Christian Perfection

The term Christian Perfection in the Methodist community is one doctrine that often gets missed represented or it gets conflict from those who do not understand what is meant by perfection. In this brief post I will explain the term and the position of the Methodist community.

Christian Perfection is not a doctrine that says that once you are saved you will live above sin but that one should be seeking the grace of God in order to allow Him to guide you away from sinful desires or actions. This can only be done if a born again believer has repented and sought the love of God flowing through the Holy Spirit outwardly towards His personhood and His creation meaning your neighbors. This would then mean that your actions are to not be sought for your glory but for the glory of God. Let me illustrate this:

If you are a teacher you would not teach your students to just do the bare minimum to get by. You would teach your students all the facts about the subject matter and expect them to strive for all the content. Further if you were a student you would not only do the bare minimum to get by, but seek to learn all you could in order to affirm your teacher's instructions. The point is this if God calls us to be holy then we must not say that He has not provide the means to make us holy, but that He has given us an example in His Son Jesus Christ to work in and through us guiding us into a holy and perfect nature. Thus, it is not but what we do but by what He is doing in and through us that makes us a holy person. However, we must be responding to the grace He is providing or we are not seeking to be in relationship with Him.

Therefore, when we say Christian Perfection we are saying that it is God working in and through us and our response is to grow in His likeness so that we can walk away from sinful desires and sinful actions as well as too grow and mature in Him. Thus it is not by works but by our response to His grace that we are made perfect.

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