By Oyewole O. Sarumi
For over four decades of pastoral ministry, I have watched the faces of sincere believers change when they encounter Matthew 5:48. The eyes widen. The shoulders tense. The soul recoils. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
These words have driven more Christians to despair than almost any other text in Scripture. I recall a young seminary student who came to my office weeping, convinced he had lost his salvation because he had lost his temper with his roommate. “How can I be perfect?” he asked. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve prayed. I’ve fasted. I’ve memorized Scripture. But I still fail.”
He had read this verse and concluded that Jesus was commanding sinless perfection—an impossible standard that left him crushed under the weight of his own inadequacy.
He is not alone. Across the centuries, this verse has been weaponized by well-meaning but misguided teachers to produce guilt, anxiety, and spiritual paralysis.
The Puritan author John Owen once observed that “the law sends us to the gospel for our justification, and the gospel sends us to the law for our sanctification.” But when we misunderstand the law, when we misread the standard Jesus sets before us, we short-circuit the very grace He came to give.
The tragedy is that Jesus never intended this verse to be a hammer. He intended it to be a healing balm. He never meant it to be a chain. He meant it to be a compass. And the key to unlocking its life-giving power lies not in straining toward an impossible moral perfection, but in understanding what Jesus was actually saying, to whom He was saying it, and why.
The Greek Word That Changes Everything
Let us begin where any faithful exposition must begin: with the text itself. The English word “perfect” in Matthew 5:48 translates the Greek adjective teleios (τέλειος). This word comes from the root telos, which means “end,” “goal,” or “purpose.” To be teleios is to have reached the intended end, to have fulfilled one’s purpose, to be complete, whole, and mature.
Consider how this word is used elsewhere in the New Testament. In James 1:4, the apostle writes, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature (teleioi) and complete, not lacking anything”.
In 1 Corinthians 14:20, Paul urges the Corinthians, “In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults (teleioi)”. In Philippians 3:12, Paul himself admits, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal (teleio), but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me”. In Colossians 1:28, Paul describes his ministry goal as “presenting everyone perfect (teleion) in Christ”.
In none of these instances does teleios mean “sinless” or “flawless.” It always points to maturity, completeness, wholeness—the full development of what God intends a person to become. The late New Testament scholar Jonathan Pennington has argued convincingly that in the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Old Testament—the tel group of words was often used to translate the Hebrew shalom (“flourishing, wholeness”) and tamim (“wholeness, integrity”).
When the Old Testament speaks of someone being “blameless” or “wholehearted,” it does not mean they never sinned. It means their devotion to God was undivided, their loyalty single-minded.
The infinitive form of the verb is teleiono, which means “to reach a distant end, to be fully developed, to consummate, or to finish”. As President Russell M. Nelson has observed, the word does not imply “freedom from error”; it implies “achieving a distant objective”.
When Jesus said, “Be teleios,” He was not commanding moral flawlessness. He was summoning His followers to spiritual maturity, to wholeness of character, to a love that has reached its full expression.
The Bible Project’s Scholar Team puts it this way: “Teleios refers to something fulfilling its purpose or achieving the goal for which it was made. God himself is teleios because He is the goal of all things. But everything else is on a journey of becoming teleios—healthy, whole, and mature”.
The Context That Cannot Be Ignored
But word studies alone are never enough. The most critical principle of biblical interpretation is this: context is king. And the context of Matthew 5:48 is decisive.
Jesus did not deliver this command in a vacuum. He was concluding a specific teaching—a teaching about love. Matthew 5:43–47 provides the immediate framework: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven”.
Notice what Jesus is doing here. He is correcting a popular tradition that had distorted the Old Testament. The command to “love your neighbor” comes from Leviticus 19:18. But the addition “and hate your enemy” appears nowhere in Scripture. It was a human invention, a convenient accommodation to the natural human desire for retaliation. Alexander Maclaren, the great nineteenth-century expositor, observed: “Not only was the circumference of love’s circle drawn in, but to hate an enemy was elevated almost into a duty”.
Jesus will have none of it. With His characteristic authority—“But I say unto you”—He dismantles this tradition and replaces it with something far more demanding and far more liberating. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who mistreat you.
And then comes the capstone: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. The “therefore” is crucial. It connects the command to be perfect directly to the command to love enemies. Jesus is not shifting to a new topic. He is summarizing the entire preceding section. The perfection He commands is the perfection of love—a love that, like the Father’s, extends to the righteous and the unrighteous alike.
Albert Barnes, in his classic commentary, captures this precisely: “Be not religious merely in loving your friends and neighbours, but let your piety be shown in loving your enemies; be perfect; imitate God; let the piety be complete, and proportionate, and regular”. Matthew Henry, the great Puritan commentator, similarly notes that “this perfection is to be restrained to the subject Christ is upon, love to men”.
The Audience That Matters
There is another contextual clue we must not overlook. Matthew 5:1–2 tells us that Jesus “went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them”. This is not a general sermon to the masses. This is instruction for disciples—for those who had already committed to following Him. Jesus was not laying down an impossible law for the world. He was describing the character of kingdom people.
This distinction is vital for spiritual formation. The perfection Jesus commands is not a pre-condition for entering the kingdom. It is a description of what life in the kingdom looks like. It is not a ladder we must climb to reach God. It is the shape of the life God is forming in us through His Spirit.
The Puritan divine John Owen understood this profoundly. He wrote that the Christian life is not about achieving sinless perfection in this life, but about “the progressive renovation of our natures into the image of God.” The perfection of Matthew 5:48 is not a destination we arrive at by our own efforts. It is a direction we travel by grace.
The Love That Defines Perfection
If perfection is about love—complete, mature, God-like love—then we must understand what kind of love Jesus is talking about. The Greek word for love in Matthew 5:44 is agapao, the verb form of agape. This is not sentimental affection. It is not warm feelings. It is not the love we feel for those who are lovable. Agape is a love of the will, a love that chooses to seek the good of the other regardless of how the other responds.
Jesus illustrates this love by pointing to the Father: “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous”. The Father’s love is indiscriminate. It does not wait for worthiness. It does not withhold based on merit. It gives generously to all because giving is its nature.
This is the perfection we are called to imitate. Not a flawless record, but a generous heart. Not sinless behavior, but self-giving love. Not moral perfectionism, but spiritual maturity expressed in practical kindness toward the most undeserving.
I think of a pastor I mentored years ago in West Africa. He had been severely persecuted by a local chief who had confiscated his church property and had him imprisoned on false charges. When I asked him how he could possibly love such a man, he replied, “Pastor, I have learned that loving my enemy does not mean I must feel affection for him. It means I must will his good. Every morning I pray for his salvation. Every week I send food to his family. I have forgiven him, and I leave the justice to God.” That is teleios love. That is the perfection Jesus commands.
What This Perfection Is Not
Before we go further, let us be clear about what this perfection is not. It is not sinless perfection in this life. The Bible nowhere teaches that believers can or will achieve moral flawlessness before glorification. Ecclesiastes 7:20 declares, “Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning”. The apostle Paul, the greatest Christian who ever lived, admitted that he had not “already obtained all this” or “already arrived at my goal”. If Paul was still pressing toward the goal, if he still counted himself not yet perfect (teleio), then we have no business claiming sinless perfection for ourselves.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, famously taught the doctrine of Christian perfection, but even he did not mean sinless perfection in the sense of never making mistakes. He defined perfection as “pure love filling the heart and governing all the words and actions.” For Wesley, perfection was about the orientation of the heart, not the flawlessness of every act. It was about love, not performance.
It is also not a standard we achieve by our own efforts. The command to be perfect is not a summons to self-improvement. It is an invitation to dependence. We cannot manufacture this kind of love. We cannot will ourselves into maturity. The perfection Jesus describes is the fruit of the Spirit, the work of grace in a surrendered heart. As Derek Prince observed, “You see, God is perfect in His dealings with everybody, with the good and with the not good. He’s perfect in every attitude and relationship”. Our perfection is simply our participation in His.
The Witness of the Apostolic Fathers
The early Church Fathers understood Matthew 5:48 in precisely this way. Saint Remigius, a sixth-century bishop, wrote: “Because the utmost perfection of love cannot go beyond the love of enemies, therefore as soon as the Lord has bid us love our enemies, He proceeds, ‘Be ye then perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’”. For Remigius, the perfection Jesus commands is specifically the perfection of enemy-love. It is not a general command about every aspect of moral behavior. It is a specific command about the highest expression of love.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, one of the great Cappadocian Fathers, saw in this verse the entire aim of the Christian life. He taught that “all that has been said in this Sermon aimed at perfection”—not perfection as an abstract ideal, but perfection as the full expression of the divine image in human life. For Gregory, the command to be perfect was not a burden but a promise: God has created us for union with Himself, and He will bring us to that union through the transforming power of His grace.
Augustine of Hippo, perhaps the most influential theologian in Christian history, wrestled deeply with this verse. He concluded that perfection in this life consists not in the absence of sin, but in the direction of the heart. “He is perfect,” Augustine wrote, “who, though he sins, does not consent to sin, but fights against it.” Perfection, for Augustine, was the struggle itself—the relentless, grace-empowered resistance to evil and the persistent pursuit of love.
The Puritan Witness
The Puritan tradition, for all its rigor, also understood Matthew 5:48 as a call to maturity rather than flawlessness. The Westminster Confession of Faith, the great doctrinal statement of English Puritanism, acknowledges that “such as are regenerated, do not perfectly, nor in this life, keep the commandments of God; but do daily break them in thought, word, and deed.” Yet the same confession speaks of the Christian’s “progressive sanctification,” the gradual growth in grace that continues throughout this life.
Richard Baxter, the great Puritan pastor of Kidderminster, wrote extensively about Christian perfection. He insisted that the command to be perfect was not a warrant for despair but a spur to diligence. “God commandeth us to be perfect,” Baxter wrote, “not to drive us to desperation, but to drive us to prayer.” The perfection we cannot achieve by our own efforts, we receive by grace and pursue by faith.
Thomas Watson, another Puritan giant, observed: “Though we cannot be perfectly holy in this life, yet we must be perfectly sincere.” Sincerity—undivided heart, wholehearted devotion—that is the perfection God requires and the perfection God enables. It is not the perfection of the angel, but the perfection of the child who trusts the Father completely.
The Research That Confirms the Call
Modern research into the psychology of forgiveness and enemy-love confirms what the Scriptures have always taught: loving our enemies is not only spiritually transformative but psychologically healing. Studies on self-transcendence—the capacity to move beyond self-interest toward the good of others—have found that the choice to love an enemy can reshape consciousness and promote well-being. The love of enemy assessment, a newly developed empirical tool, seeks to measure how such love can be promoted to facilitate greater societal flourishing.
In a world fractured by political polarization, ethnic conflict, and personal vendettas, the command to love our enemies is more relevant than ever. Research on ambivalent relationships—those “frenemies” who straddle the line between friend and foe—reveals that mixed relationships increase both helping behaviors and mild harm. But Jesus calls us to something far beyond ambivalence. He calls us to active, willing love for those who oppose us.
The practical benefits are measurable. Those who practice forgiveness experience lower blood pressure, reduced anxiety, and greater life satisfaction. Those who pray for their persecutors find their own anger diminishing and their compassion growing. The perfection Jesus commands is not just a theological abstraction. It is a practical pathway to human flourishing.
The Journey of Becoming Whole
If perfection is maturity, then it is a journey, not a destination. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in Philippians 3:12–15: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal; but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”.
Paul uses the same word family here. He has not yet been made teleios—perfect, complete, mature. But he presses on. The perfection he seeks is not a static state of sinlessness. It is a dynamic process of becoming. It is growth. It is progress. It is the daily, Spirit-empowered transformation of character into the likeness of Christ.
This is why James can say, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything”. Maturity comes through perseverance. Completeness comes through endurance. The perfection Jesus commands is not a gift we receive all at once. It is a harvest we grow over time, through trial and testing, through failure and repentance, through grace and forgiveness.
Living the Perfection of Love
So how do we live this perfection? How do we become teleios in the sense Jesus meant? Let me offer several practical observations from four decades of pastoral ministry.
First, start with the hardest person. Jesus did not say, “Love those who love you.” Even tax collectors do that. He did not say, “Greet only your brothers.” Even pagans do that. He said, “Love your enemies.” The perfection He commands is tested and proven in the crucible of difficult relationships. If you want to grow in maturity, begin with the person you find hardest to love. Pray for them. Bless them. Do good to them. Leave the results to God.
I have seen this principle transform marriages, heal family rifts, and reconcile warring factions in churches. One couple I counseled had been locked in a cycle of bitterness for years. The wife had been deeply wounded by her husband’s infidelity. She could not imagine ever loving him again. But as she began to pray for him—not for his punishment, but for his restoration—something shifted in her heart. She did not excuse his sin. She did not pretend the pain was not real. But she chose to will his good, and in that choice, she found freedom. That is the perfection of love.
Second, trust the process. Spiritual formation takes time. The fruit of the Spirit does not appear overnight. Paul Tripp puts it this way: “Sanctification is not a one-time event. It is a daily process of grace.” Do not be discouraged by your failures. Do not be paralyzed by your imperfections. The perfection Jesus commands is not the perfection of arrival; it is the perfection of direction. Are you moving toward love? Are you growing in grace? Are you becoming more like Christ? Then you are on the path to perfection.
Third, depend on grace. The command to be perfect is not a summons to self-sufficiency. It is an invitation to surrender. “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The perfection we cannot achieve by effort, we receive by faith. It is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and the holiness of Christ imparted to us. The Holy Spirit works in us “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Our part is not to manufacture perfection but to cooperate with the One who is perfecting us.
Conclusion: The Perfection That Sets Us Free
Let us return to where we began. Matthew 5:48 has been misunderstood for centuries. It has been read as a command to sinless perfection, a standard so impossibly high that it crushes the soul and fuels despair. But that is not what Jesus meant. The word teleios speaks of maturity, completeness, wholeness. The context speaks of love—love for enemies, love that reflects the Father’s indiscriminate kindness. The audience speaks of disciples—those who have already entered the kingdom and are now learning what life in the kingdom looks like.
The perfection Jesus commands is not the perfection of the angel but the perfection of the child. It is not the perfection of flawless performance but the perfection of wholehearted devotion. It is not a destination we arrive at by our own efforts but a direction we travel by grace. It is not a chain that binds us but a compass that guides us.
Alexander Maclaren captured this beautifully when he wrote: “Two thunder-clouds may cast lightnings at each other, but they waste themselves in the process. Better to shine meekly and victoriously on as the moon does on piled masses of darkness till it silvers them with its quiet light. So Jesus bids us do”.
The perfection of love is the quiet light that silvers the darkness. It is the sun that rises on the evil and the good. It is the rain that falls on the just and the unjust. It is the love that prays for persecutors and blesses those who curse. It is the maturity that reflects the heart of the Father.
And here is the good news: this perfection is not beyond us. It is not a standard we must achieve before we can be accepted. It is a gift we receive as we abide in Christ. It is a fruit that grows as we walk in the Spirit. It is a destination we will reach when we see Him face to face. Until then, we press on. We grow. We become.
So, beloved leader, do you want to be perfect in the sense Jesus meant? Then stop striving for flawlessness and start loving the people you find hardest to love. Stop measuring your worth by your performance and start resting in the grace that transforms. Stop comparing yourself to others and start fixing your eyes on the One who is the Author and Perfecter of your faith.
Be teleios. Be whole. Be mature. Be complete. Be perfect in love. And in that perfection, find your freedom.
“Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
Maranatha!!!
Prof. Sarumi, a pastor and a teacher of the Word, writes from Lagos. Tel. 08033041421, Email:oyewolethecoach@gmail.com
