21.1 Perfection
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion…” (Genesis 1:26). – For whom He pro-knows, He also pro-determines them symmorphosed with the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory… (2 Corinthians 3:18). – We know that if He is revealed to us, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).
Image means “the visible form of an invisible God”; likeness means “of the same kind.”
Our Study. In our study of Covenant, we are investigating more deeply the five big words of Romans 8:28-30, along with the words pro-phecy and inheritance. It is clear that the Covenant into which we have entered with God is focused on two words, words for which we have no ability to comprehend – except that we must believe them. Image and Likeness are simply beyond us. Yet that is what God says we are – His visible form – of His same Kind. What is a God who wants to be known?
Somehow to get a handle on this beyond-all word, image, we must deal first with a word which also must increase in size. – PERFECTION –
Defining Perfection. Be ye therefore perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). – Let us go on to perfection (Hebrews 6:1). There are three definitions of this word, “perfect.” We must deal with the Greek definition first; it is a word we have already studied – teleo. The meaning is simple – bringing something to its intended completion. “By stages” can be part of that meaning.
I never before realized that Jesus was referring to symmorphy in Matthew 5:48, for Father is not complete except He have a Body in which to dwell and through which to reveal Himself and we are not complete except we be filled with Father. Thus a close synonym of teleo is pleroo, to be filled to capacity.
Complete in Him. You are complete/pleroo in Him (Colossians 2:10). You are filled to the full measure of your capacity inside of Jesus. – My strength is made perfect/teleo in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). My strength develops to its intended expression inside the sphere of your weakness.
Our capacity is to be filled with all the fullness of God (likeness); our completion is to reveal God to all (image). Man is not and cannot be complete except by being filled full with all of God and by revealing that God to all through him. Man is God revealed. Human perfection is symmorphy. You in Me and I in them. This is the plain teaching of the gospel.
A Different Definition. That all sounds clear enough – EXCEPT, the question then is, not what is human perfection, but what is God. And thus, in order for us to define human perfection, we must bring in another line from the first part of Genesis. “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).
It is clear to me that when all humans and all Christians I have known define that word, including the brethren in the move of God fellowship who preached perfection, they hold this line of the serpent as their underlying definition of what perfection is and means.
It Is Finished. “Image” as Paul used that term in Romans 8:29 and elsewhere means our becoming God’s full and final intention for what we are. It means perfection. Perfection is a frequent New Testament word placed as the goal of the gospel. It is finished (John 19:30). My work has come to its full and perfect completion.
But to understand what God means us to be in our completion, we must go back and forth between two violently opposing images of that perfection, indeed two opposing images of God. False perfection so fills the minds of all that to root it out is a task requiring immense skill and perseverance. Let’s begin with a vision the Lord gave to Annie Schissler in I Looked and I Saw Visions of God.
Spiritual Form and Order
Today the Lord showed me that all things in the spirituals have perfect form and order. Things which in our world seem so incoherent, disordered and even chaotic are not so in reality. Although in our world, and to our perceptions, all things are apparently in such a disordered state, according to the divine viewpoint all things are coherent, beautiful, and in perfect order.
He showed me how His wisdom developed within His works and how this wisdom has ordered and coherent spiritual form and substance. This is not merely knowledge of an intelligence, but His divine wisdom in His workings and works which is vibrant with its own life and radiant in the powerful force of His workings. This divine wisdom, like all of His spiritual powers, beings, workings, things and attributes - has form and order, and is visible, palpable, coherent, harmonic and beautiful.
To this vision, I added the following note:
– The “perfection” of the evil one is an outward perfection existing in appearance only. As this vision shows, God’s perfection is well able to appear inside our every stumbling mistake. And when God and us together make all things good, we are just turning everything towards what it really is. –
A Perfect Mess. Here is what we must know about God’s perfection of us. God’s perfection appears a mess, yet all things are always being turned towards utter goodness by the shared faith of Father and us.
The serpent and all mankind, however, cannot stand the outward appearance of God’s perfection. Thus the serpent and all mankind put out their hand to control the mess and to force it into alignment with the appearance of “perfection.” And by doing so, they break all things away from God’s goodness resulting in utter chaos. A perfect mess VS a ruined perfection.
Freedom VS Control. God releases all things from His own control – then God turns the apparent “mess” towards goodness by His own good seeing and good speaking. Satan imposes control on all things in order to force them into alignment with the appearance of perfection. This very action violates the integrity of each individual entity and cuts them off from the wisdom of God.
Freedom always brings peace and perfect order. Control always brings war, chaos, and ruin.
Only One who is meek and lowly of heart, seeing all others better, releases all things to freedom; only one who is arrogant and sees all others as inferior to himself reaches out to control.
A Shadow of Arrogance. I have witnessed a very strange thing to me on more than one occasion. Let me recount one. I was sitting around a table with other men meeting for a Bible study. In the discussion, I raised the point of being perfect just as our Father is perfect. The affect was instantaneous and striking. Every head around that table dropped and a shadow came upon each face. The leader of the discussion turned, with head still down and face shadowed, and asserted, with hardness, that desiring such a thing was the arrogance of the serpent.
I am always stunned by such a response and do not know how to answer. For I see only God, and they see only “grasshoppers.”
Refusing to Enter. To be like God is to be arrogant like the serpent. ??????? How on earth can such an argument prevail ??????? But the problem is far deeper than this, for here we are dealing only with Christians who don’t really believe in God as a real and present Person, just in limited ideas. And thus I must bring into our picture the words of a song I heard recently, a song that ripped me all to pieces.
I once sang this song in the midst of the congregation with tears and with great desire. Now, I realize that we were drawing near, knowing the way is open, yet we refused to enter.
A Song of Rebellion
I entered the Gate to a brand new life when I came to the Altar. I entered the Door and Your Spirit fills me through and through. But now my heart still longs for something deeper, and I can see life through the veil that You have torn in two.
I want to break through. I want to break through. To know as I’m known, to know You alone; I want to break through. To where no sin can stand in my way, let me enter in with boldness I pray. Show me Your glory, show Me Your way, I want to break through.
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So what is the problem? Is this not the same thing (almost) that I teach? Yet, in spite of all the desire expressed, the words never take anyone into John 14:20.
SELF Perfection. The two lines that are of the evil one are these. “I want to break through.” And – (we must change the wording to see what is really being said) – “Sin stands in my way.” The first statement is the argument that the serpent (outward perfection, outward glory) is the true image of God and the second statement is that we must be “like” God by human performance in ourselves first without God filling us full.
“I want to break through” is the declaration that Christ is not enough, that I am NOT God’s image, that humans are NOT the appearance of God in creation. You see, the inherent lust to be perfect in self, to be good in self, to be powerful in self, to get it right in self, to be godly in self, to rule and reign in self – fills all “Christian” thinking.
An Arrogant “God.” And since “God” is arrogant, to be “like” God is to be superior to all others. This is what Augustine really means in his wording of the same rebellion. (My words are in parenthesis.) – When I shall with my whole self cleave to You (someday), I shall nowhere have sorrow, or labor (outward perfection, everything lined up); and my life shall wholly live (someday), as wholly full of You. But now, since whom You fill You lift up (that is, make superior in itself), because I am not full of You I am a burden to myself (sin stands in my way). –
Both Augustine and the song of drawing near but refusing to enter have a very strong definition of God’s perfection and it ain’t human.
Let’s Be Pirates. Augustine is convinced that since he does not appear perfect to himself, that means God does not and cannot fill him full. The words of the song declare that since I “sin” I cannot live now wholly inside of Jesus.
David was convinced that when he had murdered and committed adultery, lied and stolen, coveted and broken God’s Sabbath, even covering it all up with denial, still, in the end, there was only one thing to do with all of his brutal wickedness. David ran with his sin into the HOLIEST PLACE in the universe and placed that sin upon God.
You and I are the same, we RUN into the Holiest, sit ourselves upon the Mercy Seat by faith, and believe that we are what God looks like, that God fills us full now with all that He is.
The Same Shadow. Here is the sorrow. For decades many precious brethren have lived in the Altar of Incense, seeing the Holiest, longing to enter into God. Yet they refuse to do so, even though they know the Way is wide open, and that we may enter now with all boldness. Their doctrine tells them that, “We must obey God and not our flesh. We must seek God’s will so that we might do His will and not our own.” Those are the words, but that is NOT the meaning.
You see, here is the same shadow upon all our brethren. In their minds, in order for them to “break through” they must be able to say with all truthfulness, “I obey God in all things.” But since they define God by the serpent, they know they cannot say such a thing.
I Fall Short. Thus here is what the words “I must obey God” actually mean – “I fall short of the serpent’s definition of God, my own possession of rightness and power; therefore I will not enter the Holiest by faith. I will not live in John 14:20.” “I want to break through” is the satanic lust for MY OWN rightness and MY OWN power (I – not Christ). And “sin stands in my way” is the refusal of God’s only righteousness – Christ our only life.
Here is the opposing word of God’s perfection. – And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities (my inabilities), that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Would Some Have Refused? God never ever intended humans to be righteous in themselves, that’s why He commanded man not to eat of the law. Satan proposed a program for man to be godly without God. Adam and almost all Christians prefer holding out for such an appearance of perfection and use its absence in their lives as an excuse not to live in God’s perfection, the Lord Jesus Christ. They want themselves to be right; they want themselves to be powerful. This is the rebellion of Adam.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7). If I had shown my dear brethren the circumcision of Christ, would some have refused in the present season?
The Great Contradiction. It’s not a good plan to sing over and over, “Let me enter in with boldness I pray,” and never doing so because God’s righteousness is not our own appearance, under our own control, and not realizing the bankruptcy of our words. Yet this is the great contradiction in which ALL of our brethren are caught.
Perfection is being human as we now are – filled with all the fulness of God – entirely by faith, having all human judgment and performance cut entirely away from our hearts. Yet, being turned around, perfection is God and us together, sharing all things as one together, taking every step in utter confidence together, turning all things towards good together.
A Perfect Church. And a perfect Church is a human Church, bumbling and foolish, kind and caring, accepting one another as we are, the Lord Jesus Himself. We have no need to be wise. We have no need to be right. We have no need to be powerful. We have no need to control.
We are filled with all of God. And we actually do believe, in fact, as impossible as it is to think that anyone would believe such a thing – we believe that God knows what He does in spite of our outward appearance. We believe that our Father does all things well, and that He is in us in all things, reconciling the world to Himself.
Our faith in God in us as we are IS God’s perfection.