Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This is often interpreted as a call to sinless perfection, something that Christians cannot attain prior to glorification.
God is thus able to issue this injunction to his people: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48). This is absolute, sinless and peerless perfection.
Wayne Detzler, Living Words in Philippians (England: Evangelical Press, 1984), 93.
Absolute sinlessness is a goal which Christians must seek (cf. Mt. 5:48; 2 Cor. 7:1; Rom. 6:19) but which they do not as yet find (Jas. 3:2; 1 Jn. 1:8–2:2).
J. I. Packer, “Perfection,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 901.
While absolute sinlessness is a goal which Christians must seek (Mat. 5:48; Rom. 6:19; II Cor. 7:1), still, it is a place which they do not yet find (James 3:2; I Jn. 1:8–2:2).
Jimmy Swaggart, Jimmy Swaggart Bible Commentary: Romans (Baton Rouge, LA: World Evangelism Press, 1998), 102.
The only standard the Bible ever identifies is absolute, 100-percent sinless, moral perfection (see Deuteronomy 18:13; Matthew 5:48; James 2:10).
John Ankerberg and John Weldon, How to Know You’re Going to Heaven: Assurance for Today, Hope for Tomorrow (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2014).
It’s then often used as a hermeneutical key to understanding the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. In this view, Jesus is not laying out the way of life for his followers. Instead, he is setting the bar so far out of their reach that they must turn to him for mercy and find acceptance in his righteousness.
I fully embrace the theological conclusions of this position: Christians cannot live sinlessly in this life and can only be accepted by God on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Jesus received by faith. However, I don’t think this text teaches that point.
There are three reasons for understanding this verse as something that every Christian should and can by grace obey.
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