Sinless Perfection

Sinless Perfection is a doctrine that holds that it is possible for Christians to completely defeat sin in the present life and to live holy lives like Jesus did. At a glance, this might seem to make some sense. Jesus came to save us from sin. He died for our sins on the cross and He sent His Holy Spirit to empower His people to overcome sin and to live obedient, righteous lives in the present world (Titus 2:11-14). Christians should have the highest aspirations for living holy lives and rejecting all sin.

Sinless perfectionism is unbiblical

However, the Bible also says:

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).

It speaks of the fact that until the resurrection we must be at war with sinful desires (Galatians 5:16-17). Sin is not just an enemy out there in the world. It’s also an enemy within that lives and feeds off our fallen human desires and weaknesses (James 1:13-15). That is why sinless perfection is not only untrue but also dangerous. People don’t tend to win battles that they don’t even realise they are supposed to be fighting.

There is a much-repeated (but possibly apocryphal) story about the 19th century Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon in which he debunked perfectionism in a memorable way.

Spurgeon was at a conference where a preacher taught perfectionism in an outspoken manner and even claimed to have reached a state of sinless perfection himself. Spurgeon didn’t challenge him on the spot. Instead, the next morning he poured a jug of milk over the man’s head, to which the perfectionist responded with the kind of rage and hostility that you’d expect from any sinner. Perfectionism debunked.

Inevitably the error of perfectionism breeds one, or usually two, deadly delusions. To convince ourselves that we have achieved sinlessness, we must either suffer from a radical overestimation of our moral performance or we must seriously underestimate the requirements of God’s law. The irony of perfectionism is this:

Though it seeks to distance itself from antinomianism, it inevitably comes full circle to the same error.

To believe that we are sinless we must lower the standards of God’s law. We must reduce the level of divine righteousness to the level of our own performance. We must lie to ourselves both about the law of God and about our own obedience. To do that requires that we quench the Spirit when He seeks to convict us of sin.

One of the true marks of our ongoing sanctification is the growing awareness of how far short we fall of reaching perfection. Perfectionism is really anti-perfectionism in disguise. If we think we are becoming perfect, then we are far from achieving it.

Spiritual complacency is unbiblical too

If there is an equal and opposite error to sinless perfectionism then it is the sin of spiritual complacency. It’s shrugging your shoulders at sin’s inevitability. It’s acceptance that sin is just part of life, and you’re OK with that. It’s responding to occasions of sin by almost justifying it with glib lines like: We know that we all sin.

That is an appalling attitude for a Christian to have and it needs to be challenged.

It may be easy for us to criticise sinless perfectionism because we don’t come across this error very often. However, I dare say that we all know an entire evangelical culture that is complacent about sin. We’ve forgotten that sin is ugly and grotesque – the complete opposite to righteousness. We’ve forgotten that God’s will for our lives is that we be holy (1 Thessalonians 4:3). We’ve forgotten that what Christians look forward to above all else is the Lord Jesus Christ’s Second Coming, His returning in glory to take away our sin completely. We’ve forgotten that anyone who truly desires that day to come will have a holy preoccupation with living a sanctified life now (1 John 3:2-3).

Jesus taught that Christians would hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:6). Imagine a man who has been deprived of food and water for far too long. Hunger and thirst are not just a thought in his head, but all-encompassing desires that cannot be ignored. His whole body cries out for sustenance! He will never – can never – be satisfied until his desire is satiated. That is a profoundly godly ambition when it comes to the desire to be rid of sin, and one that all Christians should share. We recognise that we will inevitably fall short. But we are not happy about it.

Back to blog