Admitting Imperfections and Turning Them for Love
No Christian Perfection in This Life
But in spite of having such a privileged role in the early church, Paul did not try to pull rank by hiding his weaknesses or his sins. He knew and taught that becoming a Christian does not mean sinless perfection in this world. To be sure, becoming a Christian means that people will really be changed by the Spirit of God (2 Cor. 3:18). God is saving his people not only from the guilt of sin, but also from its power. But this salvation is happening in stages.
First, in this world God brings people out of spiritual darkness (2 Cor. 4:4–6), grants them to repent and believe (2 Tim. 2:25; Phil. 1:29), unites them to Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:5), counts them as having the very righteousness and perfect obedience of Christ (Rom. 5:19), gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of eternal life (Rom. 8:9; 6:23), and begins the process of making them like Jesus, from one degree of glory to the next (2 Cor. 3:18). But that process is not completed until Christians get to heaven, or until Jesus comes.
So Paul’s aim is to be with Jesus someday, but he admits that he is not there yet and that he is not perfect. “I [aim to] attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:11–12). Paul knew Christ had taken hold of him for eternal life. But he was not yet at the end of his journey. And that journey was one of constant warfare against sin. That’s why he writes to his young friend Timothy,
Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Tim. 6:12
Paul knew that this whole age is one of incompleteness and imperfection. He puts it like this in one of his most famous chapters:
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. . . . For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Cor. 13:9–10, 12
You May Also Like: True Christianity: Imperfect People Striving for Perfection