What’s your first response when you hear these words from Jesus?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48 NRSV)

Perhaps “Yikes!” fits the bill? Did Jesus ask us to be as perfect as our Father in heaven? Surely he can’t really mean that.

People have jumped through interpretive hoops to get around (what appears to be) the obvious meaning of this verse. The Roman Catholic tradition divided people into two categories: normal people apparently get a pass on this command, while the saints follow the “Counsels of Perfection”—chastity, poverty, and obedience—and seek to live out perfection. The Reformed tradition has a unique approach. Since it’s obvious we cannot obey this command, it should drive us to despair at our own filthy righteousness and cause us to cast ourselves on the mercy of Jesus who was perfect in our place. Both of these approaches pile a lot of eisegetical freight onto this simple command.

[Side note. I never noticed the contradiction before of the Reformed reading of the law-as-impossible with the Torah’s statement, “what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you” (Deuteronomy 30:11 NIV).]

I suspect that most of us just push the cognitive dissonance between Jesus’ command and our actions to the back of our mind and live our lives.

Kent L. Yinger explores the Biblical idea of perfection in God and Human Wholeness. His work is remarkably thorough. Yinger begins in the Old Testament by exploring the Hebrew roots of perfection before moving through Second Temple Judaism, the New Testament and into church history. His main point is this:

The Hebrew and Greek terms glossed with some form of the English word “perfect” denote something or someone who is whole, intact, complete, sound, wholehearted, mature, blameless, etc. In no instance do they denote . . . flawless, without error, without sin. (183)

Yinger’s work combines linguistic studies with exegetical rigor with a dose of translation history thrown in for good measure. It should ease the conscience of serious Christians who wrestle with the command to be perfect and give those of us in the holiness tradition a healthier understanding of human wholeness.

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Yinger, Kent L. God and Human Wholeness: Perfection in Biblical and Theological Tradition. Cascade, 2019.