Matthew 5:48 Are You Perfect?

Next time you are in a mall or a public place, somewhere where you can look around and see people go about their day, I'd encourage you to take a moment and observe. Notice what people are doing. Perhaps in the mall, there is a man standing behind a hot plate, flipping burgers for a job, nodding his head to the music he is listening to while he works. There might be a security officer keeping watch over the mall, taking their job seriously. You might spot a janitor going in and out of the bathrooms. If you look out the window, you may see road workers on the street. Perhaps you step out and look up into the offices above, and you can see people in suits, businessmen, businesswomen, talking on cell phones and frantically walking around having conversations. You see rows of people looking at computer screens, invested in what they are working on.

What should strike you is just how different we all are. This is a good thing too; if we were all too alike, the world would cease to function. The contented and happy labours of one person feel like the burden of another. We are all so differently made. The psalmist says in Psalm 139:14, "I’ll give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." God has designed us to be different, even though we are one race.

This diversity exists in the church as well, one body, many members, as Paul would say. As J.C. Ryle put it, "The flowers in the Lord’s garden are not all of one colour, ethnicity, and scent, though they are all planted by one Spirit."

Now, the point I am bringing to you is this: there are countless ways in which we differ. Yet this morning's passage is about something from which not one of us gets an exemption pass. Here is something that no amount of diversity in our personalities, gifts, aptitudes, or preferences can ever help to exempt the Christian.

It is the call of God for the Christian's pursuit of a perfecting life in the faith that they have. This is the focus of the Lord's words for us today, and there should be no difference among us, friends, in this matter of the desire for the pursuit of holiness, faith, piety, and reverent obedience to the law of Christ. We must all be on the same page here.

This is God's universal call to his church. Again, as J.C. Ryle put it, "There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to keep silence and a time to speak," citing Ecclesiastes 3. But he says, "There is never a time, not a day, in which a man ought not to be holy." Holiness, you see, is the great unsatiated impulse of the born-again Christian. There is a groaning in our outer man, our bodies of sin and death, which persecute our redeemed souls in our new nature, and we wish to be free from it. We grow tired of sin, do we not?

In contrast, the inner new man is seeking the perfecting of faith, the maturing of our person in Christ, and the complete work of sanctification to have its way over us. This is something all believers share in.

Consider the words of Hebrews 12:14: "Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord."

I think this morning's passage could not be more relevant. Our Lord will tell us why he saved you. Recall the words of the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:1–2. He says of the Christian church, they are "chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit." Why? "To obey Jesus Christ." It is for this that we have been saved, you see, to obey Jesus Christ, to learn to love the commandments of God, to be conformed to his image, to be sanctified, to be washed, to live not unto ourselves but unto him, to be holy as he is holy, to be perfect as he is perfect.

In this, Christian, God cares about your life above anything else. He cares that you would look like Jesus. May we not differ here. This is not a matter of dispute; it's not a matter of one's gifting; it's not a matter of your being rich or poor, learned or unlearned. There is no state in which the Christian can find themselves where they do not have this irrevocable call to holiness and perfection of life.

Paul says in Colossians 1:10, "So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects."

Who Must Be Perfect?

As we begin to work through this passage, the first heading we can put over the text is: Who must be perfect? Anyone in the world might open up Matthew 5:48 and read it, but that does not mean it was spoken with their particular ear in mind.

These are not words for the world, but words for the believer. The "you" here refers to the disciples who came to Jesus as he went up the mountain (Matthew 5:1), where it says he began to teach them and gave an exposition of numerous points of the law of God. Jesus has taught us, you will recall, that the Pharisees had a superficial view of the law. For them, it was about externals, ticking the box, a legalistic moralism, a works religion, essentially. Jesus says to his disciples that citizens of his kingdom, who come after him, are to have a righteousness which far exceeds anything the Pharisees and scribes knew; that is what he said in Matthew 5:20.

For believers, the law would be to their hearts not something to be only externally followed, but reflected by a powerful, overwhelming, internal disposition of our being. You see, real change occurs in the Christian man or woman. God writes his law on the hearts of his people; in other words, they are given a heart to know God, and it shows itself through obedience to his word. I like how D. A. Carson, the scholar, put it: "Disciples have a single-minded commitment to God."

There is no wavering about their allegiance, you see. God has given them a heart to know him. They remain steadfast in it, and it is through Jesus alone. God gives the Christian a new heart pre-programmed with affections and apprehensions of Himself. Though these are things in which we must grow, they do well up inside of us relentlessly. Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4:14, "Whoever drinks of the water that I give him shall never thirst, but the water that I give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." Though these desires will compete against our sinful flesh, they are an overwhelming burden the Christian wants to occupy themselves with.

I do not mean to isolate us as Christians and suggest there is nothing the unbeliever needs to learn from Matthew 5:48. In fact, the unbeliever, the one who does not know Christ, could sink no lower than what this verse reveals to them, for its plain meaning to them ought to be this: that God is perfect, God is holy, and if a man is not found to be holy as his God, he can have no home, no place, no relationship, no communion with God, for his sins have disqualified him from God's presence forever and have rather earned his eternal wrath. So it ought to make the unbeliever cry out, "I am not holy or perfect as I ought to be, so forgive me of my sin, O God."

So I want you to understand first the "who" of the "you must be perfect" is Christians. It is those who know the Father as their "heavenly Father", as the text goes on to say. I make this point to sober us up, so that we would not be asleep to what the Scripture is saying to the Christian.

Perfect In What Way?

The second question we need to ask is this, our second heading: Perfect in what way?

Matthew Henry said, "Surely more is expected from the followers of Christ than from others; surely more will be found in them than in others. Let us beg of God to enable us to prove ourselves as children." So we need to ask: perfect in what way? What is meant by this term "perfect" here? Well, perfect here means brought to completion; it means fully grown; it means lacking in nothing; it means wholly matured. It means to say, "I am not satisfied with mediocrity or halfway obedience to Christ. I want to be all of what God has saved me to be at all times."

Another thing to note here is: why does Jesus say "perfect"? Why does he not use the term "holy"? Jesus is clearly alluding to that passage of Scripture in Leviticus 19:2: "Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, 'You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.'" Jesus supplants "holy" with the word "perfect." There is a crossover between the two, of course, but why does he do this? I think it has to do with the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has been teaching on the law, and perhaps the most familiar verse to us in the Old Testament concerning the law is Psalm 19:7, where it says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul." You see, it is the perfect law that Jesus has been expounding in Matthew 5, and now he wants to conclude the section by saying that God is perfect too.

This is the first time in Scripture, by the way, that God is called perfect in and of himself. Scripture often says that God is perfect in knowledge, wisdom, and such things, but this is the first time it is said of his very being.

Draw these two lines together: the perfect law of God and the perfect God. You see, Jesus is showing us that this perfect law points us to the fact that, through it, we can imitate our perfect God. The thrust of the law is to point man to the perfections that are in the lawgiver, which ought to be recreated in our lives. In simple terms, when the Christian lives in obedience to God's word, that perfect law (Psalm 19:7), it transforms them into the likeness of the perfect God who gave it. Do you see?

Now, in what way is the Christian to be perfect? Immediately, we can cross out any notion of moral perfectionism. As the story goes of the great preacher Charles Spurgeon: he preached at a conference one time and was sharing the pulpit with another man, who had publicly proclaimed that a Christian could reach a place of sinless perfection in their lives, in other words, actually live and not sin at all.

Some might be tempted to read Matthew 5:48 this way and say, "Aha! If Jesus commands that we live perfectly, it must be something that we can fulfil and actually reach."

Well, the speaker that Spurgeon was sharing the pulpit with went on in his preaching to suggest he had realised something of this in his own life, that he was beginning to reach a state of sinless perfection. Spurgeon knew what foolishness this was, and so, as the story goes, the next morning at breakfast time, Spurgeon came up to the man unawares and poured a jug of milk over his head. Suffice to say, it soon became very clear that the man had not reached a state of sinless perfection, by his response!

You see, friends, there is nothing here to suggest that we can reach sinless perfection before death. As Solomon writes in 1 Kings 8:46, "There is no man who does not sin." James 3:2 says, "We all stumble in many ways." This is true; there is no time before your death when you will ever live in sinless perfection. You are declared righteous through faith in Christ, but you are yet to be made righteous, this comes in your glorification. The fight against sin, the pursuit of holiness and sanctification, is an ongoing war in which we wrestle against our flesh by the power of the Spirit of God.

So, in what way, positively stated, is Jesus commanding our perfection here? We now know it is not sinless perfection, but in what way is he positively stating it? Quite simply, it is something to be pursued. Just because, in this life, we shall never enter into a perfect state without sin, it does not mean it is not something that can be commanded by our Lord. He still commands it; he commands that we would pursue it.

So the question of application then is: in your daily life, Christian, are you yearning for perfection in your Christian life? We strive to be good farmers; we strive to be good at whatever we do for recreation and hobbies; we want perfection in those things. What about the Christian life? Does your manner of speech convey that you desire to honour the Lord, or does it betray that you care very little for it? What occupies your mind; what do you spend your time dwelling on? If we could hear your inner dialogue, if it was to be played on a loudspeaker for all to hear, would it tell us of your deep longing after the beauties of Jesus Christ and to be more like him? What about your actions? Who is it most apparent that you imitate? Do you look more like Christ, or do you look like your neighbour across the road who does not know Christ? You see, it is a pursuit; it is a pattern of life in view here by Jesus.

We see a good example of this in Paul in Philippians 3:12ff. Paul writes of this maturity in Christ: "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Now, we understand something of what Jesus is saying here. He wants you to think about your patterns of life. Do they reflect a pursuit of holiness? In this pursuit of perfection, we never lose sight of the fact that our salvation is solely by God's grace and the gospel of Jesus Christ, his shed blood for the remission of our sins. Nor should we ever think that our pursuit of holiness is somehow topping up or adding to what Christ has done, as if what Christ accomplished was insufficient and we have to contribute a little bit of ourselves to the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins. May that not even enter our minds. What we are saying is this: that holiness of life is the flower emerging from the soil of saving faith in Jesus Christ. Holiness of life is the fruit, not the root, of salvation in God.

Jesus said in John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." Holiness of life is born out of existing saving faith. So the Christian should never recoil from Jesus' statement here, for he is being told something which, in a very real way, is indicative of his new desires already. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away, and behold, new things have come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Next, I want to give you some helpful prerequisites to the kind of holiness of life that Jesus is calling for here, so that we can really understand. There are three of them.

1 Firstly, as I have alluded to already, the root of a holy life is found solely through faith in Jesus Christ. There is no spiritual profit to be had in good works or living a moral life, or even seeking to imitate Jesus, apart from first surrendering our will to him, confessing our sin and unworthiness, and recognising that he alone is our Saviour. So first, we need to possess faith in the Son of God and his gospel. He alone must be your life, so that you can say with Paul in Galatians 2:20: "It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." It is the person who knows that reality who has been called to a perfection of life here. The heart of a person must stand in a holy state of justification before we may enter into the field of this mountain from which Christ is issuing his kingdom ethics and law of life for the Christian.

2 A second prerequisite is to understand that this holiness has as its object the pursuit of obedience to Christ himself. We do not take the law from tablets of stone given to Moses, the ministry of death, accompanied at Sinai with great thunders, darkness, and lightning. No, we take the law from the hands of Christ, who is himself our law-keeper. He has secured for us in his life perfect obedience to the law. So, we take the law from his hand, and he says, "Because you live, because you are saved, because you are renewed, live by this law, delight in it; see that in it you may know how to please me." And so obedience to Christ becomes the object of our devotion. Jesus says in Matthew 11:29, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." He is the object.

As Christ is the object of our devotion now, we see our Lord say, "Forgive others their trespasses"; we hear him say, "Go the extra mile with your enemy"; we hear him say, "Turn the other cheek to him who abuses you"; "to love your enemies", "to be merciful as your Father is merciful"; "to not fix your hope upon earthly treasures"; "to serve one another in love". We hear all of these, and they resonate in our heart, and the Christian longs to live in obedience to them as part of their pursuit of holiness. In these, the Christian rejoices to conform to them, and will root out all opposition of the flesh that we see in ourselves.

3 A third prerequisite to holiness is that we would see the proper end of holiness as the glory of God. This pursuit of holiness, which we ought to be spurring each other on in, is not to give us a chip on the shoulder or a holier-than-thou attitude so that we would look down on others. No, no. This holiness is pursued with a deep-seated humility. It is lived knowing that we are a purchased people, and only because of that fact can we glorify God at all; apart from that fact, we are still in our sins. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:20, "For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body." So we are to pursue piety of life not to be seen by others, not to be admired, not to be acknowledged, not to be spoken well of by men, but because we long to be pleasing to our heavenly Father, who has ransomed us.

Why Must We Be Perfect?

Let's move on to our third and final heading: Why must we be perfect?

We have considered who must be perfect; we have considered in what way the Christian is to be perfect; and now, finally, why we must be perfect. We should not need to do anything for justification of this beyond simply recognising this is a commandment from our Lord, and it is therefore binding upon us. But the answer reveals itself in Jesus' own words and careful consideration. Look again at the text: He says, "Therefore you are to be perfect;" and then he adds this: "as your heavenly Father is perfect."

I want you to see that it is because of who you are to God that this call comes. In other words, he is the potter, and we are the clay. Man was formed and made in God's image, to reflect what He is in Himself. The Bible tells us in Genesis that man was made in the image of God, and part of what that means is that, in creation, we were made by God to live as God's own representatives, so that if God was a man like us, this is how he would live. Of course, that is what happened when Jesus came: this is how God would live. It was a creational vision of God, that man, his image-bearers, uniquely and distinctively would so live to resemble him, rule for him, speak for him, live as him. They were to fill the earth by bearing children who would walk in the same way. The earth would be a theatre for the glory of God.

Sin ruined that creational vision, but in the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, that vision is being renewed; and you, Christian, along with the church of God, are being renewed to inhabit the new creation where that vision will be finally fulfilled. So, the question of why must we be perfect? Because Jesus is telling us to live consistently with that which we shall one day be, perfect, like him, without sin. Jesus is saying to us that the justified man or woman ought to live in a way befitting the glorified man or woman they one day shall be.

Think of a bride on her wedding day. On my wedding day, it took me about fifteen minutes to get ready. I had a shower; I might have put some deodorant on, I think; I put my suit on and I was ready to go. But Caitlin, well, it takes hours: there is the hair, the makeup, the mucking around with the dress; it's all this work. Think of all the effort that a bride puts in to present herself on her wedding day before the groom. Well, the same is true for the church and Christ. Will not the bride of Jesus Christ seek to purify herself, to present herself spotless before the groom who has redeemed her? Will not the bride of Christ purify herself from all sin and defilement, and pursue the Lord in holiness?

Conclusion

I will close on this quote of the Dutch Puritan, Wilhelmus à Brakel. On holiness of life, he says this: "After having been called out of and having departed from Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham no longer wished to return there; neither would he suffer his son to be brought back there after his death. When Israel had been called out and drawn out of Egypt, they were not permitted to return there. This is likewise true for us: that we have been called out of and have departed from the world. How would we return there again?"

You see, friends, holiness is our solemn and sacred duty as Christians. There is this judicial sense in which we have been declared righteous, we have been declared without sin, declared holy before God, no longer treated as we were in our sins; this we call our positional sanctification. But there is this ongoing sanctification, this ongoing putting off of the old self and putting on of Christ; this is part of our pursuit of holiness: that we would look to Jesus and desire to be pleasing to him and to be like him, to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.