Perfection -- Expectation or Invitation?

Not everyone reading my blog is interested in christian doctrinal musings, but hey -- it's my blog. And if you're interested in learning about a profound Truth that I've discovered, then read on -- lengthy though it may be... :)

My Sunday School lesson last week was on perfection, and I've been meaning to write something on it, as the insights I had in preparing the lesson have remained in my mind ever since. The lesson -- and the concept from a Christian perspective -- revolves around the 48th verse in Matthew, chapter 5, which reads, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." I think a lot of people wonder about this verse; in fact, for many years I had concerns about this as well. How can Christ ask us to be perfect when he is the only perfect person who has ever walked the Earth? Combine this with 3 Nephi 27:19 ("And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom...") and you have the possibility of a serious misperception of the meaning of life. Could it be that Heavenly Father expects us to be perfect and that everyone who isn't is bound for eternal damnation? Well... we know that's not what this life is all about. We know that Jesus died and was resurrected to bring us physical life again through the resurrection. And we know that he suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane to take upon him our sins so that we can each repent and come back into the presence of God as clean as he is.

So, back to the scripture... Is this Jesus' way of telling us, once again, to repent and be clean of our sins? Well, yes and no. You see, there's more to the commandment to be perfect than repentence alone. In fact, as I see it, this is more than a commandment alone. It's an invitation, just like a parent who sends his child overseas for a study abroad experience and tells her -- commands her -- to be safe and come back home. This is Christ's invitation to us to come back home to him and to our Heavenly Father. Let me explain how I get to this conclusion...

Jesus' commandment to "be perfect" appears another time in the scriptures -- in the Book of Mormon, actually. In 3 Nephi 12:48, he is speaking to the Nephites and says something very similar, albeit with a slight but profound difference: "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." Notice the difference? This time, he includes himself as an example of perfection, whereas in the Biblical reference, he did not. Why is that? The answer to that question, in fact, holds the answer to the larger question of what Christ meant with the commandment to "be perfect."

To understand the answer to the latter question (i.e., why Jesus included himself in his commandment to the Nephites), you have to understand the circumstances of his appearance to the Nephites. When he walked in Jerusalem with his apostles, Jesus said, "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one voice, and one shephard." (John 10: 16) Those other sheep included, among others, the people who lived on the American continent at the time -- people who decended from Lehi, also of the House of Israel through the tribe of Joseph. Lehi left Jerusalem with his family in 600 BC after having a vision about the city's destruction and receiving a commandment from God to leave the city and lead his family to a "promised land" for him and his decendants. To make a long story short, he did that, and over the next 600 years, his family and a few others populated much of the American continent (don't ask me which part -- that's all conjecture). These people had the early scriptures (i.e., books of Moses, Isaiah, etc.) and heard prophecies about the coming of Christ from prophets who lived among them and wrote their experiences and prophecies on plates of gold and brass, which were later translated into the Book of Mormon, by Joseph Smith. (See the Introduction to the Book of Mormon for a more detailed description of what the Book of Mormon is.)

And visit the Nephites he did. Shortly after his ascention in Jerusalem, he came to visit the Nephites in America as the resurrected Christ. He spent days with them and taught them much of what he'd taught his apostles in the "old world," and -- you guessed it -- he commanded them to "be perfect." So now we come to it... The only difference between the commandment to his apostles in Jerusalem and to the people of Nephi in America was the inclusion of himself as an example of the perfection he was commanding. But if the commandment were to be without flaw, then why wouldn't he have included himself in the original statement? After all, he was already a flawless man, right? The answer is simple -- it's because it's not about being perfect, without flaw. Rather, it's about being "complete" or "finished." Indeed, the Greek translation of the original word is "complete, finished or wholly development."

With this additional information, we can see that what Jesus really meant by his commandment to "be perfect" was to become whole and finished -- like him, in the sense that he became "finished" after he died and took up life again as a resurrected, glorified being... The kind of being who could live in the presence of God because he is clean and pure. And this gift he gave to us through his death (i.e., resurrection, which is a free gift to all who are born into this life) and atonement (i.e., suffering for our sins, which created the possibility for repentence and forgiveness).

To wrap up the discussion of the scripture, then, rather than commanding us to do something that's impossible for us to achieve, he's actually extending his mercy to us and inviting us to come home to him. "Be perfect. Be safe. Come back to me and your Father by accepting my gifts of repentence and resurrection." Just like the child going on study abroad.

With this understanding, what once was a source of consternation for me has become one of my favorite scriptures... :)