The “Perfection” Metaphor

Metaphors matter. The Scriptures use them to give a full-orbed description of the “last days” of the Mosaic age (e.g., Heb 1:2; Gen 49:1). God gave Israel a “new birth” through Christ’s resurrection (1 Pet 1:3; Eph 2:6). Christ then began to reign in his kingdom after Israel’s “regeneration” (Matt 19:28; cp. Titus 3:5). 

In those “last days,” God “opened a fountain” for the house of David (Zech 13:1). This was the time of Israel’s “reformation” (Heb 9:10). In them, God created “one new man” comprising both Jews and Gentiles (Eph 2:15). He “grafted” Gentile branches into Israel’s olive tree (Rom 11:17–24). 

These (and other) metaphors describe the Lord’s work in and for Israel during this time. They show God’s transformation of Israel. She entered this period as a nation “after the flesh” (1 Cor 10:18). She exited as a nation after the Spirit, as the true Israel of God (Gal 6:16). 

Our discussion of the spiritual gifts of 1 Cor 12:7–10 involves another “last days” transition metaphor—growth from childhood to maturity. Paul used this metaphor to identify when God would abolish the gifts. He said, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Cor 13:11 NKJV; emphasis added). Just as the mature Paul had put away childish things, so new-covenant Israel (i.e., the church¹) would put away her spiritual gifts when she reached maturity. This would occur when “that which is perfect” had come (1 Cor 13:10).

A faithful reader has objected to our conclusions about this perfection. In our post The Miraculous Gifts, we said it refers to the messianic age. He believes it refers to the eternal state.

We are responding to his concerns. In our last post (here), we said the word “perfect” (Gk. teleios) means “brought to its end, finished; wanting nothing necessary to completeness.”² Words like “perfect,” “mature,” and “of full age” convey its meaning.

We then examined the nineteen instances of “perfect” (Gk. teleios) in the New Testament. They showed this word represents messianic-age saints, their ethics, God’s gifts, etc., but not the eternal state.

Our thesis is that the “perfect” came when God completed the transition from the Mosaic age to the messianic age. This happened when the Temple fell in AD 70 (Matt 24:1–3, 34). We will continue defending it by examining two passages that use the childhood-to-maturity metaphor.

“Perfection” In Galatians

Paul used the development metaphor in Galatians. He did so while showing “that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal 2:16 NKJV). The Galatians were “being enticed to take on certain aspects of the Jewish law.”³ 

Paul warned these believers against returning to the Mosaic-age worship of God. He wanted them to serve God through “faith in Jesus Christ.” He used a series of rhetorical questions that contain our metaphor.

This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect (Gk. epiteleō) by the flesh? (Gal 3:2–3 NKJV)

The expected answers are obvious: they had received the Spirit by faith and the Spirit was “making them perfect.” This Greek verb for “made perfect” comes from the same root word as the adjective “perfect” in 1 Cor 13:10. It means “to bring to an end, accomplish, perfect, execute, complete” or something similar.⁴

Paul had the corporate perfection of God’s people in mind. We will see this as we follow his reasoning. 

God was fulfilling his promises to Abraham (Gal 3:13–17) through Israel’s transformation. He had given the law as a temporary imposition on the nation (Gal 3:19). Paul says, “Before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed” (Gal 3:23 NKJV). “The law was intended to function only during this 1,500-year period of anticipation.”⁵

By the “coming of faith,” the Apostle was referring to the coming of the age when God’s people would live by faith in Christ (Gal 3:11; cp. Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Heb 10:38). This was a corporate event. Many individuals had exercised faith under the Mosaic-age law (cp. Heb 11). But, they did not live in faith’s age.

Paul’s next statements reinforce the corporate nature of our metaphor. He said, “The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Gal 3:24–25 NKJV). The law was Israel’s childhood tutor. 

Paul continued: 

The heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Gal 4:1–5 NKJV)

While under the law, Israel (i.e., the church) was a child. When Christ came, the time for her to be “made perfect” (Gal 3:3) had arrived. The transition from her childhood imperfection to her mature “perfection” began. This was the transition from the Mosaic age to the messianic age.

“Perfection” In Hebrews

Paul⁶ used this development metaphor at length in Hebrews.⁷ He wrote about God’s work in the “last days” of the Mosaic age (Heb 1:2). Christ began to sit on his throne as God made his enemies his footstool (Heb 1:13). The saints were “about (Gk. mellō) to inherit salvation” (Heb 1:14 YLT).

God confirmed the preached word “both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will” (Heb 2:4 NKJV). As we shall see, the spiritual gifts’ relation to “perfection” here conforms to their relation to the coming of “that which is perfect” in 1 Cor 13:10.

A new world was “about to come” (Heb 2:5; Gk. mellō). “The author is discussing this new order introduced by Christ which makes obsolete the old dispensation of rites and symbols.”⁸ The messianic age was replacing the Mosaic age.

The church as the Israel of God (Gal 6:16) was in a situation similar to Israel after the flesh (1 Cor 10:18) in the wilderness. God had redeemed them from slavery, but they had not fully entered the land of rest (Heb 3:7–4:2). This conforms to the typology we have seen in previous posts.

Paul wanted the Hebrews to enter the messianic-age rest (Heb 4:11). Christ had “been perfected [and made] the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Heb 5:9). 

These saints should have matured enough to understood this. In the new age, “solid food belongs to those who are of full age (Gk. teleios)” (Heb 5:14). John Brown says,

The phrase translated, “them that are of full age,” is, literally, the perfect. I notice this, because without noticing it the connection with what follows cannot be so distinctly perceived—“let us go on to perfection.” “The perfect” is plainly the mature—the man in age and in strength. “Strong meat” is the appropriate food of men.⁹

Paul encouraged the Hebrews to “go on unto perfection” (Heb. 6:1). He wanted them to enter “the age that [was] about to come” (Heb 6:5 Wuest).

This “perfection” had not come by the Levitical priesthood, but by Christ’s (Heb 7:11). The Mosaic age had made nothing “perfect” (Heb 7:19), but the messianic age had (Heb 8:1–2). Now, the imperfect Mosaic age was “growing old [and] ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13).

Paul pressed the typology. Israel’s Tabernacle (and Temple) had not made its worshipers “perfect” (Heb 9:9). But this situation was changing. “The time of reformation” (Heb 9:10) was underway. Christ had become high priest over a greater and more “perfect” Tabernacle/Temple (Heb 9:11). 

The Hebrews (with the Corinthians) had come to the end of the ages (Heb 9:26; cp. 1 Cor 10:11). Christ would appear the second time (Heb 9:28) in that generation (Matt 24:34). He would bring “the good things about to be” (Heb 10:1, Wuest; Gk. mellō). Those who would come to the messianic-age Temple would be “perfect” (Heb 10:1).

Jesus was taking away the first state (of imperfection) and establishing the new state (of perfection) (Heb 10:9). The day of completion for this transition was approaching (Heb 10:25). It was “about to consume the adversaries” (Heb 10:27 HCSB). In a very little while, Jesus would come so God’s people could receive the promised perfection (Heb 10:36–37).

The Hebrews would “be made perfect” together with Old Testament saints (Heb 11:40). They had “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel” (Heb 12:22–24 NKJV). They were receiving the messianic-age kingdom (Heb 12:28).

In Hebrews, Paul says much about the messianic age being “that which is perfect.” The Mosaic age was the state of “imperfection.” This is the “perfection” he has in mind in 1 Cor 13:10. He uses the developmental metaphor to make his points. 

Conclusion

The Scriptures identify “that which is perfect” (1 Cor 13:10). It is not the eternal state. Rather, it is Israel’s messianic-age state of maturity and completeness to which God has brought her.

During the Mosaic-age-to-messianic-age transition, God gave extraordinary spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:7–10; Heb 2:4). The Temple’s fall in AD 70 ended the Mosaic age (Matt 24:1–3, 34). This removed Israel’s childhood tutor. She became, as the church of God, “perfect” or mature. God then did away with these spiritual gifts as a normal part of church life. The perfect had come, fulfilling Paul’s rich metaphor.

In our next post(s), we plan to deal with other objections and questions from our valued reader on this subject.

1. We discussed Israel as God’s church kingdom in the Old and New Testaments here and here.
2. Joseph Thayer and James Strong, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Coded With Strong’s Concordance Numbers (Milford, MI: Mott Media, 1982), 618.
3. Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians, WBC, eds. David Allen Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word, 1990), 102.
4. Thayer and Strong, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, 244.
5. James Montgomery Boice, “Galatians,” in Romans–Galatians, vol. 10 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 467.
6. Paul’s authorship of Hebrews is uncertain.
7. See our posts on Hebrews here.
8. Archibald Thomas Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, (Nashville: Broadman, 1930–33), 5:344.
9. John Brown, Hebrews (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1961), 271.