Perfect

This word is well known to Creation Seventh Day Adventists, and we have encountered it very often in our work of teaching Righteousness by Faith to a wicked and perverse generation.

As we have seen in previous New Moon studies (and a number of articles focusing on other subjects) the word “perfect” may carry with it two well-defined meanings.  In both the major languages of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek, these meanings come through.

The first meaning involves a standard that may vary according to an individual’s understanding and the light that he or she has received.  But, and this is very important, do not confuse variable with subjective.  An individual does not merely decide what he or she ought to do and then set out to attain a self-imposed goal.  It is Yahweh who guides His people, as it is written, “the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” (Jer 10:23b)  Based upon the leadings of Yah, each individual has a degree of righteousness that is expected.  They have been permitted to know things about the character of the Almighty, and themselves, and there are tendencies to subdue and promises to claim.

This kind of perfection, which we rarely label “perfection” at all due to the possibility of confusion, is represented by the Hebrew word tam.  We read that Job was “was perfect and upright,” (Job 1:1) because he was fulfilling all his known moral obligations, with nothing lacking and no defilement.  The corresponding word for the New Testament is the Greek teleios, which is used in such verses as, “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man; and able also to bridle the whole body.” (James 3:2b)  It does not say the man may not have more to learn. Job certainly did; but as Christ instructed, (Mat 5:48) we are to have no moral lack.

There is another word for perfection that men do not claim while they are yet undergoing the process of sanctification on earth.  It means “completeness,” “perfection” in the absolute sense.  Where this word appears in Hebrew, tamam, we find David praying, “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” (Psa 19:13)  This result of being kept from presumptuous sins results in a condition of perfection that the Psalmist describes as “upright.”  While already “upright” in the sense that he was “a man after [Yah’s] own heart,” (Acts 13:22) he had more to learn before being ready for Heaven.  The Greek word teleioo fills this role in such New Testament passages as, “And these [heroes of faith] all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” (Heb 11:39, 40)

Paul uses both these terms in one passage, as most of us have already seen, to illustrate the growth process of the Christian.  He writes, “Not [considering] as though I had already attained, either were already perfect [teleioo]; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.  Let us therefore, as many as be perfect [teleios], be thus minded; and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.” (Phil 3:12, 15, 16)  While heading toward the degree of absolute perfection, we may claim to be among those who “be perfect” by putting away the past and reaching forward, by allowing Yah to continually show us the path ahead, and by standing fast in what we have already attained.