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1 John 1:8 states "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
Such a passage should be enough to convince someone of the fact that there will always be the potential to sin. The first thing we should point out here is that even without any outer manifestations of sin man has a sin nature. I believe it is scriptural to say that at the point of salvation we are as Galatians 2:20 states "crucified with Christ". If we are truly saved we can theoretically continue after the time of our salvation to live without sinning but the pattern of living in sin is still deep in our minds. That nature therefore must meet resistance and a believer is therefore sensing that he is "grieving the Spirit" ( Eph. 4:30-31). These verses show one is sealed indeed until redemption (by death or rapture); but that we can still do things displeasing to God.
Another thing is the use of the word perfect. Matthew 5:48 shows how Christ commanded on the Sermon of the Mount to be perfect. This was in reference to agape love; that is loving your enemies as well as your friends; in other words the opposite of hypocrisy of the Pharisees in particular. I would agree that we are called to live out our lives in total submission to the Spirit which we all fail on but we are starting to be progressively sanctified as believers. We must be cautious also not to assume our legalism is attaining any righteousness; however. Loving our brother is stated in 1 John as an imperative as well; if we show disdain because of any sin in their lives in the flesh we are sinning ourselves.
Furthermore; we have the verse in Genesis where it states that Noah was "perfect in his generations." ( Gen. 6:9). This does refer to he being the only true worshipper of God (and probably his family) as opposed to those who missed the boat; but in context it likely is not biologically corrupted as the offspring of the Nephilim which was likely everyone else who missed the ark.
Hello Richard, The Greek word for the English perfect used in Scripture is teleiois, I believe, and it refers to :
completeness, maturity, full measure, coming to a desired end, especially in regards to christian character and knowledge of faith.
So to be perfect in most of the verses that instruct us to be perfect or perfecting of the saints is in this vein of meaning. It does not mean to be perfect in the sense that God is eternally perfect with no change whatsoever in His holiness, purity, righteousness, and justness.
Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and John were desiring for us to reach the maximum degree of Christian maturity in this life. But not everyone will reach the same degree because of such things as:
The age at which they come to faith,
The teaching and counsel they receive from those God places over them as pastors and teachers,
Their own rate of growth,
Their own personal practices of prayer, bible study, and the iron sharpening iron of Christian fellowship,
The degree to which they remove themselves from situations that pose temptation in their areas of weakness,
Their commitment to keeping godly company as opposed to spending time with people who wish to live unbelieving and sinful daily lives.
The closeness they are to their time of death as determined by God. One who came to the Lord early in life and lives a normal lifespan will have a different level of maturity than one who came to the Lord in the last decades of their life whether their life be long or short.
The influences of their upbringing, parenting, family life and adverse events such as divorce, abuse, etc. that do so much harm along with positive events that promote healthy growth and maturity.
Who they marry.
Whether they we in a cultic situation where they eventually separated from and needed to be recover from its effects.
Whether they face a life of ease or a life of difficulty or persecution.
And so many other factors. Truly, we just can't judge each other.
About perfectness. I think the Bible uses this word with various meanings
1. Lets see as Richard says Matthew 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.". Now the verb "be" in grk (esesthai) is in the future tense and denotes an expectation. So what Jesus is actually saying here (as I understand it) is that He expects us to become perfect like God is. Well this is impossible, isn't it? So what He means is that He expects us to strive to be like God (in character). And how is that to be done? By following His commandments, which commandments reveal the character of God to us. And since one aspect (and probably the most important) of God's character is love Jesus asks us to love each other like God does. This is something gradual, isn't it? It is something that we keep aquiring through our whole life.
If we compare it with Hebrews 5:8,9, "8Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; 9And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;" Here Jesus iwas made perfect by obeying God's commandments.
So perfectness again here means a whole route/course that we follow in our lives during which, by following God's commandements/directions we keep growing spiritually and getting to be like God in character more and more.
2. But in Hebrews 10:14, "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified", the word perfect has a different meaning. It means the one who has no sins. So we were perfected by Jesus' Blood, that is we are righteous through His sacrifice.
3. In Hebrews 11:38-40 says, "39And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:40God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."
Here perfectness is something that we will aquire in Heaven when we will be dressed up with our new spiritual body, completely freed from sin, death etc
Thanks, Giannis, and welcome back to posting here.
You have explained this well. Sometimes English offers only a limited interpretation of a Greek or Hebrew word and so, having someone like you here or someone who has studied Greek and Hebrew can help us understand passages that, in English, seem confusing, contradicting, or even to say something that is not ours to have in this life, i.e. the full character of God. We are and will always be limited beings where He is without limits, so we can never be as perfect as His in His essence, but in heaven, we will be as perfect as a human being can be, with Christ's humanity as our example of such perfect humanity. In the life to come we will be as complete and holy as a human can ever be and it will be the end to which God created all things, which glorifies Him in our glorification.
Now, being in Christ, we have been made righteous only by Him and are determined to be sinless because of His sinlessness. But it is never a righteousness we can have from keeping the law, because even our best actions and willings are as filthy rags before the holy and pure nature of God. In this life we are to "mortify" (pt to death our sinful nature continually as we fight against its power to pull us into sin, but it is no longer our master, and we have God as our master now, so we are thus triumphant over the power of sin, but not necessarily sinless in our day-to-day life. And I think, as you have explained the
Greek understanding of Scriptures, Scriptures teaches us this is true.
Such a passage should be enough to convince someone of the fact that there will always be the potential to sin. The first thing we should point out here is that even without any outer manifestations of sin man has a sin nature. I believe it is scriptural to say that at the point of salvation we are as Galatians 2:20 states "crucified with Christ". If we are truly saved we can theoretically continue after the time of our salvation to live without sinning but the pattern of living in sin is still deep in our minds. That nature therefore must meet resistance and a believer is therefore sensing that he is "grieving the Spirit" ( Eph. 4:30-31). These verses show one is sealed indeed until redemption (by death or rapture); but that we can still do things displeasing to God.
Another thing is the use of the word perfect. Matthew 5:48 shows how Christ commanded on the Sermon of the Mount to be perfect. This was in reference to agape love; that is loving your enemies as well as your friends; in other words the opposite of hypocrisy of the Pharisees in particular. I would agree that we are called to live out our lives in total submission to the Spirit which we all fail on but we are starting to be progressively sanctified as believers. We must be cautious also not to assume our legalism is attaining any righteousness; however. Loving our brother is stated in 1 John as an imperative as well; if we show disdain because of any sin in their lives in the flesh we are sinning ourselves.
Furthermore; we have the verse in Genesis where it states that Noah was "perfect in his generations." ( Gen. 6:9). This does refer to he being the only true worshipper of God (and probably his family) as opposed to those who missed the boat; but in context it likely is not biologically corrupted as the offspring of the Nephilim which was likely everyone else who missed the ark.
completeness, maturity, full measure, coming to a desired end, especially in regards to christian character and knowledge of faith.
So to be perfect in most of the verses that instruct us to be perfect or perfecting of the saints is in this vein of meaning. It does not mean to be perfect in the sense that God is eternally perfect with no change whatsoever in His holiness, purity, righteousness, and justness.
Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and John were desiring for us to reach the maximum degree of Christian maturity in this life. But not everyone will reach the same degree because of such things as:
The age at which they come to faith,
The teaching and counsel they receive from those God places over them as pastors and teachers,
Their own rate of growth,
Their own personal practices of prayer, bible study, and the iron sharpening iron of Christian fellowship,
The degree to which they remove themselves from situations that pose temptation in their areas of weakness,
Their commitment to keeping godly company as opposed to spending time with people who wish to live unbelieving and sinful daily lives.
The closeness they are to their time of death as determined by God. One who came to the Lord early in life and lives a normal lifespan will have a different level of maturity than one who came to the Lord in the last decades of their life whether their life be long or short.
The influences of their upbringing, parenting, family life and adverse events such as divorce, abuse, etc. that do so much harm along with positive events that promote healthy growth and maturity.
Who they marry.
Whether they we in a cultic situation where they eventually separated from and needed to be recover from its effects.
Whether they face a life of ease or a life of difficulty or persecution.
And so many other factors. Truly, we just can't judge each other.
About perfectness. I think the Bible uses this word with various meanings
1. Lets see as Richard says Matthew 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.". Now the verb "be" in grk (esesthai) is in the future tense and denotes an expectation. So what Jesus is actually saying here (as I understand it) is that He expects us to become perfect like God is. Well this is impossible, isn't it? So what He means is that He expects us to strive to be like God (in character). And how is that to be done? By following His commandments, which commandments reveal the character of God to us. And since one aspect (and probably the most important) of God's character is love Jesus asks us to love each other like God does. This is something gradual, isn't it? It is something that we keep aquiring through our whole life.
If we compare it with Hebrews 5:8,9, "8Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; 9And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;" Here Jesus iwas made perfect by obeying God's commandments.
So perfectness again here means a whole route/course that we follow in our lives during which, by following God's commandements/directions we keep growing spiritually and getting to be like God in character more and more.
2. But in Hebrews 10:14, "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified", the word perfect has a different meaning. It means the one who has no sins. So we were perfected by Jesus' Blood, that is we are righteous through His sacrifice.
3. In Hebrews 11:38-40 says, "39And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:40God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."
Here perfectness is something that we will aquire in Heaven when we will be dressed up with our new spiritual body, completely freed from sin, death etc
You have explained this well. Sometimes English offers only a limited interpretation of a Greek or Hebrew word and so, having someone like you here or someone who has studied Greek and Hebrew can help us understand passages that, in English, seem confusing, contradicting, or even to say something that is not ours to have in this life, i.e. the full character of God. We are and will always be limited beings where He is without limits, so we can never be as perfect as His in His essence, but in heaven, we will be as perfect as a human being can be, with Christ's humanity as our example of such perfect humanity. In the life to come we will be as complete and holy as a human can ever be and it will be the end to which God created all things, which glorifies Him in our glorification.
Now, being in Christ, we have been made righteous only by Him and are determined to be sinless because of His sinlessness. But it is never a righteousness we can have from keeping the law, because even our best actions and willings are as filthy rags before the holy and pure nature of God. In this life we are to "mortify" (pt to death our sinful nature continually as we fight against its power to pull us into sin, but it is no longer our master, and we have God as our master now, so we are thus triumphant over the power of sin, but not necessarily sinless in our day-to-day life. And I think, as you have explained the
Greek understanding of Scriptures, Scriptures teaches us this is true.
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