Perfection

That state or quality of a thing, in which it is free from defect or redundancy. According to some, it is divided into physical or natural, whereby a thing has all its powers and faculties; moral, or an eminent degree of goodness and piety; and metaphysical or transcendant is the possession of all the essential attributes or parts necessary to the integrity of a substance; or it is that whereby a thing has or is provided of every thing belonging to its nature; such is the perfection of God.

The term perfection, says the great Witsius, is not always used in the same sense in the Scriptures.

1. There is a perfection of sincerity, whereby a man serves God without hypocrisy, Job 1:1. Is. 38: 3..

2. There is a perfection of parts, subjective with respect to the whole man, 1Th 5:23. and objective with respect to the whole law, when all the duties prescribed by God are observed, Psa 119:128. Luk 1:6.

3. There is a comparative perfection ascribed to those who are advanced in knowledge, faith, and sanctification, in comparison of those who are still infants and untaught, 1Jn 2:13. 1Co 2:6. Php 3:15.

4. There is an evangelical perfection. The righteousness of Christ being imputed to the believer, he is complete in him, and accepted of God as perfect through Christ, Col 2:10. Eph 5:27. 2Co 5:21.

5. There is also a perfection of degrees, by which a person performs all the commands of God with the full exertion of all his powers, without the least defect. This is what the law of God requires, but what the saints cannot attain to in this life, though we willingly allow them all the other kinds above-mentioned, Rom 7:24. Php 3:12. 1Jn 1:8. Witsii OEconomia Faederum Dei, lib. 3: cap. 12 & 124; Bates’s Works, p. 557, &c. Law and Wesley on Perfection; Doddridge’s Lectures, lec. 181.

Words Signifying Perfection

The moral relationship existing between ideas which at first sight appear utterly unconnected with one another, is seldom more beautifully illustrated than in the choice of Hebrew words whereby the ideas of perfection or completeness are portrayed in Scripture.

A few passages may first be noticed in which there is some uncertainty as to the accuracy of our authorised translation. Thus, in 2Ch 24:13, the word (ארוכה) is generally understood to signify health; but our own language testifies to a relationship here, for healThis wholeness in Jer 23:20, where the A. V. reads, ’Ye shall consider it perfectly,’ we might better render the word intelligently (בינה). When the Psalmist says (138:8), ’The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me,’ he uses the word Gamar (גמר, Assyrian gamru), to finish, implying his confidence that God, having begun the good work, will bring it to a successful issue. So Ezra is described as a perfect, i.e. a finished, scribe (Ezr 7:6).

In Pro 4:18, the A. V. reads, ’The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.’ this verse is sometimes understood as if it meant that the way of the righteous is like the sun, the light of which keeps increasing in brightness until the noonday. But the word here rendered perfect (כון) properly means to fix or establish, and the truth taught is that the way of the righteous is like the dawning light, which increases more and more in steadiness and brightness until the full sun arises and thus establishes the day (LXX, ἕως κατορθώσῃ ἡ ἥμερα).

Two words, nearly related to each other, and both signifying completion or a consummation, namely, Calah (כלה, Assyrian kalû) and Calal (כלל, Assyrian kalâlu), are found several times in the Scripture. Thus, in Job 11:7, we read, ’Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection,’ i.e. ’entirely’? Job 28:3, ’He sendeth out all perfection,’ i.e. nothing is hid from Him; Psa 50:2, ’Out of Zion the perfection (i.e. the climax) of beauty God hath stained;’ Psa 119:96, ’I have seen an end of all perfection (i.e. I have thoroughly examined the utmost limits of all things human), but thy commandments are exceeding broad;’ Psa 139:22 ’I hate them with a perfect (i.e. a consummate) hatred;’ Lam 2:15, ’ is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty?’ See also Eze 16:14; Eze 27:3-4; Eze 27:11; Eze 28:12.

These two words are usually rendered συντελέω, συντέλεια, ἐξαναλίσκω, παύω, and ἐκλείπω by the LXX.

The word συντέλεια occurs six times in the N.T., and always in one phrase--συντέλεια του̂ αἰω̂νος, or τω̂ν αἰώνων, ’the end of the world.’ Five of these passages are in St. Matthew (13:39, 40, 49, 24:3, 28:20) in Heb 9:26, we might render the words ’now once on the completion of the ages or dispensations’ (νυ̂ν δε ἅπαξ ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τω̂ν αἰώνων). The Vulgate, consummatio soeculi, the consummation of the age, is an admirable rendering of the Greek, and well sustains the meaning of the Hebrew Calah. The German word for perfection, Vollkommenheit, answers well to Calah and συντέλεισθαι, but it has not been retained in the passages now noted.

Shalam

We now come to one of the most notable words used to represent the idea of perfection, namely, Shalam (שׁלם). It is used of a perfect heart in fourteen passages. Its usual signification is peace, the name Salem or Shalem being derived from it. Thus we rend in Isa 26:3, ’Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace’ (Shalom Shalom). The root may have originally signified oneness or wholeness, and so completeness. Not only does it represent the ideas of peace and perfection, but also of compensation or recompense. [In Assyrian, salâmu means to perfect or complete, salimu means peace; but the initial letters are slightly different, answering to שׁ and ס.]

The following renderings have also been given to the verb Shalam in the A. V.: to be ended, to be finished, to prosper, to make amends, to pay, to perform, to recompense, to repay, to requite, to make restitution, to restore, to reward in all these cases there is implied a bringing of some difficulty to a conclusion, a finishing off of some work, a clearing away, by payment or labour or suffering, of some charge.

In Pro 11:31, we read, ’the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth; much more the wicked and the sinner.’ Here we have for the righteous ’recompense,’ or, according to the LXX, ’salvation,’ or, we might say, ’peace’ on earth; but the messenger of peace to the righteous conveys by implication a presage of wrath to the wicked. The LXX rendering of these words is adopted by St. Peter when he says, ’If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?’ (1Pe 4:18).

The chief representatives of Shalam in the LXX are ἀποδίδωμι, to render; ἀνταποδίδωμι, to recompense; [This word occurs as a rendering for Shalam in Deu 32:35, ’I will repay, saith the Lord’--words twice quoted in the N. T. See Rom 12:19 and Heb 10:30] ἀποτίω, to retaliate; ὑγιαίνω, to be whole, or in health; εἰρήνη, peace; σωτήριον, salvation; τέλειος, perfect; and ὁλόκληρος, whole, which last word is found in the phrase ’whole stones’ in Deu 27:6, and Jos 8:31.

Thamam

The word Thamam (תמם), whence the name of the Thummim (perfections) is derived, is best rendered by the words unblemished, entire (integer), and sincere. Our translators render it, in one or other of its forms, perfect, plain, undefiled, upright, integrity, simplicity, full, at a venture, without blemish, sincere, sound, without spot, whole, to be consumed, to be accomplished, to end, to fail, to be spent, to be wasted.

The following are the most noteworthy passages in which it occurs:--Gen 6:9, ’Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation.’ Gen 17:1, ’Walk before me, and be thou perfect’ (Luther, Fromm, i.e. pious). Lev 22:21, ’The sacrifice . shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein.’ Deu 18:13, ’Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.’ Deu 32:4, ’He is the Rock, his work is perfect.’ 1Sa 14:41, ’Give a perfect lot’ (R. V. Shew the right). 2Sa 22:31. ’ as for God, his way is perfect’ (in verses 24 and 26 the same word is rendered ’upright’). 2Sa 22:33, ’He maketh my way perfect.’ Compare Psa 18:30; Psa 18:32. Job 1:1, ’That man was perfect and upright.’ See v.8; 2:3. Job 8:20, ’Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man.’ Job 9:20-22, ’ (If I say) I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. Though if I were perfect, yet should I not know my soul. . He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.’ See also 22:3, 36:4, 37:16. Psa 15:2, ’He that walketh uprightly.’ Compare Pro 2:7; Pro 10:9; Amo 5:10. Psa 19:7, ’The law of the Lord is perfect.’ Psa 37:37, ’Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright.’ See also Psa 64:4; Psa 101:2; Psa 101:6; Pro 2:21; Pro 11:5; Isa 18:5; Isa 47:9; and Eze 28:15.

The LXX represents the Thummim three times by ἀλήθεια, [It was remarked by Hody that the rendering ἀλἡθεια for Thummim was a proof of the Alexandrine character of the early part of the LXX. Aelian tells us that Egyptian magistrates used to wear a carved sapphire stone round their neck, and that it was called ἀλἡθεια. The Urim and Thummim are manifestation and truth in the Greek, doctrine and truth in the Latin, light and right in the German.] and once by τελείωσις. The verb thama m is rendered ἐκλείπω and συντελέω.

The adjectival form of the word is generally rendered, ἄμωμοςunblemished; but τέλειος occurs in several passages, and ἄμεμπτος in a few in 1Ki 6:22, we meet with the word συντέλεια; and in Isa 1:6, we find ὁλοκληρία, wholeness.

Teaching of the NT

The ideas included in the word Shalam are prominent in the N.T. There is one remarkable passage in which perfection and oneness are combined together, namely, Joh 17:23, where the Lord Jesus prays, with respect to his disciples, that they may be ’perfected in one,’ or, more literally, ’completed into one.’ The same idea runs through the N.T.; the perfection of each part of the body depends up on the completeness of the whole, and vice versa (1Jn 4:2). Christ is ’our peace’ because He has made both (i.e. both Jew and Gentile) one, and has done away with the middle wall of the partition; the twain He has created in Himself into one new man, so making peace, and has reconciled both in one body to God by means of the Cross (Eph 2:14-16). There is one body, the Church, and one Spirit, in whom both Jew and Gentile have access to the Father through Christ. While the Gospel develops individuality, it represses isolation. The whole body of disciples (οἱ πάντες) will become a complete man (Eph 4:13); and every man is to be presented complete, not in himself, but in Christ Jesus (Col 1:28); for from Christ, who is the head, the whole body gets its sustenance (Eph 4:16).

There are some passages in the N.T in which the word τέλειος marks an advanced stage of development in spiritual things, and is applied to those who are ’grown up,’ as opposed to those who are children and only partly informed. Perhaps we may read in this sense our Lord’s words to the young man, ’If thou wilt be perfect (or mature), go sell all that thou hast’ (Mat 19:21); compare 1Co 2:6, ’Though our preaching is foolishness in the eyes of the world, yet it is wisdom in the judgment of the mature.’ 1Co 14:20, ’ in understanding be (not children, but) mature.’ Php 3:15, ’ as many as are mature, let us be thus minded.’ Heb 5:14, ’Strong meat is for them that are mature,’ i.e. that have emerged out of the state of infancy in these passages the word answers to the Hebrew root calah, rather than to shalam.

The word τελείωσις only occurs twice in the N.T. The first passage is Luk 1:45, where it signifies the accomplishment of God’s promises; the other is Heb 7:11, where we read that if there had been τελείωσις, completeness, by means of the Levitical priesthood, there would have been no necessity for the raising up of a priest after an order other than that of Aaron. The priest bore the τελείωσις or thummim on his breastplate, but it was only a shadow, of which Christ gives us the substance. Completeness is only attainable through the Saviour. He Himself was perfected [Some render the word τελειόω to consecrate in this and other passages and they have the LXX as authority for so doing. See, for example, Exo 29:22 &c., Lev 8:22, &c., where it answers to the Hebrew expression ’to fill the hands,’ i.e. ’to consecrate;’ τάς χείρας being added in some cases, but not in others. But it must be borne in mind that, in our Lord’s case, his being perfected through suffering was, as a matter of fact, his consecration, and the Levitical formal solemnity of consecration has given way to the process of ’learning obedience by the things suffered,’ whereby the Lord was constituted a perfect High Priest, one that could sympathize with all the troubles and temptations of his people, in that He Himself had suffered being tempted.] for the work of the priesthood through suffering (Heb 2:10), and being thus perfected, He became the Author or cause of eternal salvation to all that obey Him (5:9).

The word ἄμωμος’free from blemish,’ is not only used of Christ, who offered Himself without spot to God (Heb 9:14, and 1Pe 1:19), but also of Christians, who are to be ἅγιοι, or separate from the evil of the world, and ἄμωμοι, or free from moral blemishes (Eph 1:4; Eph 5:27; Php 2:16; Col 1:22; Jud 1:24; Rev 14:5).

The word ἄμεμπτος is used of blameless characters, and is applied in Luk 1:6 to Zachari as and Elizabeth, and in Php 3:6 to Saul the Pharisee in Php 2:15, and 1Th 3:13, it is set fort has the characteristic of the true Christian, and as applicable to the heart as well as to the outward life. Compare also the uses of the adverbial form in 1Th 2:10; 1Th 5:23 in Heb 8:7-8, it serves to mark the contrast between the two dispensations: ’If the first had no fault to be found in it (ἄμεμπτος), place would not have been sought for a second; (but this is not the case) for finding fault (μεμφόμενος), he saith, Behold, the days come,’ &c.

The word ὁ̔λοκληρία is used of the wholeness or perfect soundness of the body in Act 3:16; and the adjective is used in Jas 1:4, where it is coupled with τέλειος, and also in 1Th 5:23, where St. Paul prays for the saints, that their complete spirit, soul, and body may be preserved (so as to be) blameless in the appearing of Christ.

It will thus be seen that the standard of perfection set before all Christians in the N.T. is very high indeed, no room being left for any wrong-doing; but the promise of needful power is equally explicit. See 2Co 12:9.

PERFECTION.—The various Biblical terms connoting ‘perfection’ differ in shade of meaning between wholeness, the attaining of an end or ideal, complete adjustment, full equipment in fitness for an appointed task. They are sparingly applied to God; In OT His way, work, knowledge, law are ‘perfect’ (Psa 18:30, Deu 32:4, Job 37:16, Psa 19:7); in NT the same term is used of His will, His gifts, His law (Rom 12:2, Jas 1:17; Jas 1:25), while Christ describes the Father in heaven as ‘perfect,’ and therefore as the source and pattern of moral ideals (Mat 5:48). The sense in which perfection is attributed to or urged upon men must naturally vary according to the moral conceptions of the time.

1. In OT.—In the sharp moral contrasts which are presented in the successive kings of Judah, right doing and loyalty to Jehovah are expressed in the phrase ‘a perfect heart’ (e.g. 1Ki 8:61; cf. 1Ki 11:4; 1Ki 15:3; 1Ki 15:5). It is clear from what is contrasted with the ‘perfect heart’—idolatry, abominable sin—that the phrase has regard only to general tendencies of religious attitude and moral conduct, and its ethical depth is not perhaps greatly increased by the addition ‘with the Lord his God,’ for in the case of Amaziah a contrast is drawn between the two phrases; ‘he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart’ (2Ch 25:2). In a similar sense the term ‘perfect’ is applied to Noah, Abraham, and Job: its meaning is to be gathered from the synonyms which are linked with it—‘righteous and perfect,’ ‘perfect and upright,’ ‘fearing God and eschewing evil’ (Gen 6:9; Gen 17:1, Job 1:1; Job 1:8; Job 2:8; cf. Pro 2:21; Pro 11:5). It is noteworthy that in a number of passages in RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘perfect’ has displaced AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘upright,’ with greater fidelity of translation but little difference of meaning (e.g. Psa 18:23; Psa 18:25; Psa 19:13; Psa 37:18).

2. In NT.—The idea of moral perfection is carried up to an immeasurably higher level by the saying of Christ—the climax of His contrast between evangelical and Pharisaic righteousness—‘Ye therefore shall be (imperatival future) perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mat 5:48). This may be regarded as our Lord’s re-statement of the OT law, ‘Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy’ (Lev 19:2; cf. Lev 11:44), but the immediate context of the two passages is sufficient to indicate the infinite difference between the old law and the new. Infinite, because in place of precepts of ritual purity there is now set up an absolute moral ideal in the perfect love of God.

Moral conduct may indeed involve observance of prohibitions and positive commands, but the morality does not consist in the observance: it must come first, as the spring of action, and will issue in an obedience very different from that of the current ethical code. It is the disposition that counts: all duty springs from a love to God, working from within outwards, seeking to realize itself in free and boundless aspiration after His perfection. Hence the characteristic ‘thou shalt not’ of the Jewish law, with its possibility of evasion under seeming compliance, gives place to a positive ‘thou shalt’ of limitless content, because inspired by a limitless ideal (Mat 5:17-48; Mat 7:12; Mat 18:21-22). When the man came to Christ with his eager question about ‘eternal life,’ though he could claim to have kept all the commandments from his youth, he is bidden, if he would be ‘perfect,’ strip himself of all worldly possessions and follow Christ; doubtless because only through such sacrifice could he come to discern and attain the moral realities revealed by simple dependence on God (Mat 19:21; cf. Mar 10:17-31, Luk 18:18-30). The similar question of the lawyer is met with the same teaching of love to God as the one source of that ‘doing’ in which is life Luk 10:28).

In the teaching of St. Paul the moral life of the Christian is often dwelt upon, and in some passages is summarized in glowing ideals (e.g. Rom 12:1-21, 1Co 13:1-13, Gal 5:22, Eph 3:14-19, Php 4:4-9, Col 1:9-23, 1Th 5:14-23). Once the ideal is compressed into a phrase which reminds us of Mat 5:48, ‘Be ye imitators of God’ (Eph 5:1). There is constant insistence on love as the supreme source and manifestation of the moral life (Rom 12:9; Rom 13:8-14; 1Co 13:1-13); it is the bond which binds all other virtues into ‘perfection’ (Col 3:14); the motive power is to be found in faith in Christ, and in the energies of the indwelling Spirit of God (Rom 8:9, 2Co 5:17, Gal 5:24-25, Eph 3:20).

But though St. Paul often uses the word ‘perfect,’ he hardly connects it with the attainment of the moral ideal in the sense of Mat 5:48. He avails himself of a meaning of the Greek term as applied to men, ‘full-grown,’ ‘mature,’ and uses it to mark advance from the earlier stage of Christian life and experience, at which, in contrast, he describes men as ‘babes.’ To his immature Corinthian converts he writes, ‘we speak wisdom among the perfect’; complains, ‘I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ’; and bids them ‘be not children in mind: howbeit in malice be ye babes, but in mind be perfect’ (1Co 2:6; 1Co 3:1; 1Co 14:20). The same metaphor is used by the author of Hebrews (Heb 5:11 to Heb 6:1), where ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ connote a Christian manhood which can receive and assimilate advanced Christian teaching. In the later Pauline Epistles the word implies a similar stress on intellectual maturity, possibly with a side glance at the technical meaning of ‘fully initiated’ into the Greek ‘mysteries.’ In protest against the Colossian gnosis, arrogated by a few, St. Paul, by unrestricted teaching of the whole gospel to every man, would present every man ‘perfect in Christ’ (Col 1:28; Col 4:12). So, too, the attainment of the ideal corporate unity of all Christians is expressed in the ‘phrase’ unto a perfect (i.e. full-grown) man’ (Eph 4:18). It is characteristic of St. Paul’s thought that this unity exists (Eph 4:3-5), yet is to be attained; similarly, without sense of contradiction, he can write of himself as ‘perfect’ (Php 3:15), and in the same context as not ‘perfected’ (Php 3:12).

The great Christian verities themselves, and also their implication for the lives of all who believe, are conceived by him as equally real, yet his assertion of them is joined with an appeal for their realization (e.g. Rom 5:12-21; Rom 6:1-11). The facts are there, whatever contradictions may seem to be given to them by the imperfect lives which, if indeed real, they might be supposed to fashion into more complete accord. It follows that he is able without misgiving to set before his converts so lofty an Ideal of moral perfection as that contained in the passages already cited, the gulf between ideal and visible attainment being bridged by his faith in the spiritual forces at work (Rom 7:24-25, 1Co 1:8-9, Eph 3:20, Php 1:6; Php 2:13; Php 4:13; cf. 1Pe 1:8). Any doctrine, therefore, of Christian ‘perfection’ must reckon at once with St. Paul’s sense of its reality, and at the same time of the present difference between real and actual.

The idea of perfection appears also in Jas 1:4, ‘that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing’ (cf. Jas 3:2). In Hebrews special stress is laid upon the ‘perfecting’ of Christ by His humiliation and suffering, not in moral excellence but in fitness for His work of redeeming man (Heb 2:10, Heb 5:9, Heb 7:28); through his sacrifice the ‘perfection’ unattainable under the old covenant (Heb 7:11-19, Heb 9:9) is secured for the believer (Heb 10:14; cf. Heb 11:40, Heb 12:23, Heb 13:21).

The idea of perfection in the sense of complete adjustment and equipment (from a different Gr. root) occurs in 1Co 1:10, 2Co 13:11, 2Ti 3:17.

S. W. Green.

2Co 13:9 (a) Paul had a great desire for the blessing of the saints, and especially in their ability to serve GOD with valor, confound the enemy with intelligence, and depend upon GOD firmly and strongly for all their needs.

Heb 6:1 (a) This passage refers to the growth of the Christian in his knowledge of the things of GOD. The believer is not to remain as a baby in the family of GOD, satisfied just with the elementary truths, but is to grow in his knowledge of GOD’s Word, GOD’s ways, and GOD’s truths.

Heb 7:11 (a) This evidently refers to being completely saved and cleansed by the salvation which is found alone in CHRIST JESUS. Under the Old Testament program, the priests could never rest. There was no chair in the tabernacle nor the temple. The priests could never rest from their labors. The sinner was always sinning, and was coming frequently to the priests with his sacrifice to obtain forgiveness. CHRIST brought in something better. He offered Himself as a sacrifice to GOD for all the sins, past, present and future. It is not necessary therefore to continue to offer His sacrifice, as is done in the offering of the Mass daily in the Catholic religion. The Lord JESUS put away sin for every generation by His own wonderful sacrifice. There is no need of a repetition as in the Old Testament days.