What does the Bible say about perfectionism?

Here I could say a word (as I find it current in certain circles that perfection is attainable here) that there is no perfection for the Christian except Christ in glory. If I am a risen man I take Him on earth as a pattern for my steps, but not what I am to attain to. Christ down here is unattainable, because Christ had no sin, and I have sin. There is no perfection down here - you never find any maintaining that there is, who do not lower it to Adam condition. I seek to walk as Christ walked, not after the flesh at all, but the point I am aiming at and looking to is Christ in glory. It is "when he shall appear" that I shall be like Him, and not till then. I try to be as like Him here as ever I can be. "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling" - the calling above - "of God in Christ Jesus." I have no calling down here; there is the calling above - the whole thing that God has set before us.

"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." Whatever might be accomplished for the Lord on earth, this was not his objective: if those things were proper results, they were the results of a proper objective, which was far beyond anything in the way of present blessing. Paul took not the slightest pride in any of these "attainments", as men would call them: indeed he had not yet attained what he desired: he was not yet "perfect," but still following after, He arrested him on his downward course and saved his soul. Christ Jesus had apprehended him for eternal glory: how could he settle down content with some earthly attainment?

It may be remarked here that this is but one of three ways in which the apostle views the subject of perfection. Here the question is that of perfection in attainment, and no one can in this way be perfect until with Christ in Glory. However, in this same chapter, verse 15, Paul writes, "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." Here it is evident that he considers some believers to be perfect, and others not so. But the context shows this to be perfection in our present attitude of mind. That is, those who forget the things that are behind, and press toward the mark for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus, are "perfect" or "full grown" - that is mature in their attitude. But not all believers are perfect in this way. The third viewpoint is found in Heb.10:14: "For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Verse 10 shows that the "sanctified" refers to all who are redeemed by the blood of Christ - every true believer. This however has to do with perfection in our acceptance before God, an eternal perfection because dependent fully upon the one offering of Christ. Thus it will be noted that from the first point of view no believer is perfect; from the second, some believers are perfect; from the third, every believer is perfect.

But the reader may say that we shall never attain to perfection. There is no greater mistake than to profess to attain to “sinless perfection.” Those who fall into that error know neither themselves nor the subtility of sin. One verse of Scripture condemns them, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Yet though this be so, perfection is the only fitting place for our eyes to rest upon and the only object for us to have before us.

(7) They must not, then; with this high place accept the moral code that would suit even those typical sinners, the publicans or tax-gatherers ― those instruments of Roman greed and oppression. For these even were capable of returning love for love. For those whose Father is in heaven; nothing can be permitted as the standard but perfection ― His own moral perfection. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" is supreme, flawless perfection. And nothing else would do as a standard. The moment we admit evil into this, the evil has become part of the standard, and God is made to go with what He hates.

We must, however, distinguish between having perfection before us, ― condemning ourselves for whatever is not that, and honestly pressing after it ― and the self-flattery that can assert "we have attained it." It is in fact because perfection is before us that we cannot say so. Will any one indeed venture to assert that he is morally perfect as God is? The highest pretension must surely shrink a little from making such a claim. Yet here is the pattern: we are to be "imitators of God as dear children" (Eph. 5:1, Gk), aspiring after that which will always be beyond us, and which as being so, will always work in us self-abasement and humiliation, instead of self-complacency.

But, again, the character of holiness is sadly spoiled by this perfectionism. It becomes self-occupation, self-assertion. How much of Christ really do you find in the experiences so largely dealt in by those who advocate this doctrine? Is it, with the apostle, "not I, but Christ liveth in me," or is it, alas, a glorified, transfigured, very self-conscious I that lives and reigns throughout them? They do not see that as the natural life, in a state of health, does not engross or claim the attention, — as the heart's pulsation or the lungs' work is not furthered but disturbed by thinking of it, — so this aim at a self-conscious holiness produces but a poor, sickly Christianity at best. Is it far off from that which says, I am rich, and have need of nothing?

If then God gives us strength to walk in His ways, that strength is given through a knowledge which at the same time makes us understand that we cannot here below attain to that even which we know. Thus (instead of an end which we can attain), to encourage us, He sets before us that which hereafter shall assuredly be accomplished in us, but which preserves us ever in humility, ever in the sense that we are not all that we would be. But this very thing keeps us ever advancing towards our great end. The opposite principle, with a show of requiring only that which is right and suitable, is entirely at variance with the mind of God, and akin to self-righteousness; instead of holding fast, and being strong in His grace, it says, 'I have attained.'

Thank God, we are rich enough in Christ to be able to contemplate our own poverty without dismay. Our riches are in Him, and here we can boast as much as we will — the more the better; but the one who in any other sense can say, "I am rich," may be sure that this is but the mere unconsciousness of one who is "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Yet a common pretension of the present day, and which is found in various forms, is a pretension to perfection, which necessarily ignores the standard of perfection which God has given us: for while it is true that "he that abideth in Christ ought himself also so to walk even as He walked," yet who could venture to say, with the full consciousness of the perfection that is set before him, that he has attained it? That faith from which all true and acceptable work is produced is a renunciation of self, in the very fact that it turns off to Another; and every whit of confidence in one's self is just so much taken from that which is due to Him who alone can be the rightful confidence of the saint. It is true that there are fruits of the Spirit. We need not ignore that. Nay, it would be a wrong to the Spirit Himself to ignore it. Yet even so, it is not the work of the Spirit to make us contemplate this, nor can we be trusted to do so. It was through pride, as the apostle tells us (1 Tim. 3:6), that Satan fell from the height in which he was created, to the place of being the Satan that he is, the constant adversary of God and man. "Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom because of thy brightness" (Ezek. 28:17) are the words of God apparently as to this fallen being himself; but whether or not, the lesson is the same.

For the term "perfection," and that as applied to Christians, there is scripture, of course. The devil, in deceiving the people of God, will always, if he can, use scripture to accomplish his object. But the term there does not mean what in the dialect of the "higher life" it is made to mean. Take one of the strongest texts used, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" — the context shows decisively what is meant. We speak of a thing as perfect which has all its parts, without at all regarding the finish of its parts. So the Lord tells us that as children we must resemble our Father, and for this exhibit all the features of our Father's character. We must not only love those who love us, but as He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends His rain on the just and on the unjust, we must exhibit this feature of His character also: "Love your enemies, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 5:44-45.)

"Perfection" is also used for the mature Christian condition, as a glance at the margin of Heb. 5:14 will show. The term there — "of full age" — is in the margin rendered "perfect," just as in 1 Cor. 14:20, "be men" is in the margin rendered "be perfect," or "of a ripe age." It is used thus with two applications: in Hebrews, Christianity itself is perfection, or maturity, in contrast with Judaism, which was a state of childhood. But again, among Christians there are those perfect, or mature, in contrast with being babes; and the apostle Paul, in the third of Philippians, in which he disclaims the having attained, or being already perfect, (as a consummation which he would not reach until with Christ in glory,) classes himself immediately after among those who had in another sense "attained:" Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded."

There are many texts which I cannot now go through; but this should prevent the catching at a word, as people are prone to do. Plenty about perfection there is, no doubt, in Scripture; but if we set up any standard short of walking as Christ walked, we are really lowering it. If, on the other hand, we can measure ourselves with Christ, and yet feel no rebuke, we must be indeed inordinately, if not incredibly, self-complacent.

Now that the blood of Christ is the eternal security of all blessing, even in the new heavens and new earth, I wholly believe; and that no saint is personally perfect, I entirely accept. I see no perfection for a Christian but likeness to Christ in glory. That is before his soul now, and hence the intelligent Christian can have no thought of perfection here. He purifies himself as He, Christ, is pure. That in many things we all offend, as a fact, I believe — not taking my own failure as a rule from scripture itself. But the necessity, as "God's purpose," that we should be always sinning here, as Dr. Bonar would have it, I reject. We should be walking always in communion, and manifesting the life of Christ in our bodies, always bearing about in the body His dying. That, and that only, is the normal state of the Christian. To say that we do fail is a very different thing from saying we must. I can never excuse myself, for Christ's grace is sufficient for me, and His strength made perfect in weakness; and God is faithful not to suffer me to be tempted beyond that we are able. If we are vicariously perfect, that is, perfect through Christ before God in God's sight, we cannot, in coming to Him, come with a bad conscience.

A. I will tell you. They say, "We ought not to seek sanctification by human effort; but that by receiving Christ as our sanctification the germ of sin is destroyed, and we are perfectly holy, and without sin or evil concupiscence." It is true that we shall never, by any strength or effort of man, attain to sanctification; and that if we look to Christ, we shall find an abundant spring of life and holiness. I grant also that a soul which is under the law, and groaning beneath the burden of its wretchedness, will get no blessing by useless struggles for deliverance. But all this does not hinder the doctrine, as a whole, being false. For it is false to say, that by receiving Christ as our sanctification we can ever, on earth, attain to perfection, and extirpate entirely sin from our nature. It is an error which connects itself with a host of other errors, destructive of the most precious truths and consolations of the gospel; and which injures, in a high degree, our sanctification itself.