[I am purposely playing with the word perfectionist, hoping that our negative connotation will make us think about perfection not as flawlessness, but as maturity, completion, finished product; someone being all that God has for them to be.]
Ephesians 1:4 God has done for us in Jesus what he did for us so that we would be "holy and blameless in His sight."
"So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Eph 4:17-24).
There is a clear progression, from wickedness, to justification. But even while justified, we are still carrying around the "old man" v.22 until we "put him off" and are re-created, having God's righteousness and holiness. That is to say, we will be the "finished product," or perfect.
--from W.A. Godbey's 1886 book, Christian Perfection
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