II Tim. 3:17). The believer who is sound and lacks nothing needed for completeness is holokleros (James 1:4; I Thess. 5:23).

The biblical emphasis on perfection, is an unblemished character which has moral and spiritual integrity in relationship to God. The goal of spiritual maturity is set forth, and the believer is charged with making sincere and proper use of the spiritual resources available through Christ in order to attain this maturity in fellowship with Christ and the Christian community.

Theological Issues and Historical Heritage. The Command of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48), is central to the issue of human perfection.

Gregory of Nyssa was one of the greatest Eastern leaders in the struggle for perfection. He saw Christ as the prototype of the Christian life in his On What It Means to Call Oneself a Christian and On Perfection. The responsibility of the Christian is to imitate the virtues of. Gregory saw the truth of the participation in Christ, which results from rebirth "by water and the Spirit." In this interpersonal sharing the Christian perfects the resemblance to Christ which comes through the continual transformation into his image.

Augustine and Pelagius.

In the fourth century the reaction against perfectionism was typified by the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius. Although Augustine affirmed an ideal of perfection, the summum bonum, it was a perfection attainable only in eternity. He felt that human perfection was an impossible moral ideal in this life because of the sinfulness of mankind resulting from the fall. In other words, Augustine didn't believe that Christ could save us from our sin, Matthew 1:21 "And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins." Notice the Bible says that Jesus will save us "FROM" our sins not "IN" them! I have taken noticed of the fact that most people like Calvin and Luther, people that have studied and agreed with the teachings of Augustine, find great difficulty in believing that God can sanctify us here on earth. They seem to think that the only way the Lord can save us from our sin is to kill us and take us to Heaven.

Always remember this the difference between a sanctified believer and an unbeliever is SIN, look at 1 John 3:9-10 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. You see the difference is what you practice, if you practice righteousness you are of God. If on the other hand you practices sin, you are not of God!

Pelagius attributed the moral laxity of the church to the kind of blasphemy which told God that what he had commanded was impossible. He rejected the concept of original sin and asserted that persons are born with the free capacity to with the help of God's Spirit to walk in perfect accord with God, or corrupt themselves if they choose to disobey the Spirit of God.

Aquinas. Often called the "Angelic Doctor," Thomas Aquinas has greatly influenced Roman Catholic theology. He was convinced that although Adam lost the gift of divine grace which enabled mankind to enjoy God fully, the free grace of God can restore humanity to God's favor and enable the Christian to follow God's precepts in perfect love. His concept of perfection, however, involved a disparagement of the world and an understanding of the desires of flesh as evil. Thus the elimination of bodily desires was a prerequisite to perfection, and in this aspect he equated perfection with renunciation. Francis of Sales. The possibility of perfection for all Christians was emphasized by Francis of Assisi and the Friars Minor, and Francis of Sales presented this doctrine with clarity in his treatise On the Love of God. He rejected the banishment of the d

evout life from the experience of common people, and opened up the benefits of spiritual contemplation to all Christians.

Francois Fenelon.

Amid the profligacies of the court of Louis XIV, Fenelon taught his followers to live a life of deep spirituality and introspection. He saw perfection as totally a work of God's grace, not meritorious human effort. The perfect life is carefree and Christlike loving fellowship with others. In Christian Perfection he presented single-minded devotion to God as the ideal in attaining perfect love. This perfect life is the imitation of Jesus, and its main obstacle is egocentricity, which must be overcome by an inward act of sanctification by God's Spirit. Thus Fenelon moved the quest for perfection away from its preoccupation with renunciation of the physical and its monopoly by the elite, and focused on God's work of grace which is universally available to the seeker.

The Pietists.

With the pietists arose a Protestant rejection of the pessimism with which the Lutherans and Calvinists viewed the quest for perfection. Marked by the quest for personal holiness and an emphasis on devotion rather than doctrine, seventeenth century leaders such as Jakob Spener and A.H. Francke stressed personal holiness marked by love and obedience. Perfection was reflected in works done solely for the glory of God and in the ability to distinguish good from evil.

The pietists developed strong community contexts for nurtue and motivated extensive missionary endeavors.

The Quakers.

Inspired by a desire to return to the attitude of the NT, George Fox taught both personal responsibility for faith and emancipation from sin in his doctrine of the inner light. He declared a doctrine of real holiness rather than imputed righteousness. This perfection was relative in that it dealt with victory over sin rather than absolute moral development. Fox believed that as a result of the new birth into Christ by the Spirit the beliver was free from actual sinning, which he defined as transgressing the law of God, and is thus perfect in obedience. This perfection, however, did not remove the possibility of sinning, for the Christian needed constantly to rely on the inner light and must focus on the cross of Christ as the center of faith. Fox tended toward fanaticism with his teaching that a Christian may be restored to the innocency of Adam before the fall, and could be more steadfast than Adam and need not fall. William Penn and other Quakers qualified the doctrine to guard it from such overstatement.

The strength of Fox's emphasis is that the center of perfection was in the cross of Christ. The cross was no dead relic but an inward experience refashioning the believer into perfect love. This is a celebrating of the power of grace. While his refusal to be preoccupied with sin was a needed corrective to the Puritan pessimism over the profound sinfulness of man, Fox did tend to distrust the intellect and to suspect all external expressions of faith such as the sacraments. His refusal to be satisfied with sin and his concentration upon a perfection of life through grace found direct application in commendable attempts at social justice. This message of renewal and hope for the poor and disenfranchised was certainly motivated by the conviction that the quality of life and faith is not predetermined by a radical sinfulness which is resistant to actual moral transformation by grace.

William Law. The author of A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life and Christian Perfection, William Law was an eighteenth century Anglican nonjuring cleric who influenced John Wesley and was admired by Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon, John Henry Newman, and many others. Positively, he affirmed the necessity of divine grace for performing the good and the importance of taking up the cross of Christ. He called for absolute dedication of one's life to God and complete renunciation of every aspect of the world. He saw Christian perfection functioning in common ways of life. He rejected the need for retirement to the cloister or the practice of a particular form of life. The whole life is rather an offering of sacrifice to God and praying without ceasing. Christlikeness is the ideal of perfection, and this is accomplished by performing one's human duties as Christ would. A Study of William Law's life won't be a waste of time! The Wesleyans. John Wesley was inspired by the perfectionist themes of the early saints and by the devotional literature of Thomas a Kempis, Jeremy Taylor, and William Law. Seeing self-love, or pride, as the root of evil, Wesley taught that "perfect love" or "Christian perfection" could replace pride through a moral crisis of faith. By grace, the Christian could experience love filling the heart and excluding sin. He thus combined some aspects of the Catholic emphasis on perfection with the Protestant emphasis on grace.

Wesley's emphasis on perfection has been preserved in some circles of Methodism, and continues to be promoted in the denominations associated with the Christian Holiness Association.