WB Christian Perfection
“Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” Cute bumper sticker…and it serves a purpose – Christians don’t think they’re better than others, we simply want the world to find the same love and forgiveness we have experienced. We realize we’re all equally made in God’s image, all equally sinners, and all equally welcomed into the kingdom because Christ died for all equally. John Wesley got a lot of flack in his day for insisting that Christian perfection is actually supposed to be a thing. Even still, you start talking about Christian perfection, even in Wesleyan circles, and it’s like you’ve gone nuts.
That’s because we hear “perfect” and think it means a final state of being, with no room for further growth. Many reject this word for Christians (Martin Luther included) because it sounds as if we’re arguing that Christians will never make mistakes, that we become so like God that we don’t need God anymore. This is a more Western understanding of the word, but in the Eastern Church, perfection is a process. The Greek word in scripture is teleios, meaning “whole, complete, mature, grown-up, perfect.” When Jesus says in Matthew 5:48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect,” he doesn’t mean – be God, so much as love the way God loves.
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa (AD 335 – 394), taught that because God is infinite and eternal, there will always be more to know about God. To love God is to always delight in discovering more about God. Perfection is this process of sanctification, or being made holy, or loving God and neighbor more and more the way Jesus does. God’s grace sets us free from the power of sin, and free for living holy lives of love. 2 Corinthians 3:18 speaks of eternity as all of us, “who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
John Wesley’s understanding of Christian perfection owes a lot to Gregory of Nyssa’s teaching. We are saved by grace through faith, which can happen in a moment of belief and repentance. This salvation restores to us the image of God…with the Holy Spirit inhabiting our bodies and making us new creations to live for God’s glory. The way we live our lives shows that “we ourselves are what the power of [Christ’s] great name requires us to be” (Nyssa). Like a child becomes an adult or a seed becomes a great tree, our faith grows deeper as we practice it through works of piety (loving God) and works of mercy (loving neighbor). We say that we are going on to perfection, becoming more whole people even as Christ has already made us whole. As we remove every evil from our lives and strive to eliminate intentional sin, we go on to perfection. This is the proper response to God’s gracious gift, to bear the fruit of holy living. We can all name Christians we have met who have displayed exceptional love for God and others. They display the attitude of Christ in everything they do, they are going on to perfection. “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matt. 7:20).
“All experience, as well as Scripture, shows this salvation to be both instantaneous and gradual. It begins the moment we are justified, in the holy, humble, gentle, patient love of God and man. It gradually increases from that moment, as ‘a grain of mustard-seed, which, at first, is the least of all seeds,’ but afterwards puts forth large branches, and becomes a great tree; till, in another instant, the heart is cleansed, from all sin, and filled with pure love to God and man. But even that love increases more and more, till we ‘grow up in all things into him that is our Head;’ till we attain ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’ –John Wesley, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” II.1).
I’ve been reading the heck out of some Brené Brown lately, only to discover what she calls the “gifts of imperfection,” the self-compassion to accept my own flaws. She challenges this good-to-great model of thinking that many of us buy into. For most of us, “perfectionism” isn’t coming from some deep desire to know God better, but out of a self-destructive attempt to “avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame” (Daring Greatly, 130). For Brown, perfectionism only ever creates the life-sucking feeling of “I’m not good enough.” As someone with perfectionist tendencies, someone who has burnt out trying to take the church from good to great, I have found so much joy and freedom from Brené Brown’s work, and can’t recommend her stuff enough.
All that is to say, I believe there is a difference between perfectionism and Wesley’s concept of Christian perfection. Notice that for Nyssa as for Wesley, Christ has ALREADY made you good enough. God is enough, and because of Christ’s atoning work and the resurrecting Spirit alive in you, you are enough. Going on to Christian perfection, as a concept, only works if it is rooted in the healthy and life-giving acceptance that you are enough, and anything you do for good is rooted more in a desire to experience God’s love more deeply. And when you mess up, guess what…God isn’t shocked. You are enough. Christ is enough. Cling to that promise and you just may find yourself going on to perfect love for God and neighbor.
When not drawing the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist ordained deacon, serves as youth minister at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.