PERFECT IN CHRIST

Saturday 22 February

till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a PERFECT man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; Ephesians 4:13 (KJV)

We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone PERFECT in Christ. Colossians 1:28

When a lot of folks think about perfection, it is usually the concept of being flawless. But what does perfection look like according to the Word of God? Let’s find out. The Bible talks about being perfect in Christ in two main aspects. Definitions such as ‘brought to its end, finished, wanting nothing necessary to completeness’ etc, describe who we have become in Christ through the finished work of redemption.

The second part is in relation to us coming into ‘the faith’ and coming to a point of maturity in Christ. This is where the same Greek word ‘teleios’ has words like ‘full grown, adult and of full age come into play. Notice Ephesians 4:13 says ‘the unity of ‘the faith’ not the unity of ‘your faith.’ This is significant because Jesus is the author and finisher of ‘faith’ or ‘the faith’ not ‘our faith’ as we may have been previously taught.

Think of it this way. When a baby is born it has the same attributes as its parents: two ears, two eyes, two arms and so on. It is as human as the mother and father but has not yet grown to adulthood. So there is a process of growth and development required for maturity. It is not how old you are chronologically, that determines your maturity level. You could be 80 and still be an infant in Christ. Your relationship with the Word and the Spirit will be the indicators amongst other things.

Apostle Peter gives instructions to new believers in 1 Peter 1:2-3

‘Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby’

Again it’s a two step process. Rid yourselves of negativities and drink the ‘sincere’ milk of the word to grow up in the faith or His faith. So there is a ‘unity of the faith’ that we should all strive to attain as believers which is centred around Christ.

Luke 24:27 tells us something profound about this.

‘And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.’

Jesus only showed these disciples what they needed to understand which was Christ in the Old Testament. Remember He didn’t have the New Testament to reference anything and neither did the apostles. They took their revelation from Christ.

If we are to have unity of the faith, we must as believers learn to grow up and comprehend the message of Christ from Genesis to Malachi as the New Testament was taken from the ‘scriptures’ just as Jesus and the Apostles did.

In the Old Testament revelation was progressive.

‘God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,

has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;’

In the epistles, it is complete. The challenge lies in our ability to comprehend the completeness of the revelation that has been delivered to us. Because we are still ‘catching up’ in our theology, there is always a lag time between reality and our perception of it.

In other words, as our understanding of Christ grows, the way we communicate and demonstrate: the message and the method must also change by necessity. Our theology and methodology must be growing and changing as we grow and change ‘from glory to glory’.

No wonder the Lord said to Abraham ‘walk before me and be perfect’ Perfection i.e. maturity is His will for all of us to attain in Christ.

APPLICATION

Declare that you are coming to the ‘knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ!’