Be Ye Perfect

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

In another thread Man Of Word said:

The Head of the church does NOT require His people to be perfect. They are to be perfected. They will NEVER be perfect down here. We are all in the process of being perfected and will NEVER reach the place that our flaws are gone until we are freed from these bodies.

Are you stating that you believe in the doctrine of sinless perfection?.

Hello Michael.

I really don’t think that the context of Matthew 5:48 is either physical healing or sinless perfection. For by reading the context on from verse 43 which talks about our enemies and our not retaliating against their evil acts and conduct towards us (verse 44), I’d see the context for this passage as that of our own conduct towards our enemies being prefect just as God’s conduct to them is also perfect, for he blesses both the good and the wicked equally with regard to the physical blessings and disasters of this world (verse 45) irespective of this conduct. There is therefore nothing about sinless perfection in the immediate context to Matthew 5:48 and so introducing it at verse 48 would seem to me to be somewhat forced upon the text itself in the light of the preceding context! Perfection is spoken of only in the light of our own loving conduct in the face of our enemies wicked actions towards us.

That physical perfection isn’t the context for this passage is obvious to me from passages such as Romans 8:23 where even in a post-resurrection context we still await the redemption of our physical bodies! This means that whilst our souls are saved at the moment of repentance i.e. of true saving faith. Nonetheless, our physical bodies aren’t yet redeemed, but will be so after either Christ’s return or possibly after the 1,000 year millennial reign (if you’re a firm futurist). This is an excellent argument against the modern healing movement as it explains why people; even mature and godly Christians still get sick today: It’s because their bodies haven’t as yet been redeemed. For if our bodies had been also healed together with our souls at the moment of our conversion then we would not be able to ever die, or get sick, but would live forever in perfect and flawless bodies. The consequence of this is that Christian under torture would not be freed from such severe pain by death, but could be tortured endlessly, for being saved in both soul and body the Christian would consequently not be able to die and so could be tortured continuously. This is probably why God has in his mercy not as yet healed our physical bodies and why as Christians we suffer frequent illnesses, get sick and die.