Heb 10:14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
I could be wrong (you guys help me out) but to me Hebrews 14 is talking about Jesus perfecting a way to remove our sins. A few verses up he speaks about priests not being able to do so but when Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice he did
Phil 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
.I'm not sure exactly what Paul is saying here yet but when he talks of apprehended, in the next verse he says he hasn't apprehended. It sounds to me that he is preaching on how to strive towards perfection.
There are about many definitions of perfect.
No kidding. Ever see how many ways Dave can define worship? :')
Cindy, I’m glad you brought this question up yesterday, because I have believed that Christians are considered “perfect”, but hadn’t studied it out to where I had biblical answers for the questions that arise when it’s mentioned.
Let me give you my understanding after studying it last night.
Paul said that when a husband dies, the woman is free from the law that had bound her while she was married and her husband was alive. Ro 7:2-4
Paul wrote, Gal 2:19-20 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Paul said he was crucified with Christ, therefore Paul is dead, yet he lives, but not Paul, but Christ has taken over his body and now lives in Paul.
If we are now dead, and crucified with Christ, then how can we sin? Our old self is dead, our new self is Christ living in us
When we become a Christian and are born again, we can sin no more, because our human, carnal, sinful nature, can no longer effect us since Christ is now in us, that sin can no longer penetrate, because Christ won over sin, and defeated Satan.
The sin which our human body craves, can’t effect Christ in us, all it can do is irritate our humanness, and give us a constant goal to overcome, and to make life more interesting, otherwise God could simply remove us from earth the second Christ comes into us.
Sometimes Satan is temporarily victorious, but every time he wins a small battle, we prepare for a bigger battle the next time, and as we look back over our Christian lives, we can see that most of these battles have now been won, with Christ in us.
Satan will find another weakness to go after, and then it will become our priority, and over time it’s conquered, and we go on to the next battle.
God knows His Son lives with in us, and He sees us as perfect, even while our human soul still wars against Satan.
If these were actual wars we fought with Satan every day, one day we won, the next day we lost, but we went right back out the following day and won again. This went on our whole life, would God condemn us as eternally lost, every time we lost a battle, or eternally saved when we won?
No! we were already saved, and these wars don't determin our salvation, just our rewards since we are dead to sin, and no longer punishable by the law.
When we are quickened, and Christ Spirit in us emerges, this human body, with its lust to gratify itself, will cease to exist, and we’ll emerge perfect and pure as Christ, because He overcame sin once and for all, and it can no longer touch Him or us, while He’s in us.
Our true essence, is Christ Spirit in us, not the physical sinful human flesh, which will die away, but we’ll emerge, Christ like, being the firstborn of many brothers.
A Christian is like a body that’s wearing a full armor suit, and while Satan’s weapons can’t penetrate the armor, it can scratch and dent it’s outward shell which is what the world sees, so we still have to keep the armor cleaned and polished and in good repair for outward appearances.
This is why Paul, on one hand tells us in Philippians 3:12, that Not as though “I” (being the operative word) had already attained, either were already perfect: then three verses later, tells us, V-15-16, Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
Paul took no credit for perfection, but gave it to Christ only, who is perfect.
Romans 6: 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2. God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3. Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7. For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
JH :-)
LOL! Yes have you heard his definition of grace. It's just sad. I liken it to a battery that gets changed by good works and discharged by naughties. You never know if you have enough voltage to be saved. Hence their weak and useless Jesus.