“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:48

Today’s verse is perplexing. Is Jesus really commanding us to do something that is humanly unattainable in this life? Only God is perfect and without sin. Does Jesus want us to strive for perfection in this life as if it were attainable, knowing we will never succeed until the next? Or does He want us to realize that seeking perfection apart from His righteousness is an exercise in futility? Is this command designed to drive us to trust in His perfection, which has been imputed to our account? 

I think something else is happening here. The Greek word translated perfect has several meanings. It can mean “complete,” “mature,” “fully grown,” “whole,” “without blemish,” and “blameless.” The verses that precede our text for today give us a clue for understanding it. In those verses, Jesus tells His listeners to go beyond loving their friends and siblings, which even the Gentiles do, and to love their enemies. In this way, they can show that they are “sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45 ESV).

God goes beyond what man naturally does. He loves not only those who love Him but those who hate Him. He loves His enemies. We are to do likewise. We are to love others perfectly—not in the sense of flawlessly but in the sense of going beyond what others do in the way God does. He does not hold back as others might in similar circumstances. He wants us to grow up and mature into His way of loving. God doesn’t confine His love only to good people.¹ He doesn’t hold back but goes beyond what others might do by loving His enemies. He gives 100 percent.

Jesus’s command to be perfect in light of God’s perfection is not about doing everything perfectly. It is about faithfulness, not flawlessness. It’s about making progress toward Christlikeness, not about pursuing perfection. The Greek tense of the verb to be perfect has an eye toward the future. And although it has the force of an injunction, technically it is not an imperative. It might be rendered as “You shall perfect yourself” or perhaps “You will be perfected.”

It is the goal that we aim for. We lay aside every weight and sin that clings to us, running with endurance the race that is set before us as we set our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith (see Heb. 12:1–2). Jesus is the author of your faith. Not you. Jesus is the perfecter of your faith, not you. Yes, you must cooperate with Him, but He is the one who is doing the work in you.

Whether you strive or give up, you are a failure as long as you are faithless. Though you might not yet be a success, the moment you trust in God to change you, you are no longer a failure—you are in the process of being made perfect. As you heed and obey Christ’s teachings, equipped by His Holy Spirit, you are on your way to becoming more mature, whole, and blameless.

—Lou Priolo, author, Perfectionism